Driving the Tractor – It’s Different Every Time

Living a self-sufficient lifestyle means we need to learn many skills, such as driving the tractor,  that aren’t needed in any other environment. But the tangible skills aren’t enough, it also takes a self-sufficient mindset. This is a mindset that allows you to be flexible and adaptable, be solution-orientated and not be afraid to try something different.

When it comes to putting out hay for the horses, you need to know how to check all the oils and water on the tractor, know how to drive it and where to put the hay for the horses. But you also need the mindset to fix whatever challenges come up. Because they always do when you live in close proximity to nature.

For the six months of the year that our horses can’t go out on the range, we have to feed them hay. This involves putting out three 1,500lb round bales of hay every nine days with the tractor then covering them with hay nets. A 1,500lb bale of hay is about 6ft tall, long and wide.

During my time at the ranch I have unloaded the hay truck with the tractor and put out bales of hay many times. I have moved the bales from the hay truck or hay field to the corral with both the tractor and the skidder, as well as rolling them out by hand or pulling them out with my pick up truck when the tractor was broken down. I have operated the skidder and bulldozer on the logging site to skid logs to the landings. So I would seem to be well-qualified to put out the hay with the tractor.

But the challenges that came up meant I needed more than just these physical skills.

It had been a while since I’d driven the tractor so I read over the procedure to make sure I remembered everything. I checked the radiator for antifreeze, the hydraulic oil, motor oil, power steering fluid and diesel. The power steering fluid had a leak so we knew we needed to fill this up every time. The hydraulic oil was also low.

I started the tractor with the starting fluid, after having to double check where I put this. With the starting fluid sprayed in the right place, it started up right away.

While the tractor warmed up, I went to the shop and found a bucket with just a drop of hydraulic oil left. I got a funnel and poured as much as I could into the tractor but I had to pull the lid off the oil bucket to get the rest out. There wasn’t enough so I went back to the shop and looked harder. There, hiding behind the oxy-acetalyne tanks, was a brand new bucket. It was heavy so I wrestled it up into the cab and poured it into the oil intake until it started to run out the overflow. Then I got the 15W 40 oil for the power steering fluid. This was motor oil, but the old tractor was tough and as the oil ran out so fast, motor oil did just fine in place of real power steering fluid. For someone without a self-sufficient mindset, the fact that their equipment could run on anything other than the designated oil would be unthinkable. If it leaked oil at all, that would make the equipment useless to them. But we know how to make it work and get the job done.

With the oils all topped up and the tractor warmed up, it was time to go! I drove out from beside the shop, following in the tractor tracks from the last time we’d put out hay to make it easier going on the tractor. Getting up the hill to the hay corral was mostly plain sailing.

I parked the tractor on a flat spot, got out and opened the gate, then climbed up on the giant bales to pull the plastic off the three that I wanted to get out. They were stacked in a pyramid, two on the bottom, one on the top, about ten rows deep. There was one bale left on the bottom left side, so I would take this, the top bale from the next row and one of the two on the bottom row. I had a plan and now I was ready to go.

I drove through the gate and up the little hill in the corral. I turned left towards the bales but when I tried to straighten up, the tractor kept on sliding to the left. After backing up and trying again a few times with the same result, I realized that under a thin covering of snow, I was driving on a sheet of ice, that was why the tractor was sliding. I thought this first bale would be the only problem one as the next row would have more dry ground as this had been covered by the row in front until recently. So I effectively slid into the bottom left bale, but instead of sliding the bale fork neatly into the centre of the bale like I was supposed to, I got it on the side and broke the net holding the bale together when I tried to lift it up.

With the icy ground, anyone without a self-sufficient mindset (if they had somehow got this far) would now have given up. Instead, I drove the tractor out of the corral and walked back to assess the situation and make a new plan. Giving up wasn’t an option. If I didn’t get the hay out, the horses couldn’t eat. There was no one else who was going to do this for me. It was my responsibility. It was time to put the self-sufficient mindset into practice.

I thought if I drove further up, I would get above the icy part and could go in to get the top bale from the next row – the broken bale was far enough out of the way that I could get to the next row.

I tried this out but the tractor still slid into the bale. I drove the tractor back out of the hay corral and quickly made a new plan. I needed traction on the ice. So I gathered up some of the hay from the broken bale which was now scattered by the fence. I put mats of hay on top of the icy parts.

Then I got the tractor and tried again. Easy! The hay gave me all the traction I needed to drive over the ice, spike the bale, back out, drive into the field and dump the bale on its end. Two minutes to get a bale out – that was how it was supposed to go!

The second bale went just as easy, but now I’d made two icy patches at the bottom of the hill coming into the corral. The tractor wouldn’t drive over them. I tried to drive up the hill slightly to the left, so avoiding the icy patches but this didn’t work out, the gate was narrow and I couldn’t move over far enough. So I backed up and got some more hay to cover the ice.

It worked and I got the third bale out, with only slight difficulty as I had to lift it over the broken bale and I ended up spreading the broken bale out more in the process.

I put out the last bale, cut the plastic netting then threw the rope hay nets over each bale and pulled them into place. Now I had to do something with the broken bale. The plastic that I used to recover the hay stack didn’t reach over to the broken bale. If I left it uncovered, the hay would be ruined next time it snowed, or rained when we got into spring. I was being responsible and needed to hold myself accountable to not waste the hay that I’d broken. The horses could eat the bale in the corral once all the other bales had been eaten, but that would be four or more months from now.

So I cut some of the excess plastic off the hay stack and covered the broken bale with it. I weighed the plastic down with logs so it wouldn’t blow off. Then I collected up the hay that I’d used for traction and loaded it into the tractor bucket and took it back down the hill and piled it into the goat house. The goats were very appreciative for their hay, bleating at me and tucking in immediately.

I drove the tractor back to the shop, parked it and now the horses could be let out to eat their fresh hay. Although I’d put out hay for the horses many times, I knew it was different every time, because of challenges like the weather, or the equipment not working as expected. I needed a self-sufficient mindset to work out a solution and get the job done.

Charlie, UK