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Farm Kids….Awesome


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Hell yeah!  I didn't grow up on a farm, but the old man had a ton of shit, one was an old 1947 Minneapolis Moline he bought from the City of Richfield (In Minnesota) that was previously used for moving snow - had a great front end loader setup on it.... I was pretty good with it by 10.  Hardest part was pushing that clutch pedal... 

Edited by Mag6240
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i think many from my generation could drive by 10 years old. we had the opportunity to drive stuff where today's kids just drive their phones. we had a mile long shale bank that we all learned to drive in. my friend's dad would tow cars home for us, typically vw beetles. good on fuel we could take turns all week for 5.00. eventually we tapped out the beetle supply and got bigger cars. 70 chevelle wagon with a 307, we all fit, good on gas, and it ripped good for a big car. eventually got a dodge monaco that would couldn't keep gas in. we had a junkyard in a hole in the shale bank, the town came and said the cars had to go, he said what cars. they saw them from a plane and we had to get them out. when we hit the roads at 16 we were ready to rip!

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Plenty of farm kids go to college but plenty don't.   Lets make the ones that don't pay for all those crappy degrees worth nothing. 

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Pretty cool to see them getting the kids involved.  It's funny how some love driving and other's couldn't care less.

That guy is pretty small too.  He's a long way from the seat back.

Buddies kids love driving except one.  They all started in the grain carts pretty young.  Two of them could contour around power poles and stay under the auger by that age.  Then, they did unloads into semis parked on deep ditch township roads.  That is an impressive feat.  Drive out onto the road and back along the truck while straddling the shoulder with 60k on the cart.  There is no room for screw ups.  Those two also hopped into semis dang early.  It's amazing how well they manage the clutch with full trucks in the field.

The one thing those kids can't do well is mud.  New farm equipment doesn't "feel" like the old stuff.  There was a lot of feedback when things started to get juicy and you learned how to "drive" when conditions went south.  The kids don't know they are getting into trouble with mud until they're damn near stuck.  There aren't many options left by that point.

It's funny @Mag6240, with the clutch.  I had one heck of a time with some of those when I was learning.  I basically stood on the pedal.  Nowadays, we don't have much left with a real clutch pedal and you can shift with a finger.

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A new kid moved into my neighborhood and a Volvo PV 444 was left in the yard by the previous owners. I think it was a 1944 model. We were 9 years old and the car wasn’t running and was pretty ratted out, this was 1964. A bunch of us got it running and drove the shit out of it in the woods for a few years. It’s when we all learned to drive a stick. It was fun till Norman hit a tree trying to jump it. This was a weird car for that time and there were very few foreign cars then.

it looked like this…

 

98D7EA00-6327-4A90-93BB-782657DFBA54.jpeg

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23 minutes ago, Mainecat said:

A new kid moved into my neighborhood and a Volvo PV 444 was left in the yard by the previous owners. I think it was a 1944 model. We were 9 years old and the car wasn’t running and was pretty ratted out, this was 1964. A bunch of us got it running and drove the shit out of it in the woods for a few years. It’s when we all learned to drive a stick. It was fun till Norman hit a tree trying to jump it. This was a weird car for that time and there were very few foreign cars then.

it looked like this…

 

98D7EA00-6327-4A90-93BB-782657DFBA54.jpeg

I had a 1958 looked almost just like that, it had a rollup blind in front of the radiator with a handle on the dash you could pull to warm it up.

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1 hour ago, sleepybrew said:

i think many from my generation could drive by 10 years old. we had the opportunity to drive stuff where today's kids just drive their phones. we had a mile long shale bank that we all learned to drive in. my friend's dad would tow cars home for us, typically vw beetles. good on fuel we could take turns all week for 5.00. eventually we tapped out the beetle supply and got bigger cars. 70 chevelle wagon with a 307, we all fit, good on gas, and it ripped good for a big car. eventually got a dodge monaco that would couldn't keep gas in. we had a junkyard in a hole in the shale bank, the town came and said the cars had to go, he said what cars. they saw them from a plane and we had to get them out. when we hit the roads at 16 we were ready to rip!

