The Day The Harrow Paid Me Back Poem by Merle Steinmann

We have all heard about the Cowboy poets and their infamous escapades with the bovines, equines, cowboys, cowgirls and the. other various things that happen around the ranch. Well, I'm here to tell you there are some escapades around the farm too that are worthy of the telling.

Like today for instance. But to tell it correctly, I have to let you know it didn't begin today, it began yesterday. It happened like this.

We started in the wee early hours of the morning. We went over acre after acre. We didn't stop for dinner, we didn't stop for coffee. We didn't stop when we finished the first field, we didn't stop when we finished the second field. We got ready to go to the third field.

It was then I noticed a slight failure in her structure. I suppose if I were to offer a comparison it would be like trying to walk properly with a big old blister on your foot. I told the boss what happened and we decided to take off the offending part, take her home and weld her up.

I was soon joined by the bosses' son and together we disassembled the harrow and he ground away on her and welded her up again.

Then, as normal folks were brushing their teeth and preparing for bed, we pulled her out of the yard, in the dark and made her go back to the field. Today, it rained early and I'm sure she thought she would get to sleep in. The boss decided though that it hadn't rained that much so off we went again; right through lunch, coffee, and the other times when other machines stop to rest.

As luck would have it, the tractor was getting low on fuel so I'm sure the harrow thought 'Good! Now I can finally get some rest! ' Not to be however. I parked her temporarily and went after more fuel.

Upon my return, I think the harrow thought, 'Oh no, not another 18 hour day. Hour after hour, field after field. Working me 'till Ibreak or fall apart! ' As we went back to the field, I felt an apprehension.

I eyed the clouds. I eyed what was left of the field. As I stopped and prepared her to go back to work, I noticed something wasn't quite right with her. One of her cables was hung up. She couldn't lay down, she couldn't go ahead, she couldn't back up. I thought I'll just take this big, old wrench here and lift that cable up and we'll be ready to go.

As I jauntily walked towards the offending area, I thought 'I'll just give this here a little tap, it'll open up correctly and we'll finish this field and look for another one. What I didn't realize was the cable was stretched tight. There was all the weight of 85 feet of harrow and four heavy duty springs that were stretched to their limits. They were all flexed up waiting for me to slip my wrenchin there a let it all loose!

Problem was I was standing in the way of the direction the cable was going to go when I let it loose. When I did, she hit me smack across the chest between the glasses that hung from my collar and my private parts somewhat lower. It took all 230 pounds of me, lifted me off of my feet and threw me through the air. When I hit the ground, it knocked the wind out of me, my head bounced! I had accelerated from 0 to 60 in less than a second and then had gone from 60 to 0 in the rest of that second.

As I gasped a few breaths, felt my extremities, realized that I had a slight headache from my head bouncing off the freshly seeded field and came to the conclusion that I was still alive; I had a whole knew respect for my harrow friend.

n my personal experiences I have met some gentlemen that touched me with their intentions. They were all good men and they all were exceptional in how they expressed their disagreement with my feelings at the time.

None of them however, were in any way able to propel me 15 feet through the air and not need a second opportunity to re assert themselves.

As I picked myself up, I made my new harrow friend a promise. I told her if she and I might finish this field, we might both take a well deserved evening off from our hard endeavors of the past several hours. And we did. As is often the case, sometimes the other party simply needs to make their point better understood!