Boys, Rope, Tractors

As an adult who grew up on a farm, it is not difficult to understand why farming has such a high accident rate. The experience I relate here, proves to me, thirty some years later the providence of God.

As boys, my brother and I would build ramps for our bikes and ramp them. It usually started out relatively tame, with only a block under one end of the board, then gradually it got higher as we got braver. Add a few of the neighbors boys and competition tends to push bravery a notch higher. Soon however, either our shaky blocks would collapse or the front of the bike became subject to the force of gravity before the back, and we ended up with bruised and bloodied hands from plowing gravel. We soon learned that this was a painful and not so safe recreation. This is a pretty good example how things go from precarious to dangerous before the inevitable happens.

Some accidents are unavoidable while others could be prevented with a little forethought. However, a thirteen-year-old who has grown up on a farm around tractors and machinery, has an underdeveloped sense of caution. He is not apt to think of all the possibilities of what could happen. If there is something that does not move and should, a little persuasion may seem the best solution! Safety is abandoned and a little harder, or a little faster may just get the job done. Later in life, I am a little wiser, and a little more careful. Some of those lessons we learned in childhood are firmly etched in the memory, never to be forgotten.

This story is no reflection on any negligence of my parents. My brother and I spent hours riding on the fender of the John Deere, watching, learning, and falling asleep. Like many farmers at that time, my dad had me driving a tractor about as soon as I was able to push in the clutch peddle and get on and off. I often wonder now how mom coped with the knowledge that my brother and I were running farm equipment with little to no adult supervision at such a young age. Yet, in spite of it all, we lived to tell the story.

In the winter of 1988, my parents decided it was time to sell the farm and equipment and relocate from northwestern Wisconsin to a warmer climate. Wisconsin is known for its long cold winters, with plenty of snow and ice and that year was no exception. A farm auction was planned for the spring and preparations for it began. As soon as we thought we could, my brother and I began the process of extracting our farm implements from the frozen landscape and moving them to the field where the auction was to occur. Dad had taken to working for my uncle finishing sheetrock, a trade he had done before, so that may account for the reason he was not around the day we decided to start moving equipment.

One particular piece of equipment we were attempting to extract, was a spring tooth field cultivator. It was about 18-20 feet wide, with several rows of curved teeth, which we found to be firmly anchored into the frozen ground. We hooked our big John Deere on to it and attempted to raise it out of the frozen earth by hooking up the hydraulics and putting the wheels down, but that proved impossible. The second option was to rock the tractor back and forth to break it loose, which also proved unsuccessful. The tractor was parked slightly up hill, and there remained some ice and snow, so traction was not forthcoming. This is when the bright idea came to use the other tractor and the large nylon rope, we had for such extractions. Under normal circumstances that was a reasonable proposition, but this was not normal.

By using a rope, you were able to combine the pulling power together of the lead tractor, with the brute force of speed and weight. A rope would stretch similar to elastic, and then would retract in a similar fashion. This was very handy when you would get stuck in the mud. You simply had to back up, get a run, and you would jerk it free when you came to the end of the rope. We often used it and it worked very well. However, anyone who uses one will tell you that they are extremely dangerous and should be used with caution, do not let anyone try to convince you otherwise.

This particular rope had been fashioned with metal spreaders in the end loops to protect it from abrasions. In one way that was good, but it also made for a metal missile should it turn loose in the middle of a pull. We had a heavy piece of log chain we used at the end, to fasten around a piece of equipment, which in this case happened to be the front axel of our 4630 John Deere.

With my brother in the tractor hooked to the piece of equipment, and I in our 4320 John Deere we began our second attempt at extraction. Looking back later I wonder what I ever thought trying to do that, but then I was only thirteen. The same scenario experienced with our bicycle ramp was playing out again, only not with boys and bikes. The slope was icy under the second tractor which had some to do with the speeds and pulling power when I came to the end of the rope. After getting a run of ten to fifteen feet, I would find myself spinning backwards on the ice as the rope retracted itself at the end of each pull. I then chose a much higher gear, tires scrabbling to gain traction on the slippery ice until that two-inch nylon rope was stretched to about half its original diameter and half again its slackened length. It was 6 tons of rapidly moving metal hooked on to 9 tons of stationary metal and a frozen to the earth piece of equipment. I could just as well have been hooked on to solid rock.

Then it happened, what all rope users are warned about. The old adage that says that a chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link became a literal reality. The old log chain had a crack in one of the links, and it decided it was time to separate for good. The heavy chain struck the tractor just below the seat in the back of me, caving in the cab sheet metal, as the metal end of the rope struck the roll bar a foot beside my head, making an indention in the heavy metal. The explosion of the rope through the back window, sprayed the back of my head and shirt with small fragments of sharp glass, some of which pierced my back, neck, and scalp.

I stopped the tractor stunned at what had happened. I have little recollection as to what happened after that other than being in the house and feeling the prickles from the shards of glass. That old blue work shirt I was wearing, had the sparkle and sheen of a freshly sprayed Christmas ornament. I recall little more about the incident, except that it was sometime later and warmer weather before we moved that piece of equipment.

It was close, too close. Had the rope been a foot or so to the left, or the two-foot length of chain been a foot or two higher, I would not be writing out this story. There must have been an angel there protecting me, allowing the angle of the pull to be just enough to miss me. It’s amazing how God looks after us even in ignorant, foolish mistakes. We are reminded that life is a gift. Thanks be to Him for saving me that day!