'Context' - A Blog
A vintage Fordson Major EN27 tractor in one of my upcoming paintings. Such tractors were clearly not designed for mobile phone users!
Why a Farmer Might Have Empty Pockets
21/05/2021
Working in farming, using historic faming and smallholding techniques and working with old tractors has always been interesting for so many reasons. But there is one peril that no-one ever mentioned to me in all the training and instruction I have received over the years... stuff falls out of your pockets.
Now, I’m not talking about the obvious problem of a hole in the pocket. What I’m talking about is how so many different jobs seem to involve a kind of reversal of gravity, and even stuff deeply tucked down into a trouser pocket has a way of coming relentlessly and determinedly upwards, like some scene in a cartoon where a giant magnet is lowered down over a cartoon character.
This has led to some of the more comical moments I have experienced on a farm and I think my experiences might resonate with anyone who has worked much outdoors.
For me, penknives seem to be the worst culprits. I always used to carry a pocket knife while at work; it was essential for everything from cutting bale strings, through sorting electric fence connections to trimming sheep’s feet. I don’t know how many knives I have got through simply from them falling out of the pocket.
And yes, I have tried putting them on a lanyard, but invariably this seems to cause more problems than it is worth. If you’ve ever tried passing a penknife on a lanyard to a colleague who wants to cut a bale string a few yards away, you’ll know what I mean- usually it doesn’t seem worth removing from the lanyard, and you’re not in a position to move properly, so you end up contorting yourself into something akin to a challenging yoga position to allow them the use of it.
I always found that cord a total menace anyway - Sheep having their feet trimmed had an uncanny knack of placing a kick straight on the trailing cord and messing up the whole operation, or it would get caught in brambles, or anything else one happened to be passing. I think I finally ditched the lanyard idea when it occurred to me what might happen if it was some moving machinery that I happened to be passing...
So instead, over the years, I have resigned myself to a steady attrition rate on penknives. I view it as my contribution to the archaeology of the future.
But it’s not just penknives. I remember vividly a tiny pot of medicinal cream that I needed to treat a sheep with. Normally, tasks like this I could achieve reasonably easily out in the field by putting a line of feed out in a trough, and with a bit of deft manoeuvring, I could grab and restrain the relevant ewe from the flock while she had her head in the trough.
There was however one particular sheep who appeared to disagree with this procedure. She was a rather flighty lass, a bought in ewe, and never had the inherent trust that most of our own-bred ewes had of me. If I loitered near the trough while the feed was down, she would always move to the opposite end, and keep looking up to check my whereabouts, or just not even come to the trough at all.
So I resorted to a plan B, which I really hoped would work (because all the other plans C through to Z meant a ton more work).When I checked the sheep in the evening, I sauntered in a nonchalant manner through the grazing flock, which they were fairly relaxed about, and I clocked the location of this particular ewe. Ambling around, with the air of Winnie the Pooh trying not to arouse the suspicion of the bees, I got myself to within a flying rugby tackle distance of the ewe. I waited for the moment she had her head down to graze and her eye line to me blocked by another sheep and I took my chance...
Two quick steps and a dive and my arms were around her neck, but she moved off like a thing possessed. Being a sheep with a breed weight of around two hundred pounds, it took a full ten yards, with me still relentlessly hanging on, before our combined mass brought her to a standstill. Pulling myself up from the unintended fairground ride, I was able to turn her over to prevent further escape.
Feeling quite pleased, if a little battered from being dragged over the bumpy scrubby field, I reached to my pocket for the tub of cream....
... it lay ten yards away at the point of my first tackle!
I paused for a bit to contemplate my next move. She was too heavy to manipulate over to the tub - if I righted her and attempted to walk her over, I knew there was an even chance she’d manage to get away from me, so flighty was she, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to catch her again. I decided my best chance was to set her on her back in a slight hollow where I was, knowing it would take her a good few seconds to right herself and make it to her feet, and gamble on my chances of making it to the tub and back in that time...
The next few seconds felt like the moment in a film where the countdown timer on the bomb is ticking off the last ten seconds. By the time I made the tub, she had rolled to her side and as I dived the last yard or two, she had two feet already on the ground. I did just about make it, and she was successfully treated, but made a mental note to self that one of plans C through to Z might be better next time!
The mobile phones in my pocket have a tough life too; I often thought I could get a job on the side testing them for survivability for the manufacturers, but unfortunately I have never been approached to do this! What is quite clear is that the designers of old tractors never had mobiles in mind when these old tractors were built, or they would have provided a little box next to the seat just to store them in. As things are, it turns out that if they fall out of your pocket whilst seated on an old tractor, they disappear straight to the ground, and with all the noise and vibration of the tractor around you, you are guaranteed not to notice for some time.
