April 26, 2015; Samish Iron Works

This unassuming building surrounded by water was the world headquarters of the Samish Iron Works.  On this date, probably in the winter of 1975 the Samish Slough had flooded thanks to heavy rains, a quick mountain snow melt and an untimely high tide.  Fortunately, the water came up fast, and left fast.

On a normal day, the lot now covered with water, would instead be occupied with farm implements in need of repair, a pick-up truck or two, (farmers watching their equipment getting repaired), and a few neighbors just stopping by to see what's up.

A man named Clifford Wright owned this building.  You would never guess by looking at it, but this was also the workshop of a man who was nothing shy of a mechanical genius.  The complex physics and chemistry of heating and cooling metal alloys to bring their twisted damage back into true line came natural to Cliff.  Torch in hand, he'd heat a wedge here, let it cool, a line there, let it cool, and smaller wedge just right there.  It was amazing to see thick bars of steel slowly move without so much of a swing of a hammer.

How to straighten steel with a torch?  "That's just common knowledge," as Cliff would say.

Two side dump wagons were produced from that little shop along with a hydraulic push gate manure spreader.  Silage choppers were rebuilt here, dump beds on trucks built, and PTO shafts by the hundreds were straightened and repaired.

Sounds like a full time job, does it not?  It was and it wasn't. To be sure Cliff had more business than he needed, and it all was done between about 8AM and 3PM during the week.  You see, Cliff had a full time job, working swing shift as a welder for the Skagit Corporation, building logging towers and components for off shore drilling rigs.

Saturdays work might start a little early, but would usually wind down around 4 for "social hour."  In those days, Cornfield Whiskey was Cliff's drink of choice.  More than once I started milking right after "social hour" and really didn't come around to noticing anything until about half way through the second string of cows.

This past Friday evening a group of us gathered here at Cliff's shop for one last "social hour."  Cliff passed away earlier this month and everyone close it him thought it fitting that we honor his memory with whiskey and bullshit.

And oh how the stories and spirits flowed late into the night, just as Cliff would have wanted.

April 19, 2015; The Dandy Oliver

This is Don Pierson, sitting on his "dandy Oliver.  I worked for Don and Eva on their dairy farm in Bow, WA for a couple of years right after Janice and I were married.  Don had a couple of "newer" tractors, an IH Hydro with a loader that we used to plow and green chop, Big John, (a JD 3020 gas spot) we used for heavier fieldwork and pulling the corn chopper, and Little John, a 2010 with a loader which was the scrapping tractor.  But the "dandy Oliver" was Don's favorite.

It caught on fire once, long before I worked there, so any evidence of the green paint job was long gone.  The transmission was a little suspect, jamming now and again requiring a 9/16" end wrench and screw driver to pop it back into the right synchros.  As Don used to say, "It uses some water, but very little gas," and then shuffle off chuckling to himself.

I'd use the Oliver to pull the smaller manure spreader and rake hay.  However its real mission, the main reason it stayed on the farm since World War II, the Oliver pulled Don's two row corn planter.  As the fields were prepped for corn, there was always a bit of tension in the air.  The Oliver often wasn't running that great, and although the IH could pull the planter, that, in Don's mind wasn't an option.

"Corn won't grow if you don't plant it with the dandy Oliver," he would tell me.

Was he kidding?  I don't think so. I honestly believe Don's success in raising silage corn hinged directly on the dandy Oliver, with Don driving, pulling that planter.  Hard to start, missing, carburetor leaking gas, no matter, in the first warm weeks of May, one way or the other, the dandy Oliver had to be field ready.

When Don retired from farming and his machinery went on the auction block, I took one last photo of him on the dandy Oliver.  As I recall, a young fellow bought the tractor with the intent to restore it.  Whether he did or not, I don't know. 

I sometimes wonder, if restored, would the corn grow as tall?

April 11, 2015; Springtime in the Rockies

Cattle grazing on new grass growing in between melting snow, that's springtime in the Rockies.

 

 

Having dinner outside in your shirt sleeves, only to wake up to a fresh coating of snow the next morning, that's springtime in the Rockies.

Trickling streams become white water torrents, that's springtime in the Rockies.

When a helper set tops the Great Divide in the morning sun........

....only to return a few hours later in a falling snow, that's springtime in the Rockies.