Re: Re: M with New Idea mounted picker value?

Posted by john d on October 22, 2000 at 18:54:15 from (205.188.192.21):

In Reply to: Re: M with New Idea mounted picker value? posted by Dick Davis on October 22, 2000 at 05:19:08:

There was NOTHING in my farm experience to compare with it; I don't think the danger ADDED to the thrill for me, but it was always lurking in my mind.... When I left the farm for college, Dad changed lots of parts of the farming operation, and one of them was to start shelling corn with a combine. I was about 11 years old when Dad first let me steer the picker into the corn. I only went about 50 feet or so, but I was hooked from then on.

When I was about 13, we were farming well over 350 acres, and 80 of that total was about 4 miles from home, and across a busy highway. Dad refused to let me pull wagons home and unload into the elevator by myself, feeling that the picker was a safer place for me to be....

Looking back on that now, as a parent and grandparent...I'm not sure I could have put my child on that machine. I asked him a few years ago about that, and he said "Well, I took some criticism from a few folks about it, and I also had some support from a couple of neighbors that knew you well enough to know you WOULDN'T do anything stupid! But I was always uneasy coming back to the field until I saw you still running!"

I knew three neighbors very well who had lost hands or arms in pickers. I was a BELIEVER in the danger of that thing. I was always taught to run equipment in the safest possible manner, or not run it at all. Dad would never operate a machine without all the guards and shields in place, equipment was well-maintained, and he taught the safe way of doing things by EXAMPLE.

I guess the thing that always scared me as much as anything on that M with a picker was fire. When working in very dry conditions, the trash would build up around me waist-deep in the length of a long field. I'd get to the end of the field, shift everyting to neutral, and clean my area off!

I've heard old-time steam locomotive and threshing machine operators talk about the love and attachment they had for those mechanical monsters. For me, that M and picker were the ulitmate! I've still got that M, and the experience is still vivid after more than 40 years!

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