This happened to me twice. The first time I was using a TE20 and a scissor bar mower to cut a couple of acres of hay. As was often the way, it was well into the evening when I finished the task, and as I stopped to admire the cut field I reached to my pocket to check the time on my phone...
...Well I knew it had been there when I started mowing.
I had been nowhere else, and there was absolutely nowhere on the tractor that it could be hiding. Easy...it had to be somewhere in the field, just two acres, all covered with neat rows of just cut long grass. Fortunately, there was a landline not too far off, so I rang my long suffering partner and asked her to spend the next ten minutes repeatedly ringing my phone.
I did find it, but I often imagined what I would have looked like to a passer by. There I was wandering around the field until eventually diving into a random row of hay in the field to pull out and answer a phone. One can begin to see how country folk get a reputation for quirky behaviour!
The second time I did something similar was with an old tracked Fordson tractor. A great machine, it had iron tracks instead of wheels and was steered not with a steering wheel, but with two levers that braked one or other track to change its direction. It was on one of its rare outings out of the barn for a test run, and as it ran on petrol and was incredibly thirsty, only just enough fuel to get it home was ever put in its large tank.
I had been briefed that backing it up the slope back into the barn would require wiggling it from left to right to get the last of the fuel to slosh into the fuel line. I managed this tricky manoeuvre, and was rather pleased with myself for managing it so successfully until I walked around to the front to shut the barn doors.
There was my phone lying on the ground, neatly cracked by the iron tracks of the tractor.
Ever since then the phone has always gone into the buttoned leg pocket of my cargo trousers when I’ve operated an old machine.
It’s not just phones and vintage tractors though. Another evening session at work and I had just completed ploughing a two acre field, this time in a slightly more modern, Ford 4600 tractor. I parked up, walked around the field to examine my ploughing, went and locked up the farm buildings and returned to my car, just as the light was failing.
No car keys.
But they they were on the same ring as the key which had been in the tractor ignition, so they couldn’t have gone far, after all I’d only stopped the tractor a quarter of an hour before. I retraced my steps, looking all the while with a torch, no sign, I arrived back at the tractor, fully expecting to find them in the ignition switch...
...It was only after I’d checked the ignition and conducted a thorough search of the cab that I remembered my saunter around the field to look at bits of my completed ploughing job...
...As I looked out across the ploughed two acres in the dark, I sensed another phone call to my partner coming on....this time to drive over to the farm with my spare keys.
I don’t really know what the moral of all this is, but perhaps it is sufficient to conclude that if farmers always seem to have empty pockets, you’ll know they are either very wise, or have had a long day at work!
This has led to some of the more comical moments I have experienced on a farm and I think my experiences might resonate with anyone who has worked much outdoors.
For me, penknives seem to be the worst culprits. I always used to carry a pocket knife while at work; it was essential for everything from cutting bale strings, through sorting electric fence connections to trimming sheep’s feet. I don’t know how many knives I have got through simply from them falling out of the pocket.
And yes, I have tried putting them on a lanyard, but invariably this seems to cause more problems than it is worth. If you’ve ever tried passing a penknife on a lanyard to a colleague who wants to cut a bale string a few yards away, you’ll know what I mean- usually it doesn’t seem worth removing from the lanyard, and you’re not in a position to move properly, so you end up contorting yourself into something akin to a challenging yoga position to allow them the use of it.
I always found that cord a total menace anyway - Sheep having their feet trimmed had an uncanny knack of placing a kick straight on the trailing cord and messing up the whole operation, or it would get caught in brambles, or anything else one happened to be passing. I think I finally ditched the lanyard idea when it occurred to me what might happen if it was some moving machinery that I happened to be passing...
So instead, over the years, I have resigned myself to a steady attrition rate on penknives. I view it as my contribution to the archaeology of the future.
But it’s not just penknives. I remember vividly a tiny pot of medicinal cream that I needed to treat a sheep with. Normally, tasks like this I could achieve reasonably easily out in the field by putting a line of feed out in a trough, and with a bit of deft manoeuvring, I could grab and restrain the relevant ewe from the flock while she had her head in the trough.
There was however one particular sheep who appeared to disagree with this procedure. She was a rather flighty lass, a bought in ewe, and never had the inherent trust that most of our own-bred ewes had of me. If I loitered near the trough while the feed was down, she would always move to the opposite end, and keep looking up to check my whereabouts, or just not even come to the trough at all.
