In Action

     Today's post is more of a test than anything. Describing what a farmer (or anyone else) does in a tractor is easier if I show you first, so that's what I'm going to do here.

     Warning! Turn your volume down! It was a very windy day.

     This farmer is corrugating a pasture. The bar on the back of the tractor is mounted with three shovel points. (Actually its mounted with others too, but they've been raised up so they don't do anything.) They are whats doing the corrugating. A shovel point scoops the dirt and then lifts and tosses it out to the side.
     As he reaches the end he throttles down and pulls the hydraulic lever to lift the corrugater bar out of the ground. He then turns, counts to make sure he gets the gap* correct, lowers the bar in the same manner and throttles back up. He does it all in seconds.
     He makes it look easy, but it's not. Having driven this tractor for a goodly few years he knows where the levers are without looking. Most of the turns the farmer made weren't so smooth because the pasture is so small, but in an open field every turn costs you time. Time is generally something a farmer doesn't have to waste, because nature waits for no man. So every turn counts. Plus, after a few hours you get tired of being on a tractor and don't want to spend anymore time on it than necessary.
     When a person drives a tractor, they must pay close attention to the tractor itself and whatever implement is attached to it for the sake of the safety of the driver, the machines, and the crops. All kinds of things can go wrong, so a driver must remain vigilant. That's why he sits a bit sideways as he's coming out of the turn. He can watch where he's going and also watch his corrugater bar.



* The correct gap is three rows. He left three rows on his left because he had more room at the other end to turn left than he did to turn right.