Square Dancing Tractors at the Pennsylvania Farm Show
January 16, 2010
The guy at U.S. Customs burst into laughter when I told him we were on our way to see the square dancing tractors at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, but he promised to look them up on You-Tube and see for himself.
The morning’s drive south on Route 81 took us from sleet to radiant sunshine and temperatures in the low 50’s. The first thing Tom did when we arrived in Reading was get out a hose and wash the grit off our car.
Next morning, dressed in light jackets and no long underwear, off we went for the drive to Harrisburg to share the air with over 6000 animals on display in a million square feet of indoor agricultural exhibit.
Groups being what they are, our first stop was the lineups of the food court, but then we toured some equipment displays. Lots of people crowded the huge halls, ordinary folks with young kids in strollers, enjoying the day.
We made our way to the main hall well in advance of the noon show. I spent the next twenty minutes trying to figure out how to operate the latest credit card-sized Canon my son had left with me. Turns out the thing’s smarter than I am, and every adjustment I made to its programming made the pictures worse. In desperation I switched to movie mode, and tried to hold it steady as the show began and the battery gradually grew hotter and hotter in my hand. Charlie had warned me that if I wanted to avoid making my viewers sick I would have to avoid sudden movements with the camera, so I sat rigidly and framed the activity while to my left Bet and Kate dissolved into gales of laughter at the antics of the players in the drama below. They certainly seemed to be amused. I vowed to check the film later and see why.
The caller sang his instructions and the drivers did their moves in the large sand-covered arena. Tractor square dancing pivots on the ability of a row crop tractor to turn in its own length with the help of one-wheel braking. Someone undoubtedly discovered that a pair of these machines could do a fair approximation of many square dancing moves if the drivers knew their machines and had a fair bit of skill.
Leave it to an American to organize this into a sport. This was the fourth annual tractor square dancing competition at the Farm Show, with three teams competing.
First up were the Middlecreek Swingers from Pleasant Creek PA. They ran Farmall Bs for the girl’s parts and a John Deere M, an Oliver 70, two Farmalls, a C and an H, for the boy parts. The Bs mostly had two seats, which proved handy when they started to stall at various points during the show. The mechanic would walk out, switch seats with the driver, and have at it while the caller and the other tractors waited. Nobody seemed in much of a hurry. If this didn’t work, a couple of crew-members would come out and push the tractor off and another from the bull pen would take its place.
I should mention that the “girls” in the first group did consist of two women, one teenaged boy in work boots, skirt, and pink rollers over a wig, and one bald headed guy in a t-shirt driving a pink B who didn’t put much effort into his costume. The guys wore overalls, straw hats, and often sported large white beards.
The announcer segwayed into the next act by bringing another eight tractors, the Middle Creek Tractor Dancers, on to join the first group in a 16-tractor pinwheel. He admitted that there had been no time to practice this complex step, but started four machines off in a tight circle, then had the others come on by twos to balance the wheel as it grew. The outside tractors were moving quite quickly as the fourth ring took its place, and one John Deere needed to get to the other side of the circle to complete the dance. This required a burst of speed around the perimeter, wowing the audience.
This bootleg turn set the tone for the rest of the show, which became progressively less dance and more stunt driving competition. The Roof Garden Tractor Buddies didn’t bother with a caller singing instructions. Their announcer called the moves and these eight tractors executed them with military skill.
The prettiest tractor of the show was a 1944 Massey Harris Orchard Model whose driver obviously enjoyed the fresh engine’s throttle response. He did do-nuts when the announcer called for pirouettes, and while his turns left me gasping, they weren’t very dance-like. His fellow drivers seemed to enjoy seeing how close they could come to each other without sharing paint in head-on collisions. These guys drove very well, and the tractors were exquisite restorations which ran without a hitch, but they couldn’t capture the goofy charm of the first group.
So now I have to locate a row crop tractor light enough to tow behind my truck.
New Tractor Gloat
January 11, 2010
The constitutional crisis in Ottawa will just have to wait because I want to tell you about my new tractor. It’s not as though prorogation will go away in a week, right? And I have the snow in our driveway just about worn out now, so I think it’s time for a report.
The new addition to the family is a TAFE 35DI. I went to look at a backhoe but the huge thing intimidated me with its advanced age and complexity. This little Indian Massey Ferguson seemed the same size as my beloved MF 35, only with power steering, a modern loader, and “part of a cab” as my neighbour Lloyd charitably described it. Somehow over the past fifteen years it had accumulated only 345 hours on the meter.
A slightly smaller 4X4 Kubota just hadn’t felt right. I hated the weathered plastic dash and it was very cold in the field where it sat. For all its homeliness, the TAFE seemed solidly built, in excellent condition, and it offered a bit of shelter from the biting wind. Besides, it looked lonely and it was Christmas. Hey, people bring puppies home at Christmas. How dumb is that?
On the BBC car show Top Gear, host Jeremy Clarkson filmed a test in which an Audi A8 completely outclassed a Corvette – yet he picked the Corvette as his favourite. He rationalized that the Audi was just “too good a car” for him. I could understand that. Driving around a muddy field in my Toyota 4Runner just made ruts. The same drive in a golf cart was an absolute gas. A vehicle can be too competent to be fun.
O.K. the tractor’s basically a toy. Walnut trees are not a dairy herd, and it’s not as though they will die if it doesn’t work. That said, the TAFE can run my snow blower, the bucket does a great job scraping the driveway, and the lights enable me to play outside after dark. Snow removal in the very early morning may prove essential with a commuter in the house, and I think a good set of lights on the tractor at the end of the driveway should prove reassuring to drivers passing over Young’s Hill.
My friends Tony and Anne hadn’t been to The Lodge for three weeks, I’d run out of snow around the house in Forfar, so I decided to nip up to Newboro to tackle their large, pristine driveway. “I have a cab on my tractor now,” I thought smugly, so off I went with a light hat, rather than my trusty helmet and face shield.
