other dog

I know I've told this story before, but it's been a while. True story, almost a "FAFO" situation. I almost found out the hard way. I was picking corn after school, by myself. I was 17 years old. Driving a Ford 5000 tractor with a mounted picker. My dad had already gone home, I was going to finish that field up and come on in myself. The tractor and picker looked about like this, but I think this is a 4000 tractor. The corn went up that chute and into the wagon, and when you got to the end of the row you just pulled a lever and the chute would stop running, otherwise the corn would just fall onto the ground when you were turning. Then when you got straight on the next row you turned it on again and the corn dropped into the wagon. I was in the process of turning, the chute was off, but everything else was running, and I reached back to clear some shucks away that had built up. And something grabbed the sleeve of my jacket. It happened so fast, just in an instant, that all I had time to do was think about how stupid I was to get killed like that, after hearing all my life that you never did anything to anything until you shut the machine off. I knew better, but it was a momentary lapse of reason. And then the entire sleeve of that jacket ripped off, right at the shoulder. I could hardly believe that I didn't get sucked into the corn picker and ground to bits. Then I stopped the tractor, stopped the corn picker, dug the sleeve out, and took it and the rest of the jacket way down into the woods and hid it. I was shaking like a leaf. I finished the field and drove the tractor home, shaking from the cold then, because I had no jacket. But I still considered myself extremely lucky because it could have been so much worse. That was over 50 years ago, and I never told either of my parents about it, until the day they passed away.

Yes, I probably still have a scar on my ankle from when I fell out of a tree and a piece of broken glass was on the ground and cut me just above my ankle. It was a pretty deep cut, but nobody threw me in a car and rushed me to the doctor. My Mom probably cleaned it off and put a band-aid on it. It wasn't my fault I fell, the limb I was on broke, but I didn't try to sue the limb, or the tree. 🤣

That's the truth! Me and my brothers were using chain saws cutting firewood - we survived not even wearing hard hats, chaps, or safety vests- when we were kids, driving tractors, baling hay, combining grain with a pull type combine, picking corn, plowing, bush hogging, we did it all. I remember driving the tractor in the hayfield before I even started school! Nowadays they'd want to be throwing your parents in jail for child abuse, when actually it was the best upbringing I could have had as far as I'm concerned.

That's one of, if not THE best looking Freightliner I've ever seen.

Here's a few of my favorites. There was over 300 trucks in the parade, each banner costs $250, and some trucks had 2, 3, and more banners on them. That's a lot of money raised for the American Cancer Society. Over $2 million since they started doing it, this was the 25th. year..

We're at the Truckers Parade Against Cancer again this year. Just waiting for the parade to start, that's not until 3:30. I have a few more truck pictures that I'll post when I get home, the phone signal isn't that great here.

A '98 CH, single axle.

Yes, I always thought the same thing. Zina asked me one time if I'd ever been to Louisville, and I said "no, that's mostly for chromed out plastic trucks, I can ride around the truck stop parking lot and see plenty of them".

That blue high binder in Mt. Airy looks fantastic! I saw a bright yellow GMC in a picture on another post that looked good too. My next door neighbor when I lived in Gladys went, he has a blue and white cabover KW.

You're welcome.

I've never been to the Cherokee show. Took some long bridge girders down there on steerable dollies one time. But, it's almost 6 hours from here, and Colfax is a little over 2 hours, so Colfax it is.

We thought about going to Mt. Airy, but that's as far as we got. Zina was volunteering at the Concord Volunteer Rescue Squad's fund raiser. They sold Brunswick stew and hot dogs. Stew is going for $10 a quart now, and all this was pre-sold. Zina was steaming the hotdog buns. We're hoping to make the Colfax show, it's one of our favorites but one that something always seems to come up so we can't go. It's been weather most times, but one year we were all ready to go when we realized that we had already missed it, we were a week late!

Tony Youngblood had that truck, and he did end up selling it. I did know who bought it, but I can't remember now. Tony Youngblood is THE MAN when it comes to Bighorns. People were laughing and making fun of it on Facebook, saying it was way too much money, but they didn't even realize what it was. They seemed to think it would be a good truck for a chip hauler, or to haul containers out of the port, and there were plenty of them around, and the price was just ridiculous. Little did they know...

The man over where you register told us Saturday morning that there was only 150-some trucks there. They had always had over 200, and they could handle twice that many. I thought it looked like the fewest trucks I'd ever seen there, and it was. Gregg Hoffman, "underdog" on BMT, said it pretty much looked like a ghost town by noon on Saturday, and it never rained more than maybe a sprinkle until almost dark. We left around 10:30 am and it rained most of the way home.

Yep, I drove the CH up there. We got there a day early so I could beat the rain and parked there all by myself. Zina drove the support vehicle, the Zinamobile Titan. Got over there the next morning and Scott Dapper, with the blue KW, and farmer52 were standing there looking at the Mack. Scott was wondering who the jackass was that had parked in the area where he always parks.

I've decided to sell the big green International that runs now too, and just kind of focus on the Mack. Most everybody knows the story, after many headaches with it it runs great now. Has a brand new gas tank on it, and freshly rebuilt carburetor. Recently had the radiator repaired. it's old, it's original, it's not a truck that you can jump in and run 70 mph. up the interstate, but you can jump in it and drive 55 all day long. Has a 401 engine, runs great, 5 speed transmission, and a 2 speed rear end. It looks and drives great, a head turner for sure. We drove it on about a hundred mile round trip in the Truckers Parade Against Cancer last year, and about the same miles to the Cumberland County Christmas Parade- where we won first place in the antique vehicle category by the way- with zero issues. I just don't need it, and seldom drive it. It turned out to be not the truck we were looking for, something that we could just get in and take off to parts unknown. I'm asking $14,000 for this unit, and again- less than I paid for it, and i've spent a lot on it since I got it, for things like gas tanks, radiator repairs, carburetor kits, carburetor spacers, paint, etc.

I made cowboy candy today, and some dehydrated crushed pepper flakes. Kind of tired of fooling with all these peppers. One more batch of hot sauce and I'll probably call it quits.

Nope, just make it and give it away.

I cooked up another batch of hot sauce this morning. Got a lot made already, this is the 3rd. or 4th. batch of the year, plus I've made a lot of cowboy candy, that's the candied jalapenos. I made some sauce out of just jalapenos today, that's the green sauce. Tasted pretty good, I might make some more of that, there's still a lot of peppers left in the garden.

I was standing there and two other guys were talking about it. One was wondering how much it cost, and the other one said he didn't know but just a body like that was around $150,000. I don't know what they did with it either, if it was a dump body, walking floor, or spreader. It would hold enough shavings for 14 chicken houses, or enough sand and salt to go from here to Cleveland before they had to reload. 🤣

Strange things can happen. I was coming back from somewhere around the Philadelphia area after I'd delivered one of those big air conditioner units that go on top of a building. I was empty, it was only a few days before Christmas. It was snowing and the road was pretty much covered. I was sitting at the red light right there where 896 ran into rt. 40. I was on 896, going to keep straight and take rt. 301. This girl in a car, going way too fast, came up to the light and when she hit the brakes she did about 3 complete 360's and ended up perfectly straight in the left turn lane behind several other cars just like she had driven there. Never touched a thing.

happy birthday!

Here's what I got. there wasn't that many trucks there this year, so I took 100 pictures of the same truck. https://www.flickr.com/photos/28526133@N04/albums/72177720329348252

Final results.