Hard to believe it is the middle of June and we still don't have half our beans in. Yesterday was a stressful day for my husband. He started the day planting a 40 acre field which worked really rough because the weeds had gotten away from him with all the rain. Then he went to a small field next to town we cash rent. While making his first round with the field cultivator he got stuck. He was watching the tree row to make sure he didn't get to close meanwhile a very wet hole was lurking. By the time he noticed it was wet, it was too late.
Of course he first calls me to bring him a couple chains. He thought if he unhooked the field cultivator and move the Cat Challenger to drier ground, he could pull it out. So I dropped the what I was doing to go help. Needless to say two broken chains later the field cultivator remained unmoved. Next step call Frakes wrecker service in town. The owner was gone on a run for a rolled backhoe, so his grandson came with their older wrecker.
Drew, Derick, and I got a double wench on it and tried again. The wrecker pulled so hard it picked the front tires off the ground without moving the field cultivator. Looks like we would have to wait for Drew's grandpa to get back. So we took Drew back to the shop and we went to check on the other fields.
When Ralph got back we all headed to the field. After hooking up the second wrecker we were able to SLOWLY move the field cultivator forward. As we were pulling it forward, mucky mud was building up around the tires. Eventually the build up provided too much for the chains and we broke a couple more.
We rehooked and tried again, but this time we hooked the Cat up too with chains. As it inched forward everyone heard a POP. It wasn't a chain this time, but a pin on the field cultivator. It caused one set of tires to go into the shovels and bent a thick metal bar.
After an investigation of the damage and discussions of what to do now, we hooked up the hydraulic hoses and tried raising the wings. The broken side raised just fine folding over twice getting the broken wheels out of the way. The right wing still had all the pressure from the built up mud, though. It started folding up normally, but suddenly we noticed it was trying to fold both of them up together. Then I noticed some metal brackets were bent.
As we re-evaluate the situation, my husband jumps on his phone to see if he has any implement dealership number in his phone. It's quarter to five and if he could get ahold of them before five, maybe he could get parts a day earlier. No luck:(
Now we had to try pulling it out with the left folded up and the right not. Once again everyone hooked up and tried again as a couple buddies from town were walking across the field to see what all the excitement was about. Now slowly, but surely we were able to pull it out four hours later.
We spent the rest of the evening investigating the damage and seeing if we could bend them back. Thankfully, my husband's uncle said Derick could use his field cultivator while he was planting until the parts come in on Friday.
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