The TAFE ran strongly on the road and steered with reasonable precision. I soon discovered, however, what Lloyd Stone had meant when he said I had part of a cab. There sure is a lot of wind on that stretch from Forfar to Crosby, and most of it came in under my right-hand window. From the screws embedded in the metal frame, it’s clear the previous owner had installed a piece of carpet to take up the space not filled with hydraulic hoses and controls below the window. I would have given a lot to get it back from him right then.
Debating whether to continue in the cold or not, I stopped at the highway building to turn away from the wind and warm up a bit. Out of the wind, though, things were fine. The reforestation north of Crosby dramatically cuts down on the sweep of a north wind, so the rest of the drive was much easier, even pleasant.
The traffic was another matter. All of those Saturday drivers politely insisted on sharing the road with me. The band of ice along the edge of the pavement and the glare, steep shoulders looked like suicide from my perch, and I resolved to keep at least two tires on pavement, regardless of the traffic behind. A misadventure in the ditch at fifteen miles per hour would have gruesome consequences inside this box of steel and glass.
Now I understand why those guys in backhoes and tractors won’t get over to let traffic pass, even when there seems to be an ample shoulder on the highway. Look down into a frozen ditch from a sloping, ice-covered shoulder, and suddenly holding onto that dry asphalt for dear life becomes a real priority.
Soon it became pointless to look back, so I just soldiered on down my portion of the lane and let the cars find their own way. Drivers seemed quite good-natured about it, but the guilt I felt couldn’t match the fear of sudden death if I ventured too far over out of politeness.
In any case, the driveway-cleanout went well, and on the return trip the wind was on the left side of the tractor with its full door, and thus the cabin was much warmer. Tony contributed a piece of carpet, so the next project is to close in the rest of the cabin. Unless it snows.
Last one out, turn off the light.
January 8, 2010
Tim Powers, Conservative gadfly and Harper apologist, today challenged the Opposition to contribute t0 a set of rules for prorogation. Here’s one which I posted as a comment on the Globe and Mail blog:
Earlier prorogations were often for as little as one day at the end of a legislative session. How about not leaving Canada without a government for over two months at a critical time? That would be one rule.
Let’s say Canadians would like some say in the imposition of the security measures in airports?
What if there is a major disaster between now and March? Parliament can’t come back in a flash. There is no speaker, even. The whole structure came apart with the act of prorogation.
One man rule, then? Are Canadians prepared to face a crisis with PMO press secretary Dimitri Soudas in charge?
“Last one out, turn off the light!” is not a valid governing principle for my country.
——–
January 8, 2010
The war of words heats up. This morning John Ivison in an article in the National Post (http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2414457)
coined the term herbivores for those individuals expressing dismay on the Internet over the latest prorogation escapade. Call us herbivores if you wish (meaning “cattle”), but our numbers are growing.
John Ivison’s comment may be a story in itself. His fawning profile of Stephen Harper in the National Post was not unexpected. When he called me and others like me “herbivores” because we express our objections online to prorogation, that’s when he crossed the line. No doubt the Harper camp and its adherents view those who oppose their plans as subhuman, but I object to the reference. When those who have seized power view others as objects, can the cattle cars be far behind?
Prorogation: the view from Leeds-Grenville
January 4, 2010
For a column in the Review Mirror Rod Croskery asked candidates in the forthcoming federal election for their views on the recent prorogation of Parliament. At press time responses had arrived from MP Gord Brown and Liberal candidate Marjory Loveys.
MP Gord Brown’s office responded:
Thank you for your email.
On December 30, the Prime Minister announced that the next phase of our Economic Action Plan will be launched, following the Olympic Games, with a Throne Speech on March 3 and a Budget on March 4.
The call for a new Throne Speech to launch the 3rd Session of the current Parliament is routine. The average Parliament comprises three or four sessions (and three or four Throne Speeches) and some Parliaments have had as many as six or seven Throne Speeches.
This is the 105th time in Canada’s history that a new Throne Speech will launch a new session of an existing Parliament.
The economy remains Canadians’ top priority and our top priority and a new Throne Speech allows the government to respond to the country’s economic priorities.
The three economic themes of the new session will be: (1) completing implementation of the Economic Action Plan introduced in the last Session, (2) returning the federal budget to balance once the economy has recovered – which is a priority for Canadians – and (3) building the economy of the future.
As well, the new Parliament allows us to re-introduce important legislation. Since a Bill can not be introduced twice in any Session, a new Session is required to further a government’s mandate.
I trust this answers your questions.
And I hope you and yours had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Mark King
Legislative Assistant
Gord Brown
Member of Parliament
—
Liberal Candidate Majory Loveys:
Rod:
Thanks for the opportunity to comment on the issue of Mr. Harper’s premature prorogation of Parliament.
There are several aspects of Mr. Harper’s decision to prorogue Parliament and close it for over two months that have been much discussed already.
First, it will enable the Conservatives to use their new-found majority in the Senate to gain more control of the Senate, including the Senate Committees. However, if this were the only objective there would be no need for a two-month Parliamentary shut-down.
Second, prorogation will delay many bills forcefully promoted by Mr. Harper as urgent and crucial, for example bills to reduce crime. His past bluster can now be seen as just that.
Third, Parliamentary scrutiny of the Afghanistan Detainee issue will cease. There has been much speculation that this was the real motive behind Mr. Harper’s decision, and I agree with this assessment.
However, in my view the impact of the duration of the closure of Parliament deserves more attention.
This two-months-plus closure will render Parliament mute until March. During this time Parliament will be unable to quickly respond to any emergency that arises, and the budget will be written with no input from the general public or our Members of Parliament.
