Plow day

[drglinski]

My brother and I have been trying to attend local plow days as often as we can. (Disclaimer- this is posted here because it's in reference to the big tractors and not garden tractors.) As of late, people either have not been hosting them, or something has come up and we can't attend.

About 8-10 years ago, he bought a little genius #8 trip plow out of a fence row that needed work. The PO said that it would no longer stay in the ground hence why it was sitting in the fence row. My brother had to put new wheels on it- the original cut off steel pneumatic wheels were rusted through, and obviously all new rubber. Paint was in order as well. It needed a bunch of small pieces too, but he obtained those and got it back in shape. The clutch mechanism was a bad spring, so that was replaced.

Fast forward to 2010. Dad has an H and a very similar little genius plow (but dad's always worked good and was on rubber from the factory) that we took- Dad, my brother and I, to a plow day. Due to the fact that there were so many people there, we did about 3 passes each and we were out of ground to plow. Ever since then, we've had the itch to get out and do it again. Excuse the blabbering on, I'm getting to my point. During the time between then and now, my brother got HIS plow painted up (as previously stated) and bought an H of his own, and we've been trying to find a place to use it again. Dad's family has land, but it's 40 miles away from where he lives, and since Dad no longer farms, it he leases it and we can't do much with it. Not to mention that we would have to trailer it somehow to the land, etc etc.

My brother found someone local that was willing to let us try out his plow/tractor on his approx. 4 acres that he needed plowed up before next spring. He basically gave us the go ahead to screw around and plow after he mowed down the growth that was there before. This was our best option because it was only a 1/2 mile or so away from my brothers/Dad's house. So, last saturday 4 of us set out to see how well we could play farmer for the day (my brother, Dad, my wife and me.) My brother told me it could be my early birthday present. On to the pics!



Here I'm trying to get him set up on the initial pass.


We had established quickly that my brother had no idea what he was doing and wasn't the best at plowing a straight line. We did have someone telling us the proper way to plow.





Eventually I got into the furrow and straightened it out.



It worked well once the moldboards were shined up, the coulters were adjusted so they were cutting, and the plow was level, even though this pic doesn't show it very well.





Here I am starting another furrow and concentrating on getting it as straight as I can.



----continued-------