My farmer husband knows I do not like to pull vehicles or tractors to get them moved or started. I learned the hard way it was a good rule to enforce because of “run ins,” bad hand signal incidents and just plain bad temper moments.
Recently I gave in and the rule was broken. We were to the north farmstead and I was mowing the yard. My husband had taken the 4-wheeler to the pasture to spray young cedar and locust trees. A couple of hours later my cell phone rang. It was my husband. He explained in a calm voice, “You’ve got to bring the pickup to the pasture.” There was a pause, then came the words I didn’t want to hear, “I shut off the 4-wheeler and now I can’t get it started again. You’ve got to come and pull it out.” I asked him where in the pasture he was, chills ran down my spine, as he was next to the little creek where there were a lot of trees and bushes.
Reluctantly I climbed into the pickup and headed for the pasture, grumbling all the way. When I reached the planned meeting place, there he was standing waving his arms. I leaned out the window and reminded him how much I hated doing this. He seemed to turn a deaf ear and quickly shouted, “Just follow me.” He as walking towards an area with large fallen branches blocking the route. My husband began to pull the branches out of the way. Branches and logs were removed as I drove the pickup slowly. Tree branches seemed to reach out scratching the pickup, but my husband assured me they weren’t taking the paint off. It was follow the leader. Finally the 4-wheeler was in sight. The chain was taken from the tool box in the back of the pickup and hooked on to the 4-wheeler. He climbed onto the 4-wheeler and told me to begin to go forward but to go very slow.
The thought kept coming into my head, “I told you I do not like to pull a vehicle,” but I knew it was too late to remind him again. The pickup keep moving forward with the 4-wheeler moving over downed twigs making a cracking sound. I was instructed to follow the route taken to get to the 4-wheeler, but where was that route? I looked for grass that had been driven over and the logs that had been moved. The pathway was found. Watching my husband starting to use his hand signals, I began to panic. What if the 4- wheeler rolled into the pickup? What if the pickup hit a tree or rolled over a big log? Finally the clearing was in view. Now it was up and over terraces, moving over to avoid hitting a hole, and then through the pasture gate. I thought that was the end of the pull. Surely the 4-wheeler would be left and he would go get tools to work on it, but no. Instructions came to pull it on to the country road and to the farstead. Thankfully there was no traffic on the country roads that afternoon.
I was so relieved when I pulled the 4-wheeler into the farmstead driveway. The chain was unhooked and we managed to push the 4-wheeler up onto the trailer. Then came the words I knew would be said, “Now that wasn’t so bad was it?” I thought, “Well it sure could have gone bad!”
The 4-wheeler was taken to the service station for inspection. We learned it had simply “flooded.” A simple fix.
Reader Comments(0)