If events create the need for Parliamentary action – for example to deal with a work stoppage that is causing hardship for Canadians – the process of recalling Parliament, electing a Speaker, etc. will slow any response. For this reason past governments have learned to prorogue Parliament just a few days before it is scheduled to be recalled. Mr. Harper did not take this precaution. He clearly does not care if Parliament is Missing In Action for months on end.
More importantly, before each budget Parliamentary Committees normally hear from a broad cross-section of Canadians and debate the ideas they hear. Their advice is given to the Minister of Finance well before the budget is written.
Mr. Harper’s stated intent is to recall Parliament on March 3 and have a budget the very next day.
Given this timetable, our elected MPs will have no opportunity to advise the Minister of Finance on actions to help us deal with the effects of the recession, deal with the deficit or improve our pensions. And the Canadian public will have no opportunity for their voices to be heard and participate in an open and transparent discussion on their proposals.
This means that Mr. Flaherty will hear the opinions of big companies who can hire lobbyists and the select few he invites to his meetings; those without an “in” with the government or big bucks to hire well-connected lobbyists will be shut out.
It is the unnecessary length of time that Parliament will be closed that will impact Canadians the most. It suggests that Mr. Harper is placing his partisan interests in shutting down uncomfortable questions about his decisions on our Afghan mission ahead of the interests of Canadians. Perhaps he even sees not having to listen to the likes of us about budget proposals as an added bonus.
In leaving Parliament unable to quickly respond to emergencies or to listen to the public and debate their concerns about the recession, the deficit and pensions, he is preventing our elected Members of Parliament from doing their work.
I can only conclude that Mr. Harper sees Parliament as an inconvenience rather than an essential voice of the Canadian people.
Note: These articles made their way to the Brockville Recorder and Times in its Friday, Janary 8, 2010 edition.
TAFE 35DI
December 27, 2009
Update: December 30, 2014
How to un-stick a tractor transmission
I notice someone is Googling “how to un-stick a TAFE transmission stuck in 4th gear.”
My TAFE has never done this, but I have had ample experience freeing my Massey Ferguson 35, and the transmissions are similar. After they get a lot of hours on them, they occasionally stick between gears when shifting on uneven ground, especially during loader work.
Remove the oil filler plug. It takes a 1″ or adjustable wrench. Inside you’ll see a combination of bars and gears and such. If you have switched into the neutral between high and low ranges, you can run the tractor with the clutch out and observe the oil cycling down there. Now that things are warm and nicely lubed, make sure nothing is turning down there. I would shut the engine off. Reach in with a large screwdriver (or pry bar) and gently wiggle things back and forth on the horizontal bars you see down there. Remove screw driver. Start up and circulate the oil again. Continue until the gearshift is unexpectedly out of gear. Then put it back into gear and discover nothing is damaged. Put the plug back on and go back to work.
This seems like a terrifying task the first time, but it becomes much easier with practice. My neighbour speaks of “rocking it out of gear when it’s jammed.” He doesn’t even bother with the pry bar. The key thing to remember is that no real force is needed to unjam the gears, so be gentle with the old girl.
Update: 18 January, 2014
IMPORTANT note about engine oil changes
The owner’s manual warns about adding oil to the fuel pump when changing the crankcase oil. Because there was no useful diagram and the wording confused me, the instruction went in one ear and out the other.
I finally asked my neighbour about it, and Peter directed me to a fill plug to the right of where the injector lines leave the pump. After 790 engine hours it was dry, though when I poured engine oil in, a thin mystery fluid ran out a small overflow on the side of the engine. I think a combination of water from condensation and leaked diesel has been lubricating the pump for the last while.
Update, 29 January, 2014:
Duck Dynasty t-shirts are turning up all over the place as the popular reality show gradually colonizes the culture. But I’m just sitting back counting my money as I wait for the collectors to come calling, for I own the exact model of TAFE Tractor that Phil Robertson uses on his property. His machine is missing its battery cover, but apart from that it’s a 1995 35DI, same as mine. Redneck status! I plow my snow with a Phil Robertson Special!
New update:
Today I noticed a Google question about the operation of a TAFE lift which was directed to this article, which would have been of no help. If you have a specific question about the TAFE 351’s operation, contact me at rodcros at gmail.com.
The lift’s learning curve is quite steep, but it works well, once mastered. Contrary to the manual’s instructions, for example, the forward setting for the diverter is OFF, not remote auxiliary (tipping lever). The remote operates with the loader. Both control levers must be at the top of their travel for good flow to the loader.
A switch to the 3 point hitch setting on the diverter will cause an instant lift to maximum height unless the operator adjusts the levers down to the middle before the change. This took me a while to figure out.
If there’s too much weight on the hitch, a 750 pound bush hog, for example, the loader will only operate if the hitch is set fairly low to the ground. If the implement is at full height, you can spend all day trying to get the loader to work.
The lift operation is one area where the TAFE behaves differently than my Massey Ferguson 35. It’s much more powerful, though.
Rod
Day 1:
At the local Massey Ferguson dealer I have just committed to buy a 1995 Tafe 35DI tractor with 340 hours on it, a very good loader and jury-rigged cab.
I looked at an ’87 Kubota 4X4, but after an hour of playing with this one I decided I like it and that was that. Never went back to the high-hours Kubota.
The dealer has a couple of little things to fix, but I expect to have it in the driveway, all cab lights aglow, by the middle of next week.
Two previous owners have traded up to new 4X4 Massey-Fergusons from this tractor. Neither, apparently, had any trouble with parts or durability. Mechanically it’s a clone of my 1960 Massey-Ferguson 35, only with marginally better hydraulics, power steering, Roll Over Protection System, lights and safety interlocks. The unblemished Allied loader is likely worth several thousand in its own right.
