More Key Drive Stuff

I have to work on this week's Farm Side this morning, so here is an oldie from '05 I think. The pictures are from last night's storm and the small truce that followed.

Some jobs seem so simple. Like greasing the elevator. How hard could it be? You just take your trusty grease gun and a tube of grease and go for it. It is recommended that you don’t wear a white suit or high heels, but other than such obvious exclusions, anyone can do it.

Of course the implement in question here isn’t the kind of elevator that carried passengers from floor to floor in old fashioned department stores, or the sort that is used to stockpile oceans of grain out on the prairies.

Instead, this elevator is a long, metal, skeleton conveyor that carries bales of hay across the haymow and dumps them where we want them. It hangs from the roof of the cow barn inside the mow and therein lies the rub. That roof is high. It is dark up there. There are bees, wasps, hornets and various other vespids. The roof isn’t just high; it is really, really high. Not quite as high as the Eiffel Tower, but a lot too high for the comfort of the acrophobics among us.

It hangs from chains so if you place our 32-foot wooden ladder between the ends, it just reaches. However, the whole affair sways alarmingly under the weight of whoever wields the grease gun. Of course the ladder in question is a big beast that is not tossed around casually too. Liz and I helped the boss put it up once and I can assure you from a personal perspective that it really isn’t a whole lot of fun.

That is probably why a significant amount of time elapsed between the day that someone pointed out to the hay crew that the bearing on the end of the elevator was squeaking loud enough to be heard over the milk pump, (which sounds a lot like a souped up Harley), and the day that they actually trekked up into the mow.

On the way up the first ladder, the boss repeatedly inquired of the chief assistant, “Did you check the grease gun?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I mean, did you really check it?”

“Yes, dad.”

“Are you sure?” and so on.

Once up in the mow, the staggeringly heavy ladder was maneuvered into place between the rails of the elevator. It takes a man and a boy to hold it still, which presented something of a problem for the greasing gang, as one of the above is required to climb up with the grease gun leaving either/or but not both at the bottom. With it finally secured (secured being a relative term here, as in secure as compared to hanging from a spider web over the Grand Canyon) they began to debate who was going up the ladder to do the dirty deed.

Eventually the chief assistant was chosen for his relative youth and agility. He went crawled up about half way and complained, “Dad, hold the ladder still, it’s moving.

“Dad, it’s really high up here,” and so on, until the hay boss called him back down, and with grease gun in hand, climbed up under the roof to do the job himself.

Of course, you already know where this is going. When he stuck the gun on the grease fitting while clinging to the top of the massive, swaying ladder at the top of the dark, scary hay mow ceiling, among a few thousand cranky yellow jackets and a couple of drowsy bats, there just one single squirt of grease in it. Not enough to do the job. Of course not. How could there be?

When they came over to tell me the story, they quoted the actual words that were uttered at that juncture, but I will spare the tender sensibilities of Farm Side readers. (Trust me, you would rather not know.)

This time, after climbing carefully back down the shuddering ladder, the boss himself filled the gun with a spanking new cartridge of grease. Then the assistant was sent up the ladder (in no uncertain terms) to do the greasing.

When he got up there, rest assured that he pumped the gun until grease flew in all directions. It darned near dripped on his daddy’s head. For some reason he wanted to do a very thorough job so that he would not have to do it again for at least a dozen years or so. He looked real happy to have his boots on solid ground and the ladder put away again, I’ll tell you.

They are over there unloading hay right now using that very same, extra-well-lubricated, cross-mow elevator. And if I hear the end bearing squeaking again I am just going to keep quiet and hope it bears up under the strain. Some things just aren’t worth the hassle.