Mining Manure With The Poultry
There seems to be no end to what folks will name their farms. Actually, the name of this column "Far Muse" is borrowed from one of those upscale gentleman's estates along South Poes Road in Rappahannock County, Virginia. That's pretty close to home—the farm's owner might litigate. There's also the song "Far Muse" by Mike Morningstar. In either case, though, this is a newspaper column, not a song or equestrian estate so "Far Muse" should be out of the reach of lawyers.
Here's a unique name one might consider: Grass Widow Farm. We shouldn't have to be concerned about copyright infringement, Grass Widow Farm (gwfarm@earthlink.net) is all the way out in Worley, Idaho.
I'm certain that I've run across the term "Grass Widow" in some ancient, dusty tome. Grass Widow entered the lexicon in 1528 and can mean a discarded mistress, a woman with an illegitimate child, or simply a female divorcee. Let's just leave it at that and get down to business.
Grass Widow Farm's Del Blackburn writes concerning a spring-loaded detent ball that took flight—as they often do—while removing the shift rails from a Ford 2N transmission. These small parts appear to enter low orbit or another dimension since they can seldom be recovered. Del proposes using a replacement ball of a metric measurement.
This plan bodes ill as the United States was at war with those using the metric system (Britain used Whitworth) for all but one year of the 2N's production; 1939--1946. If the replacement ball should happen to be smaller than the original, the transmission may prove difficult or even impossible to shift.
But Del needn't blame himself—it can happen to the best of us. Oh, I'm not the best Ford tractor mechanic, that distinction was held by the late Vaughn Keiter, my tractor shop boss during the late 70's. The shop was in an old building actually designed and built as a Chevrolet dealership in the 1930's in Capon Bridge, West Virginia. The shop was a dark, greasy wooden-floored realm with a row of windows above the rough-sawn oak workbench.
The accumulation of old parts and other "junque" under the workbench and along the walls seemed to date from the era of the building's construction and possibly before. I clearly remember seeing part of a harness hame hanging in one corner. On occaision, Vaughn would accidentally launch a detent ball or other even rarer spring-loaded hydraulic system part. The often fruitless search would then begin with Vaughn circling the shop, peeking into crevices in the floor and behind as well as inside old engine blocks and open hydraulic cylinders.
Vaughn called this activity "pickin' [something or other] with the chickens." We might rephrase it for this family publication as "mining manure with the poultry" apparently referring to some chicken's tendency to salvage un-digested grains from manure piles. I was responsible for my share of these launchings, which gave Vaughn something to grumble about, whereas normally he had no one to blame but himself. "Here we got all this work and we're pickin'..." well, you know.
A call to Ford/New Holland dealer, Winchester Equipment turned up 55 of the 3/8 (.375) detent balls, part number 145222. I mentioned the theme for this story to Winchester Equipment parts associate Allan Keiter, who just happens to be Vaughn's oldest son. Through the laughter, I was able to discern that the phrase alluded to above had other historic applications on the Keiter farm.
As for Del Blackburn's question about preventing these parts from taking flight, the only suggestion I can offer is to buy a few extra.
Well, look at all this time we have left—let's open another letter.