I really needed a set of working lights for snow removal in early morning at the end of the driveway on the Hill. If the commuter needs to get onto the road before daylight, some snow removal must be done in the dark. It’s too risky without lights.
The downside is that I have bought an orphan, and have very little prospect of ever selling it, so I’d better like it. Mind you, a significant part of the Canadian 2010 Massey Ferguson line is made up of repainted TAFEs.
Day 2:
It went up against a high-hours, Kubota 4WD L2580 for 150% of the price. What sold me? I hated the Kubota’s weathered plastic dash. The Tafe seemed very solidly and simply built. The cab helped as well, as the day was cold. Everything was right where I expected it, as the tractor is a homage to the Massey Ferguson 35. What’s more, it started cold the way I expected and ran like an engine which would use very little fuel to do its job. The 340 hours accumulated so far did not hurt. The modern loader is just as slow as the one on the 35, but it’s a lot more symetrical, i.e: not skewed to the left.
The layout of the back window may prove impractical. It doesn’t open, and I’m not sure I can reach out through it to turn the handle to rotate the snow blower flume, nor can I be certain that raising the implement won’t put said handle through the rear panel.
It was Christmas and people do stupid things like taking in stray animals while imbued with the Christmas spirit. I think I did something similar with a homeless tractor.
After some thought I am less inclined to rue my impulse. When it comes right down to it, what I want from a tractor isn’t necessarily practicality. I want something that is a challenge: what fun was it driving a 4Runner around a muddy field? Just made ruts. A Yamaha G1 golf cart in the same environment, on the other hand, was an absolute gas.
Like the way BBC Top Gear personality Jeremy Clarkson recommended a Corvette over an Audi R8 after a day of testing in which the Audi completely outclassed the Vette, I wanted a tractor “less good” than the Kubota.
Day 3:
I have a wicked case of tennis elbow this morning from a day on the couch with the laptop. Holding the thing perched on my chest while performing the series of movements that works the mouse pad on the thing turns out to be surprisingly hard on the body.
I had to do my research on the TAFE in a manner a Phd. student would approve: exhaust the material. When taken in bulk, online comments from tractor owners seem to be a reliable source of information. I’ve found over the last year that similar data about politics is garbage, but tractors don’t lie and cheat, so they engender greater objectivity and respect from their observers.
TAFEs have been built from Massey Ferguson plans and castings in India since 1961. The MF 35 was the basis of the original tractor. Simpson is the brand on the licensed Perkins 3 cylinder diesels. The product is painted red and labelled Massey Ferguson in India, but for export they get orange and gray and the moniker TAFE, which is an acronym for something or other. Compact TAFEs are now built by LS with Mitsibishi engines. The current North American Massey Ferguson 2WD midsized line, i.e.: 2600, are TAFEs. The 4WDs are built by LS, formerly a subsidiary of LG, the Korean home appliance giant, which AGCO, Massey Ferguson/TAFE’s parent company, bought outright. I’m pretty sure similar tractors are painted green and sold as Montanas, as well.
Massey Ferguson handles parts for TAFEs, but some dealers don’t even know what the name means. Market penetration of the brand in North America is almost non-existent, but apparently the MF 231 is a handy parts donor.
The only complaint I read online about a TAFE 35DI was from one guy whose high-hours transmission locked between gears. I could have told him what to do about that: old Masseys do it all the time once they get some wear on them. You take off the transmission oil filler cap and reach in with a large screwdriver to wiggle the fork loose. A tranny rebuild is not needed, just ten minutes of routine maintenance for the owner of an old Massey.
Built with replaceable sleeves like their Perkins antecedents, Simpson diesel engines are reputed to be among the cleanest in the world, meeting modern emissions standards, and they are even more efficient than the Perkins diesels from which they were patterned.
Youtube has a good supply of TAFE-porn, short videos of TAFE tractors working on some British island. They seem very much like Massey Fergusons, solid traditional tractors, but a little newer.
There was actually a line of clones of the MF 35 before the TAFE company was formed. They were built in either Turkey or Yugoslavia, and reportedly weren’t very good. The Indian workmanship and attention to detail are much better.
Currently the classic rounded body which looks like a British 1960 MF 35 is used on the TAFE 25DI, a two-cylinder, 25 hp beauty made in Korea. Online advice is overwhelmingly to sacrifice the rounded styling in favour of ten more horsepower with the 35DI, the object of my current obsession.
Day 5: THE TEST DRIVE
This morning dawned clear and cold, with a wicked north wind. I dropped by the dealership on my way to Ottawa to ask him to plug the tractor in so that I could play with it upon my return two hours later. When I next approached the lot, a pickup was idling with battery cables attached, and a small generator was pumping 110 into the recirculating heater. Battery dead?
The mechanic assured me that he just wanted to give the battery a good boost because “They really should be plugged in overnight when it’s this cold, but this one has a good pre-heater.” He preheated the engine for what seemed a very long time to me, but then it lit up on the first touch of the starter and ran smoothly. When I asked he said he had heated it for about a minute. I’d never run my old Massey’s heater for more than fifteen seconds, but this obviously worked.
When I moved the tractor I was greeted by a ghastly squeal from the left rear wheel, most likely a brake drum dragging a bit. It was very noisy but went away after I drove it for a few minutes. I had started the tractor cold just to see if it had glitches like this. The seat kept bottoming out with my weight. Adjustments helped a bit, but were difficult in the extreme cold.
The tractor ran well. The cab kept me warm while going east, but froze me a bit on the westward leg of my road test, as more of the north wind could get under the right hand side of the cab.
