If someone ever comes up with an award for the fastest farmer in the world, I have the perfect nominee, and likely winner, for the prize.
I first met him not long after I moved to the farm where we now live, some 26 years ago. I was baling hay on a hot, Saturday afternoon when rain clouds started approaching from the southwest. As my luck would have it, I broke a major piece on my baler and with all of the machinery dealers already closed for the weekend, I was desperate to get the hay wrapped up before the rain came. Knowing few people in the area at that time, I drove to my nearest neighbor and asked him if knew anyone that could finish baling my hay…quickly. The neighbor made one phone call and told me that one of our other neighbors would be right over to help me out.
Within 30 minutes, I heard the roar of his tractor and could see the black smoke of the exhaust before the equipment even came into sight. As he entered my field, the neighbor didn’t even stop to introduce himself, driving directly to where my disabled baler sat, and immediately started baling. To this day, I’ve never seen anyone bale hay at that speed. I was even a little worried he might turn over at each corner, but he had the rest of my field baled in less than an hour (it would probably have taken me at least three) and a good thirty minutes before the rain started. As I have discovered, through the years, he approaches every job the same way – as if there is always a rain coming or his tractor is on fire.
Since we have met together at the same coffee shop every morning for the past several years, I’ve discovered that he was the same person as a young man. He always had the fastest car in the area, and loved to prove it to any and all challengers. Even now, as he enters his 70s, he finds a way to get a bit more speed or a little more horsepower out of every piece of mechanical equipment he uses, regardless of whether it’s a tractor, truck, lawnmower or combine. Somehow, someway, he’ll find a way to make it perform beyond its intended use. As I once heard him describe it, “540 RPM at the PTO is merely a suggestion.”
Last week, as we met for coffee, my fast neighbor excused himself from our meeting a bit earlier than usual. “I have to get home and clean up a little mess before I start the day,” he stated emphatically.
“What’s the problem?” asked one of the regulars.
“Well, after I pulled the truck out of the garage this morning, I hit the button to lower the door and it squashed a sparrow that was trying to fly into the open door. I need to get it cleaned up before my wife sees it.”
In disbelief, I asked him for clarification.
“Your automatic garage door goes down fast enough to catch a bird in flight?”
“Yep.”
“Okay,” I had to ask, “Did you gear up the garage door to move faster than the factory installation?”
With that wry little grin, my neighbor answered, “Maybe.”
