We often say that what we like best about farming is that almost every day there is a puzzle to solve.
This week the transmission on our farm truck broke, and we stopped being able to drive in reverse in our truck. We try really, really hard not to put ourselves in debt. Since winter is usually our slowest time of the year financially, Colby has decided that his new challenge is to do all of his farm work without ever having to back-up...which makes tasks like hooking up a trailer pretty tricky, but he's got a plan! He will always park the trailer at the bottom of a hill and roll into place. What seemed like a huge bummer, and an expense we didn't budget for, has now become a fun new game!
Here's an example of another recent "truck puzzle:"
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| Oops. |
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| Winching the stuck truck out of the mud. |
You will not believe this but the same thing happened to us with one of our old cars, some time ago. My two children were still living at home at the time. But they were old enough to jump out of the car and push it back out of an intersection in Pittsfield the time I had ooched in a bit too far. And my mom was visiting the day I drove down to the Kinderhook Creek on a woodland path that opened into an overgrown field near our favorite swimming hole. I yelled “hold on” as I swung around in a wide circle that would enable us to leave the area when we were done swimming. She gasped of course, but we made it! To top that off, we lost use of all the forward gears on Route 43 heading to Hancock (in another old car) and Bill decided to drive in reverse the short distance back Madden’s garage. But when he got through the light, he simply continued on and drove the whole way home backward. I was scared to death! - Jane
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