Things didn’t go so well when I parked the TAFE out of the wind behind the garage and checked for leaks. Coolant was bubbling out of the cracked top rad hose. A simple fix. The power steering cylinder has a wet end, and there’s moisure around the rubber hose which leads from the pump to the cylinder. But that’s not too bad. More troubling was the shape of the link arm, the long, heavy metal triangle which connects the axle to the frame near the steering box. It seems twisted about twenty degrees, yet the power steering cylinder fits it and operates in that position. At the other end of that cylinder is a tie rod which has been welded and had a reinforcing piece added. This doesn’t look good. The manual specifically cautions about the temptation to weld steering gear parts.
Of course I haven’t tried the three point hitch yet because the diverter valve, a 3-way model to provide rear hydraulics, still doesn’t have a handle.
To keep the tractor from rolling down a slight slope while I poked and prodded, I lowered the bucket and lifted the front wheels slightly off the ground. When I tried to close the cab door, it wouldn’t, by about 1/8″. I let the pressure off the loader, and then it could squeeze closed. I wonder if there is always this much flex in the body/cab of a loader tractor?
I left my “wish list” with the salesman and came home. They are to have it ready in a week or so.
Day 6:
Just in from a night-time session of snow blowing, my clothes smell faintly of diesel exhaust, but this is a far cry from my earlier routine of shedding the full snowmobile suit and helmet, then changing all my sodden clothes underneath it. The cab works surprisingly well to shut out blowing snow. I had a giddy pass behind the garage where the snow blew right over the tractor, completely covering it. No misery. That’s strange. I’ve never blown snow over my tractor before without becoming soaking wet! This is good, I think.
The transfer of the snowblower from the Massey Ferguson 35 to the TAFE 35 went seamlessly. Every meaningful dimension was the same. Away I went, only with one more gear per range and quite a bit more horsepower. The power steering, of course, wasn’t hard to take at all.
So now I’ve gone from agoraphobia to claustrophobia: what if I were to tip the tractor over on its door and get trapped in there? Eeep. I think I’ll strap a hammer to the inside of the cab for emergency exits.
The lights are great. I’ve never had lights on a tractor before. The two additional pairs on the top of the cab illuminate the work fore and aft very well.
Now my winter nights hold more than T.V., novels, and the Internet. I can blow snow!
Day 7, January 8, 2010:
This is one cool toy! I have discovered that clearing snow with the bucket is way more fun than using the blower. Things happen in high range, and thus at a much higher speed than with the blower. Skill is required. Less snow blows the wrong direction. I’m less inhibited about blocking traffic when pushing a ditch-load of snow in front of me. Backing up with the blower is painfully slow or dangerously fast, and after a while it wears on one’s spine, I am told.
The hours are running up and the fuel bill is rising because I keep moving more snow than necessary so that I can explore the limits of the machine and my growing skill. Hey, I have to have the loader figured out before I end up stalled, blocking traffic on the hill because of a mistake.
I popped a shear pin on the blower this morning when I raised the lift too high. The PTO shaft is a little long for the application, I think. The Massey Ferguson’s lift would rise up and stall when it ran out of play. This one is much more powerful, so when it rises up, away goes the shear pin. A bit of thought should solve this one.
The parking brake groans fiercely after I release it. Something must be sticking down there. I had mentioned it to the dealer, but it’s an intermittent problem, and I guess it wouldn’t happen for them so they ignored it.
A disadvantage of a powerful loader is that one is inclined to misuse it a bit. A corner of the old concrete step at the front of our house bit the dust this morning when I tried to use the 5′ snow bucket as a shovel. Gotta learn where the corners are on this thing. Oh, well. A new step was in the budget for spring, anyway.
Day 8: January 9 2010
Now I understand why those guys in backhoes and farm tractors won’t get over to let traffic pass, even when there seems to be ample shoulder on the highway. When you look down into a frozen ditch from a sloping, ice-covered shoulder, holding onto that dry asphalt becomes a matter of life and death.
Tony and Anne hadn’t been at The Lodge for three weeks, so in a fit of friendliness I decided to walk the tractor up to Newboro to clean out their driveway. I have a cab on my tractor now, I thought smugly, so off I went with a light hat, rather than my trusty helmet and face mask.
The TAFE runs strongly on the road and steers with reasonable precision. I soon discovered what Lloyd Stone had meant when he first looked at the TAFE: “You have part of a cab.” There sure is a lot of wind on that stretch from Forfar to Crosby, and most of it came in under my right-hand window. From the screws embedded in the metal frame, it’s clear the previous owner had a piece of carpet fitted to take up the space not filled with hydraulic hoses and controls below the window. I would have given a lot to get it from him right then.
Debating whether to continue in the cold or not, I stopped at the highway building to turn away from the wind and warm up a bit. Out of the wind, things were fine. The reforestation north of Crosby dramatically cuts down on the sweep of a north wind, so the drive was much easier, even pleasant.
The traffic was another matter. All of those Saturday drivers politely insisted on sharing the road with me. The band of ice along the edge of the pavement and the icy shoulders looked like suicide from my perch, and I resolved to keep at least two tires on pavement, regardless of the traffic behind. A misadventure in the ditch at fifteen miles per hour would have gruesome consequences inside this box of steel and glass.
Soon it became pointless to look back, so I just soldiered on down my portion of the driving lane and let the cars find their own way. Drivers seemed quite good natured about it, but the guilt I felt couldn’t match the threat of sudden death if I ventured too far over onto the icy shoulder out of politeness. From now on I’ll be less quick to curse those clods on Hwy 15 who tour their tractors and backhoes up and down the driving lane, day after day, without a care in the world.
February 13, 2010 UPDATE
I’ve noticed a few hits on this article, so here are some observations based upon 20 hours of accumulated use so far.
The snow has stopped, producing good footing on the frozen ground. Over the last week I have taken advantage of the weather to prey upon dead and dying elms around the house with the help of a logging winch installed on the Massey Ferguson 35. A logging winch is an amazingly good tool, but that’s another story.
