Awkward Moments In End-Rows & Elsewhere

Humor me, please, and tolerate one more post about spring fieldwork.........it really is fun driving the tractor!!

Yesterday morning, Husband asked if I would finish chisel-plowing a field that our son had worked on the evening before. No problem, so off in the tractor I went.

Here we are in the first round.......the photo below shows where field rocks usually end up.........in a pile along the fenceline. This pile is on the neighbor's side of the fence; I'll have to walk out here sometime and see if there's any pretty ones to put by our house. Also, there was a red-headed woodpecker on a fencepost by this rock pile, but I was too slow on the draw to get a shot of him with the camera.

The photo below was as the tractor headed down the hill during the first round. Our field ends where the plowing ends.......I kind of wish we owned that little stand of timber across the way........it would be fun to watch birds and other critters in there.
Before I headed to the field, Husband had asked me, "Do you think you can do the end-rows?" In years past, most of the plowing was done by Husband or his dad, and even if they allowed me to do some of it, they always wanted to finish the end-rows themselves. But, my father-in-law passed away late last fall, meaning I now step into his role as adjunct tractor driver.......poor Husband is scraping the bottom of the barrel to find help.....poor guy! Anyway, I replied "Yes" to Husband's question about the end-rows, figuring I could accomplish the task adequately, especially since I'd be way out there in the back of the farm where no one could see me make stupid moves and mistakes.

One thing Husband advised me to do was raise the loader bucket when turning around near the fence........so that's what I did, shown in photo below (the brownish areas are where cow manure has been spread for fertilizer):

When it came time to work the end-rows, wouldn't you know it, all of a sudden along came a tractor and planter in the neighboring field! Great......he would get to watch my awkward turnings and manueverings as I plowed the end-rows. The other tractor and my tractor drove along the fence together for a few minutes.......it isn't like meeting a car on the road, where you wave and then they're gone right away. No, this is kind of weird, to be driving a tractor in a field next to a someone else doing the same.......usually, a guy, of course, who's an expert tractor driver.......of course.

Actually, I wished I'd had a sign to hold up which said "WANNA RACE?"!!

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I tried to ignore him as I went through my awkward turns and starts and back-ups in the end-row plowing process. At least I didn't gouge out a fence. Finally, the neighboring tractor turned tail and fled the other way, leaving 12 rows of corn planted in its wake.......the tractor and planter are shown in the above photo.

The guy in that other tractor recently bought the farm adjacent to ours. He is several years older than me and has always lived in the neighborhood I grew up in. In case he thought I looked inept plowing end-rows, I remember him looking quite goofy back in the early 1970's when he would drive by our place with his big head of hair sticking out from under a farm cap.

He might not be aware of it, but one of my life's most embarrassing moments occurred when I happened to be talking to his mother on the phone years ago. That was in the days of party lines........if any of you are familiar with that. It was during my early high school years; my best friend lived up the road from me, directly across from where this guy lived, and their two farms were on the same phone line.

One day, I tried to phone my friend, and somehow got this guy's mother on the line instead. Just a couple days before, my best friend's sister, who was older and "in the know" concerning the latest neighborhood gossip, had told me that this guy and his girlfriend were soon going to get married (they "had to"). So, there I was on the phone, unexpectedly finding myself in a conversation with his mother, and I blurted out, "Congratulations; I hear your son is getting married." She replied, "Oh, really......I didn't know that."

Oops. There was an awkward silence, during which I wished to sink into the floor; I'm sure I quickly extricated myself from the conversation. This woman was not born yesterday......not only had I informed her of the wedding, but also that she herself would soon become a grandmother! Well, no matter......despite my untimely bout of Foot-In-Mouth Disease, this man and his wife have had a long marriage, with many children, and now many grandchildren. Having him watching my awkward and probably stupid-looking efforts in the tractor certainly brought back that memory of idiocy from my distant past, however.

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At one time, awhile back, I had stated the intention to try and use the "Dr. Dictionary Word of the Day" in my posts...........I've failed to keep up with that, but will try again: I hope my blog posts are not considered "fustian".