I grew up near a farm that had old useless apple trees around the edges. We used to have an old ford falcon that we would drive around the edges of the field.

1 kid drove , the others chucked apple drops at him. Who ever hit him in the head ( didnt have to be in the head , but when you are 12 the head is the only body part above the door ) they got to drive.

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7 minutes ago, steve from amherst said:

I grew up near a farm that had old useless apple trees around the edges. We used to have an old ford falcon that we would drive around the edges of the field.

1 kid drove , the others chucked apple drops at him. Who ever hit him in the head ( didnt have to be in the head , but when you are 12 the head is the only body part above the door ) they got to drive.

Reminds me of our friend who collected golf balls at the driving range. He drove around in a old VW bug with a collector on the front. A bunch of us would use him as a target…lol

Food times……no video games then.

Edited by Mainecat
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7 minutes ago, ACE said:

My 9 year old did his first solo hopper a couple days ago. 

That’s awesome…maybe there is hope for the future.

Edited by Jimmy Snacks
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Didn't grow up on a farm but wasn't in a big city either.  Was probably 18 when I ran one of these for a summer. 12 hour shifts plus drive time 6-7 days per week for the summer.  Harvest speed was about 3 mph so it was a long boring shift.  Luckily these had a radio and mostly functioning AC.  

image.thumb.png.c676c806da7a9d05175e00b9ba8f694a.png

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2 hours ago, 1jkw said:

I had a 1958 looked almost just like that, it had a rollup blind in front of the radiator with a handle on the dash you could pull to warm it up.

Those old 44 Volvos are worth 60k

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1 hour ago, Mainecat said:

Those old 44 Volvos are worth 60k

I pulled the engine and used the radiator on an AC tractor in the mid 70's, where the engine was stored flooded and it got junked, too bad.

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Just got off the phone with a local friend, 20 years old now, went on the midwest harvest crew from texas to montana when he was only 17.  He just got back from "vacation" for a week was in South Dakota helping a fella he's never met before with wheat harvest.  Guy farms 10,000 acres of wheat and safflower and has no help.  Kid thinks he's gonna quit his union rail road job here and head back out and work for the guy full time for a while and see how it goes.  I told him go for it, life's too short to wonder.  

When he was 15 I coulda choked him but he's come a long way.  Didn't grow up on a farm just came around to help here and there.

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one of our victims was a 1965 chevy malibu. what a shame to field car that thing. but cars like that were 50.00 in the pennysaver. 12.50 each and the 4 of us had some good fun. vw was the best for us. tough little car and i mean beetle , not super beetle. we had one jump that was a long gradual runup ad the top dropped off to level. come in floored in 3rd gear and send her. when i got on the roads i built a baja bug that was pretty nasty. i was a maniac. i was jumping on back roads the same way , scaring the shit out of people. power slide corners on back roads? fuck yeah, all night . party in the woods , quarry or point? no problem . reputation of a crazy bastard and tickets to match ? fuck yeah!

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26 minutes ago, spin_dry said:

Seems like there was always a farm kid in school that tangled with a corn picker and was missing an appendage 

Rock pickers And bailers 

 

PTO shafts are very dangerous 

Edited by ACE
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9 hours ago, Mag6240 said:

Hell yeah!  I didn't grow up on a farm, but the old man had a ton of shit, one was an old 1947 Minneapolis Moline he bought from the City of Richfield (In Minnesota) that was previously used for moving snow - had a great front end loader setup on it.... I was pretty good with it by 10.  Hardest part was pushing that clutch pedal... 

We had a old allis . Hardest part was cranking it over with the Handel you stuck in the fr . I could start it about 1/2 the times I tried by 11 yrs old . Pretty much always to get my 79 atc 110 unstuck lol

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