The TAFE has proven to be the machine of choice for carrying sawn firewood around. The bucket holds a useful quantity of firewood; it’s easy to load and even more convenient to dump. As my skill with the loader has improved, I’ve discovered that I can build a fairly neat pile without dismounting. The TAFE’s rickety cab makes it fairly noisy to operate in comparison to the Massey Ferguson, which has always been an uncommonly smooth and good-natured beast. The loader on the new one is much better for carrying firewood than the one on the old one, and the extra gear in each range on the TAFE is a real advantage for general work around the farm. Needless to say, the power steering is a boon.
I had to extract the wood and brush after I cut up an elm which I felled over a ploughed section frozen rock-hard. This made for tricky footing for man and machine. The TAFE worked around the rough ground without injuring its front end. I was a bit worried about the power steering’s durability in this punishing environment, but it held up well with careful use. It shifts very well in circumstances where the Massey Ferguson 35 has been prone to lock its transmission.
The cab may come off in spring, as it is annoyingly tight getting in and out, and it vibrates unpleasantly. That said, I am more than happy to have the cab’s protection in the frigid wind on the quarter-mile run from the landing to the woodpile. Fuel consumption seems low, oil consumption nil, and I usually leave the Simpson engine idling while I load the bucket. The engine sounds a bit coarser than the much older Perkins on the Massey, but this is likely evidence of better compression. Someone told me once that a smooth-sounding diesel isn’t in the best of health.
I have run the block heater for an hour before starting, and the almost new engine leaps into action without the use of the pre-heater, immediately firing cleanly on all cylinders. As the mechanic told me, it’s a good starter in cold weather.
One search was for TAFE tractor prices, so I’ll add that this one, a 1995 with 340 hours, generally very good condition, serviceable cab and Allied 395 loader with automatic levelling, cost $8900 CDN. I saw a 1995 Massey Ferguson 231 with 600 hours and no cab or loader listed for 14,900 CDN. by way of comparison, so it appears as though the orange and gray paint costs less than Massey red.
February 24, 2010:
The TAFE starts well in winter, even when not plugged in. The switch on the 110 volt plug-in spent the night turned off, I discovered this morning at 5:00 a.m. with four inches of snow on the ground. As I mentioned before, the tractor has spent most of its time hauling blocks around in the bucket over the last two weeks. Local farmers have hit upon the loader as the most efficient way to move firewood short distances, or to load their dump trailers for longer hauls. The bucket can be placed on the ground or at any other convenient height for loading. At the other end the wood can be dumped or held in place for convenient piling without requiring that the old guy bend down to pick the blocks up.
The upside of the cab, of course, is that it is much warmer in there than outside when a strong north wind is blowing or snow from the blower swirls back at the operator.. The wiper and lights have received quite a workout over the last two mornings on snow removal duty, and they have functioned well.
This morning it cost me a shear pin to discover that tidying up with a blower after doing the bulk of the work with a loader requires that the operator keep a close eye out for gravel balls, those large round balls of slushy snow which can, I discovered, contain a great deal of aggregate. Gravel from the driveway, if concentrated, does not pump well through a snowblower.
June 27, 2010:
I notice some readers are looking for a parts book for the TAFE 35DI. I don’t know of one online, but you can download one for the similar TAFE 45DI from the TAFE South African website. The power steering is more elaborate with two opposing hydraulic cylinders instead of one, and most 45’s are 4WD, but it might be useful still.
I have an operator’s manual for my 35DI, but can’t scan stuff. Specific questions I can research in the book, though.
https://rodcroskery.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/tafe-351-fuel-consumption/
“Gee, do they still make wooden Christmas trees?”*
December 13, 2009
Not for the Fair Elizabeth is the blue spruce porcupine in the front yard or the desiccated Fraser fir at the local supermarket. There’s more than a little of the Charlie Brown in my wife, and for whatever reason she always insists upon an oddball Christmas tree.
It’s a ritual. Each year the spousal unit must be driven to reluctant feats of daring to acquire the object of this year’s artistic vision, so we plan our annual trek, most often in the late afternoon of a weekday, a stealth attack upon the wilds of Sam Campbell’s Tree Farm just outside Smiths Falls.
So at 4:00, trailer in tow, we pulled into Campbell’s in the gathering darkness. Sam greeted us with the usual balsam fir selections, but with an unfamiliar living room to decorate this year, Bet decided that we should find and cut one ourselves. Off we went with borrowed saw through the snowdrifts to the cedar swamp at the back of the farm.
We passed through acres of neatly trimmed spruce and scotch pine, but we were after a wild tree, and that meant a hike through surprisingly deep snow to the low land where on other expeditions I had been able to find the odd balsam among the cedars.
Turns out Bet had somehow never actually cut a balsam. Before long we found ourselves on a well-established rabbit trail through the still depths of the cedar swamp. She wasn’t too taken with the candidates:
“These trees are huge!”
“We can cut one down, then shorten it to whatever height you want.”
“They are all too big. Let’s keep looking.”
At least the wind wasn’t a factor. It was almost pleasant in there if you ignored the dead branches tearing at every move. Bet slid through the heavy undergrowth surprisingly well, though she was getting further and further from the road. At last she located a pair of candidates:
“How about one of these?” Surely enough, two tall but healthy balsams stood before us.
“Yep, if we trim twelve feet off the bottom of this one and about three off the top, we may just have a Christmas tree.” In an area like this balsam have to grow up above the cedars before they can develop their foliage, so they tend to be rather tall. I notched the trunk and cut it off. Then we had to pull the thing down through the entangling cedars, so Bet and I each grabbed a branch and hauled. Mine snapped, tumbling me end-over-end in the knee-deep snow. Laughter. A few more tugs and the tree was close enough to the ground we could shorten it.
