I’m back in the seat after taking a much needed break.
As I make round after round on this tractor, I remember in my younger years doing things that would be considered extreme by today’s standards.
In the winter time we pulled irrigation pumps in the cold of winter when the wind was howling 20-40mph and there were temperatures in the 30’s and 40’s. We had an old 5gal metal gulf oil can we cut the top out of and stuffed it with cotton mixed with motor oil and diesel fuel. We lit it on fire so we could warm our hands occasionally. We wore so many cloths under our coveralls that you didn’t wait until you had to pee to take a leak cause by the time it took you to dig through all those layers you’d wet yourself. We would be black as coal from all the pump muck and soot from that oil can.
Back in my early days I had a heat houser on my old 4020. If you don’t know what a heat houser is it was a canvas tarp that you put behind the radiator screens back the length of the operator station that would blow the warm air from the radiator and engine back to where you sat. (The picture isn’t mine just a representation of a heat houser).
If you went with the wind all the dirt that traveled with you got sucked in and blowed right back in your face. The model of heat houser I had didn’t have the windshield part so your body stayed warm while your hands, face and ears froze. I wore a sock hat, scarf and 2 pairs of cotton gloves to stay warm.
One time the oil tube that runs the oil pressure gauge broke and that heat houser blew all that oil back and covered me. I looked like you had dipped me in oil. Those clothes and coveralls were impossible to keep clean after that as they were thoroughly soaked and attracted dirt for years.
Times sure have changed. If we had to go back to the way things were many of my crew would quit! Technology is a convenient luxury that has made us soft.
