FORT KENT, Maine — Over the years, I’ve looked at life here on Rusty Metal Farm as one long learning curve.
Some days that curve is smooth and direct. Others, it’s bumpy and somewhat circuitous.
Take my latest foray into the wonderful world of tractor-related projects, for example.
Late fall on the farm is field and trail mowing time and given that I have a tractor and deck mower, I figured it only made sense to attend to it myself.
I mean, really, what could go wrong?
Sure, to first mow, the mower needed to be hooked up to the tractor. Something I had seen done a number of times, but in which I had never actually participated beyond running for needed tools.
But I was undaunted.
This year, I thought as I carefully backed the tractor up to the mower, would be different.
This year, I would attempt a solo operation.
The mower, capable of mowing a 4-foot-wide swath, is among the farm implements that attaches to the tractor via a “three-point-hitch.”
Considered the simplest way to connect tractor and equipment — more on that later — the hitch resembles a triangle or letter A and, as implied by the name, has three points that need to line up with corresponding points on whatever it is you need to hook on to.
Simple? In theory, yes. In reality it quickly devolved into a diesel-fume-enveloped, grease-cloaked exercise in futility.
Working alone, I backed the tractor ever so slowly until the first of the three points were perfectly lined up — keeping in mind being off by even a quarter inch means you are unable to lock in the connections.
Every time I stepped off the tractor, it rolled forward at least a half inch or more, taking the points out of alignment.
This went on for awhile as I would back up, line up the points, set the park brake, hop off and watch the red beast roll forward again and again.
Luckily, I have a friend staying with me who — for better or for worse — has found herself on several occasions sucked into the vortex of random chaos that is life here on Rusty Metal Farm.
I’ve known Julie Pelletier for a long time. Originally from St. Francis, she is currently on leave from the University of Winnipeg, where she is, among other things, an associate professor and former head of the department of indigenous studies.
In other words, she brought a ton of brain power to the tractor-mower challenge.
Between the two of us and using a variety of tools, pry bars and some creative cussing in two languages, we managed to get one of the three points hooked up.
Unfortunately, no amount of prying, hammering, cussing or maneuvering the tractor would get the second or third points into place.
That is, not until I noticed the tractor’s “sway arm,” on which that particular point was attached, was set too wide to slide on to the mower.
By this time it was looking like rain and we did not have the tools needed to move the arm, so we abandoned ship for the day.
When I went to try again a few days later, I was armed with a variety of wrenches, one of which I was quite certain was the correct size to loosen the nut holding the sway arm in place.
Multiple trips back and forth from the tractor shed to the shop later, every single wrench I owned — not to mention a can of metal lubricant, a torch to heat the metal, a larger hammer and an impressive array of sockets — was out there and I still did not have the needed size of anything helpful.
It took some time, and don’t ask me how exactly I did it, but eventually I got that nut loosened, the sway arm repositioned and the two remaining points between the tractor and mower connected.
Next came hooking on the power-take-off — the driveshaft that actually turns the mower blades.
It went on with surprisingly little trouble and I feel quite confident that the grease from the shaft will come off my hands after a week or so more of washings.
But the hook-up was done and even now the tractor and mower are sitting out there in the garage, ready and waiting for me to fire them up and commence to mowing.
Of course, if the latest weather reports calling for snow this weekend are to be believed, it will be just in time to put the mower back and hook up the snowblower.
I mean, it’s not like I’ve never seen it done before. What could possibly go wrong?
Julia Bayly of Fort Kent is an award-winning writer and photographer who writes part time for Bangor Daily News. Her column appears here every other Friday. She can be reached by email at jbayly@bangordailynews.com.