I remember as a teenager reading an Ed Zern essay in Outdoor Life about the Swedish compass, a device a woodsman could rig up to ensure he didn’t get lost in heavy cover. Fellow hunters Frank Green and Cliff Whaley had just let me ramble on, wide-eyed and uncomprehending, about how a woodsman could be confident he wouldn’t get lost if he just cut a 30’ sapling and pulled it along behind him as he made his way through dense bush. Now I understood. The friction from the other branches anchored me in place and guaranteed that I wouldn’t get lost as long as I held onto this sapling. This “compass” wasn’t going anywhere until I had cut off at least half of it.
Thanks to the rabbit trail we found the road first try and then emerged into the gale for the trek back to the truck. Next time I’ll bring snowshoes, even in early December. The balsam proved surprisingly hard to pull through soft snow, so I picked it up. It wasn’t heavy, so on we went.
In fact, when we got the thing home we realized there wasn’t much tree there at all, just a frame of branches defining the space with a lot of air inside. Still, it was symmetrical and after several trims, fitted the tall ceiling of the living room.
Bet set to work and after a day of decoration decided that the reason the tree still looked funny was the white plaster wall behind it. In the previous house she had had dark oak panels as a backdrop, so the sketchy outline of the balsam was all she needed to fill the space.
It looks as though the oak boards I bought yesterday will soon find themselves cut into panels to make a backdrop for next year’s balsam.
*Linus, Charlie Brown’s Christmas Special. CBS.
Ice Reports: Newboro Lake 2009-2010
December 12, 2009
Note: I haved moved this file from this “post” to a “page” on my blog where it is easier to update. Just go to https://rodcroskery.wordpress.com and look in the right margin for the up-to-date version. Rod
January 20, 2010: After a promising start to the winter, the ice has received a major setback with a couple of weeks of mild weather. Yesterday Otter Lake was open in the middle. This morning I noticed that it had frozen over. Woe betide the snowmobiler who tries to cross that thin skiver of ice! Chances are it will open up again the next mild day. Yesterday was mild and overcast, so I looked around for a potential ice fishing site. Portland showed deep ruts in the slush from an ATV grinding out to a fishing shack. Opinicon Lake at Chaffey’s Locks has a lot of open water, as it usually does, though with little current. The big surprise was the pair of trumpeter swans which buzzed the cedars at the end of the point. Man, are those birds big! I counted seven of them in all on the ice at Chaffey’s.
Without a week of very cold weather the ice will remain no good.
January 5, 2010: There’s ten inches of ice in the bay at Portland, but the middle of the Big Rideau is still open. Ominously, the opening in the middle of Otter Lake seems to be growing larger as snow accumulates on the ice. To judge by the lack of tracks, people are staying off the ice so far.
December 20, 2009: A couple of test holes on Newboro Lake a hundred feet out from the village shore show five inches of ice. While helping my friend adjust his bubbler so as to allow the northern boat launch ramp to freeze properly, I noticed that there’s a decent gravel bottom along shore once a bit of the sediment is washed away.
December 18, 2009: The Big Rideau at Portland and Otter Lake seen from Hwy 15 both showed full ice cover as far as I could see this afternoon.
December 16, 2009: The run of cold weather is firming things up. Apart from the spots of open water caused by bubblers under docks, the Newboro end of the lake seemed to have formed a nice sheet with a little snow on it.
December 12, 2009: The ice is back, folks. I noticed that Morton Creek was mostly frozen when we drove by on Hwy 15 yesterday. Ice formed overnight in the bays and the village end of Newboro Lake. Indian Lake wasn’t frozen over when I looked earlier today, but we broke a half-inch or so of ice to make way for a bubbler on a dock on the Newboro waterfront.
Watching the fireplace channel
December 6, 2009
Tom and Kate arrived for a fall expedition to their cottage. After dinner somehow we discovered the fireplace channel and settled back to enjoy a few minutes of the flames and crackles of the sound track. Four hours later we were still watching.
The neat thing about this show is that someone actually fixes the fire. So we sat in our living room cave and like the subjects in Plato’s parable of old, sought to explain and predict the actions of the shadows behind us on the screen.
Kate’s comments quickly adopted the language and attitude of a figure skating judge: “In Move #1 he begins with the standard half-roll with the poker. You see how a loose grip with his right hand produces a clumsy stab, and he has to make a number of attempts to complete the roll. Then he follows with a half-block dropped clumsily on the fire. This is quite a slow beginning for the performance, though we can only hope he’ll get past the nerves and settle down in the more technical parts of the routine.”
Tom butted in with colour commentary: “He’s an unpaid intern at the television station. He was given this responsibility as a way to justify a passing grade after he had sat in the corner for a whole semester because nobody could think of anything for him to do. He’s not happy about this task. He obviously grew up well away from wood fires, and has no wood-burning skills whatever.”
I interrupted, “Nevertheless, the fire works really well.”
Kate just shook her head, “Our primitive nature makes it very easy to sit here and enjoy the fire. The guy can’t lose.”
Kate lapsed into her Brian Williams voice again: “That was Move #3, a slow, over-handed push left, with sparks.”
“So has he lost the nerves, or has he become more committed to his fire?” Tom asked.
I jumped in: Commitment comes with the process. Ask any new parent. Why shouldn’t the guy grow into this job?”
Bet asked, “How is this financed? There aren’t any commercials.”
Kate used to work at the local television station. “It’s a community service from the satellite channel. It doesn’t cost them much. They just turn the camera on, and they tell the college kid to put on the flannel shirt and do this, rather than going for coffee six times a night.
Tom had been watching the fire throughout this: “That chimney’s gotta be full of creosote the way the wood is burning.”
Kate, again: “The other thing they could have done is say: ‘Go out and make a film. We need a filler for twenty minutes which will run on a loop. It was his idea to do this because he was lazy. So he set wood on fire turned on the camera, and this is what they got.
