Big Farm Oopsie

I've had only minor oopsies in my own career. Let's see here...

...the time I swung an IH 1086 and 22' disk around at the turnrows and misjudged the distance ever so slightly between the disk and my '67 Ford pickup, putting a very slight scratch in the paint down the entire length of the pickup. Any closer, I'd have totaled the truck. Any farther away, no scratch. That one actually DID buff out before my dad saw it.
...the time I soaped up my '67 Cougar then parked it in the path of a research plot overhead irrigation rig for a Missouri-invented free, easy carwash. For some reason, I didn't seem to remember that irrigating makes the soil WET, as in creating mud 6 inches deep. By the time I bottomed out the freshly washed car trying to get it out, then pulled it out with a tractor and chain, the car was completely coated with gooey mud which permanently stained the formerly white car a kind of mottled beige. Irrigation rigs 1, Clay 0.

...ten years later, in my ongoing battle with irrigators, I parked my TAES/EX station wagon and went to look at some research plots for just a minute or two. An hour or so later, I was way out in the field when I heard this "CHINGK!" and instantly knew what the problem was, confirmed by a hump in the line of the irrigation span. I dashed back to find the irrigation rig climbing up the front of the car. The "CHINGK!" was the sound of the headlamp breaking. I dived into the car and backed it out from under the irrigator, miraculously with no more damage than the broken headlight. Irrigation rigs 2, Clay 0.
...when I was 37 and rating weed control plots, I decided to see if I could still clear a 4' barb wire fence in the running high jump like I did all the time when I was a kid. The answer turned out to be... no, I couldn't. I hobbled on my sprained ankle for 1/8 mile, hopped on one leg for a 1/8 mile, then crawled the rest of the way through grassburs on my hands and knees.

Lovely day.
Clay

Postscripts: I LOVE your stories Clay!!! Wonderful laughs!
May I post in Stories on GNL?
You can title and whatever you'd like.
Thanks, Roni
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Feel free to use them, Roni. Glad you enjoyed them. Every farmer I know has a fairly good list of dumb things he/she has done that just defy understanding. Hazard of the trade, it seems.
Clay
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Clay, `bout 45 some years ago, I asked Mom how she handled my going out into the most dangerous work environment (farming) every day.
She answered, "Well Ronita. I just shoot up a little prayer, then let it go." Roni
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Roni, I'd say your mother was a wise lady. Clay

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