These are in the barn of the ranch I'm working at now...

I know that the old ladies I work for inherited the place from their grandfather, who homesteaded it. It's 160 acres.

I know he raised cattle and farmed it.

Here's a photo of his old tractor and stock trailer....





Look at how small both are.

No wonder they ran out of daylight when working a homestead...

We are spoiled now. I know I am.

I think that's a B Farmall. The rear tires are 9-24's IIRC? The seat is offset so you could look right down the row when cultivating.

I guess it was a step up from a team, probably could pull about the same.

You have sharper eyes than I do Doctor Dan, I had to look closer.

It's on rubber at least.

How about that stock trailer?

You may get 3-4 calves in it. Or one pair..cow-calf.

I'd hate to try and haul a very big bull in there.


My grandad had a steel stock trailer not much bigger than that one though.

That old trailer reminds me of the cattle racks that farmers used to use on their pickups for hauling livestock. I still have a set of those truck racks somewhere around the place. I'll never forget seeing a pickup going down the road, with a big load of hogs or cattle in the back, and wondering if they were going to make it. Farming sure was different back then.

I think you are right!





There was an old disk plow out in the pasture that was rusted down badly. I moved it to an erosion ditch at the owner's request. I was thinking how I'd have hated to plow that much ground with that old, lightweight disk...

We had a neighbor that was by local standards a pretty big time operator. One field was a creek bottom that was probably over 200 acres.

"A" John Deere and 3-14" pull type moldboard plow. When time to plow, you could hear the Johnny Popper at 5am clear through till past midnight.

Les was hard of hearing.

Years ago the neighbor had an smaller John Deere tractor, but it had the offset seat like the "B" and pulled a single plow. . I hauled it in the back of a 70 Dodge 3/4T.

What Model was that?

Later I bought a John Deere 40. I think it was about a 1950 vintage.

I think that you are correct. If it was an A, it would be on a wide front-end if I have it right.

The old open horse trailers remind me of Clower's story.

Maybe member DanH can post a pic of their reindeer rack for the pickup!

Tiny was a Spots (formerly Spotted Poland China). Tiny weighed 1,000 pounds at one point, but he dropped down to 940 after being hauled to fairs in Spencer, St. Paul, and smaller venues. He also became rather ill-tempered. At the time, Sioux City offered a dollar-a-pound bonus to the heaviest hog sold in the month of June. My cousin, Ron,proud owner of Tiny, went out to feed the hogs. He was walking along, minding his own business, when Tiny emerged from around the corn crib, going hell-bent-for-election with mayhem in his eyes. Ron successfully employed a strategic withdrawal at an even higher rate of speed. Help was collected (I was in 7th grade and although I was on the premises, I was banned from participation), and Tiny was eventually relocated to a more secure location. (When first approached by the posse, he was engaged in the activity which freed him in the first place - he would grasp the woven wire fence in his mouth and walk backward until the staples popped. This ties into the current thread in that the next morning, the ancient pick-up with the sideboards went creaking down the lane on the way to the processor with Tiny's back showing over the top of the boards. Rod had decided "t'ell wit the June premium".

50-60 years ago the ubiquitous goose neck livestock trailer didn't exist in these parts. A single axle 2 ton truck was the standard conveyance, with a wooden rack to contain the livestock.

One week a nasty bull showed up at the salebarn. He tore up multiple gates and fences at the barn in the hours before the auction.

Bets were no way he would stay on a truck all the way to St. Joe.

Rance was an old trucker and bought him on the cheap. A lot of the crowd came out to watch the bull destroy his truck and get away.

The bull ran on the truck-Rance had a piece of #9 wire-with a slip loop tied on one end. Stuck that trough the rack around the bulls scrotum and quick tied his end down.

Bull stood at attention and never moved for the 70 mile ride

"When you've got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds follow."

That's what she said.....

A friend of mine (who is gone now) farmed 160 acres of wheat with a Johnny Popper for twenty years back in the late 40's to late sixties. Times have changed.

The tractor in the photo is beautiful and it is nice it is back in the family.

Now we know why he stopped at 160 acres.
All he had time for!

Saddlesore, probably an L or LA. They didn't have much power. Around here, the B and an occasional H were about the smallest used. My old JD mechanic friend had an L. It looked like a garden tractor!

http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/000/0/2/28-john-deere-l.html

[quote=AnsonRogers


Saddlesore, probably an L or LA. They didn't have much power. Around here, the B and an occasional H were about the smallest used. My old JD mechanic friend had an L. It looked like a garden tractor!

http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/000/0/2/28-john-deere-l.html[/quote]

That looks like it.As I said it was smaller and I hauled it in pickup bed.Used mostly for plowing my garden

The L is a cute thing, about like a Farmall A.