“But I’m watching it.“
I tried the Brian Williams voice: “This was a two-handed poke. He’s definitely getting better at it. He just adjusted it.” Silence. I decide to leave the T.V. commentary to Kate.
“It should start from a cold fire, it’s so hard to come into a movie like this,” complained Tom.
Kate/Brian Williams again: “O.K. This is the fifth move of his routine. With the poker he flips the block and it flares suddenly to cheers from the audience.”
Bet commented: “There’s a lot of flame, but it’s not a pretty fire.”
Tom: “I like something more controlled, decorative looking. Look at it. It’s kinda like – sloppy.”
“So the intern gets low marks for structure, high marks for flame.” I tried to summarize: “And now we’re back to the beginning of the loop. So his routine consists of five or six adjustments to the fire, and he becomes gradually more proficient as he goes through it, but he gets sloppy at the end.”
“I didn’t like the way he left it,” Tom grumbled.
As host I tried to surf away from the looping fireplace film, only to be chased back in seconds by the yammering of network T.V. on a Thursday night. You don’t realize how soothing and pleasant the fireplace channel is until you switch to something else.
Back to our HD blaze just as the star performs the unsuccessful flip-and-roll. “I heard someone laughing at the intern,” quipped Bet. “I’ll bet you’re glad you drove seven hours to watch this.”
From the depths of the sofa Kate groaned, “I’ve got to stop watching this. I’ve seen it. I know the plot!”
“Wanta try the other one?” I asked.
“There’s another fireplace channel? Sure!”
You want the Ranger to what?
November 28, 2009
“Drive us around in the Westport Santa Claus Parade.” Liberal candidate Marjory Loveys was online.
“O.K. I’ll have it at St. Ed’s School by 12:30 and you will have until 2:00 to decorate it.”
I’m always looking for an excuse to take my utility vehicle on another adventure, and this would give me a look at the inside of a revered institution, the Westport Santa Claus Parade. I was also mildly curious to see how two engineers, Marjory and her husband, Tony Capel, would deal with a challenge like fastening a bunch of magnetic signs to the plastic body of a UTV.
I never thought I’d see anyone try to tape snow in place, but that’s exactly what Tony did. They arrived with their car chock-full of boxes decorated to look like Christmas gifts. I had told them the dimensions of the cargo area and they were prepared to fill it to overflowing. Then they unrolled the cotton batting, and they taped it and it worked. Keeping the very light boxes in place in Saturday afternoon’s strong breeze involved threading some strap clamps I found in my truck through the hinges of the tailgate to intersect with a spare seat belt at the front and back to the clamp. What can I say? It worked.
Marjory decided that the metal grate behind the seats and the front bumper both had enough metal to hold the signs, so on they went. Large red bows and a wreath went on to the roll bar with cable ties. Another bow discreetly clothed the trailer hitch.
We lined up behind David Blair’s stately 1970 Cadillac, a splendid ’34 Ford hot rod, and a very nice vintage Mustang. To my right the tractor guys were getting ready. Dale Lyons had a volunteer in charge of his recently-acquired Massey Harris 30.
“Why did you buy a Massey 30, Dale?”
“The guy wanted to sell it.”
A beautifully restored Oliver Row Crop Model required a push start, then a tow, and finally a parking space because it couldn’t be persuaded to run smoothly. That’s everybody’s nightmare in a parade.
Behind us two smiling ladies carried a banner advertising Artemisia, a Westport sign shop. Marching in front of them was a small human in a dinosaur suit. As the parade wore on, it was obvious that lugging that huge tail was a strain upon the small person, but he/she was not about to give up.
Finally, on the home stretch, I asked Tony to take the wheel and I dropped back to play columnist. Sharbot Lake resident Elizabeth Larocque, aged seven, was the figure in the T-Rex suit. Her mother had made it for her because the T-Rex is her favourite animal, but in keeping with the Christmas theme Elizabeth had requested and gained a set of reindeer horns to clip on over the top of the headpiece. So we were followed throughout the parade by a baby T-Rex disguised as a reindeer. I wish I’d had time to meet Elizabeth: she showed by her actions on that long stretch of street that she’s a trooper.
Driving Marjory Loveys around wasn’t at all what I expected. Forget about sight lines and Queen Elizabeth waves. Marjory wanted to meet everybody, so she was off on foot for the entire parade. Box after box of candy canes went out. It looked as though our would-be M.P. would soon be in a deficit because of the candy outlay, so she dispatched her finance minister, Sylvia Herlehy, to Kudrinko’s during a lull in the traffic. In an amazingly short time Sylvia returned with supplies to replenish the cargo box, and Marjory’s campaign continued. Photographer Moe Lavigne kept snapping away, but the high point of mischief in the parade no doubt occurred when Review-Mirror reporter Margaret Brand showed up and we decided to stage a shot with Marjory driving the unfamiliar Ranger. She hadn’t prepared for this, and her reactions had us in stitches.
As the floats returned to St. Ed’s we got a chance to look at some of the other participants. I burst out in laughter as a genuine dog-and-pony show worked its way down the street. What else would you call a lovely young golden retriever soldiering along next to a cranky, bucking Shetland pony on a cart? My dad would have loved the team of Belgians on a carriage which followed.
How was a Santa Claus parade different than a three-tractor procession down Hwy 15? The Ranger is much better behaved than an antique tractor. The V8’s ahead of us had to speed up or die, so we were soon left in their ozone. Marjory’s need to meet everybody sometimes left her a half-block behind and out of candy, but Tony, whose job it was to control traffic flow, just told me to go ahead, she would catch up. It turns out she can move remarkably quickly when she sets her mind to it.
It was a lot of fun participating in this parade. Westport certainly presents itself as a friendly and welcoming community. Maybe I’ll bring a tractor next year.
the Walnut Diary 