So I resorted to a plan B, which I really hoped would work (because all the other plans C through to Z meant a ton more work).When I checked the sheep in the evening, I sauntered in a nonchalant manner through the grazing flock, which they were fairly relaxed about, and I clocked the location of this particular ewe. Ambling around, with the air of Winnie the Pooh trying not to arouse the suspicion of the bees, I got myself to within a flying rugby tackle distance of the ewe. I waited for the moment she had her head down to graze and her eye line to me blocked by another sheep and I took my chance...
Two quick steps and a dive and my arms were around her neck, but she moved off like a thing possessed. Being a sheep with a breed weight of around two hundred pounds, it took a full ten yards, with me still relentlessly hanging on, before our combined mass brought her to a standstill. Pulling myself up from the unintended fairground ride, I was able to turn her over to prevent further escape.
Feeling quite pleased, if a little battered from being dragged over the bumpy scrubby field, I reached to my pocket for the tub of cream....
... it lay ten yards away at the point of my first tackle!
I paused for a bit to contemplate my next move. She was too heavy to manipulate over to the tub - if I righted her and attempted to walk her over, I knew there was an even chance she’d manage to get away from me, so flighty was she, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to catch her again. I decided my best chance was to set her on her back in a slight hollow where I was, knowing it would take her a good few seconds to right herself and make it to her feet, and gamble on my chances of making it to the tub and back in that time...
The next few seconds felt like the moment in a film where the countdown timer on the bomb is ticking off the last ten seconds. By the time I made the tub, she had rolled to her side and as I dived the last yard or two, she had two feet already on the ground. I did just about make it, and she was successfully treated, but made a mental note to self that one of plans C through to Z might be better next time!
The mobile phones in my pocket have a tough life too; I often thought I could get a job on the side testing them for survivability for the manufacturers, but unfortunately I have never been approached to do this! What is quite clear is that the designers of old tractors never had mobiles in mind when these old tractors were built, or they would have provided a little box next to the seat just to store them in. As things are, it turns out that if they fall out of your pocket whilst seated on an old tractor, they disappear straight to the ground, and with all the noise and vibration of the tractor around you, you are guaranteed not to notice for some time.
This happened to me twice. The first time I was using a TE20 and a scissor bar mower to cut a couple of acres of hay. As was often the way, it was well into the evening when I finished the task, and as I stopped to admire the cut field I reached to my pocket to check the time on my phone...
...Well I knew it had been there when I started mowing.
I had been nowhere else, and there was absolutely nowhere on the tractor that it could be hiding. Easy...it had to be somewhere in the field, just two acres, all covered with neat rows of just cut long grass. Fortunately, there was a landline not too far off, so I rang my long suffering partner and asked her to spend the next ten minutes repeatedly ringing my phone.
I did find it, but I often imagined what I would have looked like to a passer by. There I was wandering around the field until eventually diving into a random row of hay in the field to pull out and answer a phone. One can begin to see how country folk get a reputation for quirky behaviour!
The second time I did something similar was with an old tracked Fordson tractor. A great machine, it had iron tracks instead of wheels and was steered not with a steering wheel, but with two levers that braked one or other track to change its direction. It was on one of its rare outings out of the barn for a test run, and as it ran on petrol and was incredibly thirsty, only just enough fuel to get it home was ever put in its large tank.
I had been briefed that backing it up the slope back into the barn would require wiggling it from left to right to get the last of the fuel to slosh into the fuel line. I managed this tricky manoeuvre, and was rather pleased with myself for managing it so successfully until I walked around to the front to shut the barn doors.
There was my phone lying on the ground, neatly cracked by the iron tracks of the tractor.
Ever since then the phone has always gone into the buttoned leg pocket of my cargo trousers when I’ve operated an old machine.
It’s not just phones and vintage tractors though. Another evening session at work and I had just completed ploughing a two acre field, this time in a slightly more modern, Ford 4600 tractor. I parked up, walked around the field to examine my ploughing, went and locked up the farm buildings and returned to my car, just as the light was failing.
No car keys.
But they they were on the same ring as the key which had been in the tractor ignition, so they couldn’t have gone far, after all I’d only stopped the tractor a quarter of an hour before. I retraced my steps, looking all the while with a torch, no sign, I arrived back at the tractor, fully expecting to find them in the ignition switch...
...It was only after I’d checked the ignition and conducted a thorough search of the cab that I remembered my saunter around the field to look at bits of my completed ploughing job...
...As I looked out across the ploughed two acres in the dark, I sensed another phone call to my partner coming on....this time to drive over to the farm with my spare keys.
I don’t really know what the moral of all this is, but perhaps it is sufficient to conclude that if farmers always seem to have empty pockets, you’ll know they are either very wise, or have had a long day at work!