Well I was really tired yesterday evening so I just didn’t get to the blog. Standing up nearly all day, selling tickets and handing out brochures was a big load. This year we did have the help we needed so it went a lot easier than it did 2 years ago… we never had a line bigger than maybe 15 people waiting, where 2 years ago we had the line backed up 300 yards and couldn’t get it dwindled down. So the help and a better system for us worked well. The crowd was really good and we whizzed through all the arm bands for the day as well as all the hand out buttons that had been reserved. We even went through a lot of last years buttons as an alternative pretty cool stuff the buttons and there are plenty of people that collect them… Since they pulled out some old ones, I did get a small collection started myself…
I missed finding a 2010 button? may have to look for that one somewhere? I have personally made the 2012 and 2014 shows… very interesting and as I was told the Steam Park (which is the Pawnee fair grounds) is classified as a State Museum and will give tours but nothing like when you see it all running like at the show…
I did take a few minutes to walk out some kinks yesterday at about the end of the show… having stood for so long a walk seemed the best way to limber out some of the sore muscles so I briskly walked the line of tractors and found one that was way too familiar… When I was growing up on the farm I sat on one of these for hours on end… long days plowing and working the fields and ours didn’t have the spring loaded seat but it was a flat bar run out to the seat and that seat swung back and forth in rough ground and would whack you legs till they were black and blue in the inside but standing straddle of it was about the only really safe way to hang on…
I remember on long , smoother, pulls I could set on the fender which was a bit out and out of the dust… that damn seat was always in the hot part, behind the engine and in the dust when the wind was wrong. Spent plenty of days and multiple summers on one just like that…
You always wonder what makes so many people take old equipment and fix it up and then bring it to shows like this, which as I understand there are shows in all the farm states and they run from late April through the summer into the fall with thrashing shows late in the fall. Anyway, as I was walking I think I found one of the answers why so many spend so much time and effort in this facet of mechanical change…
That sign summed it up… fond memories as well as all the others are made through activities like this… a much simpler time and way of life existed with most all these types of machines… in fact they got us outside more as well? Didn’t have all those fancy gadgets to keep us inside so we learned how to have fun with out them and do most all of it outside…
Further on my walk I run in to, of all people….
Rooster Cogburn on his rounds looking for outlaws or trouble makers…. Glad he wasn’t looking for me!… Pawnee is just full of history!…
Toward the end of the day there is always a parade around the main grounds and then there is extra movement for others that just want to show there handwork…
this guy came around with a horseshoe stage coach… interesting piece of rolling equipment.. behind his old tractor that had been redone…
At the end of my day I made it home, and just plain gave up… when the kid got back form a family function in Kansas we all went out to El Vaquero for dinner and had some fine fajitas and every one seemed pretty please with the meal… back home and shower and to bed for me… it had been a really long day.
Today, was a really slow start, had some Grandson time… and some short family visits before they had to head back to Dallas…
Little brother causing a problem here…
Too bad the weekend was so short… but then again as a grandparent we can’t handle too much of that fun time…
Spent much of the rest of my day resting up, doing little odd jobs and chores, like laundry, and the evening was for a few more Ham Radio contacts… working my weekly sked with KD8IE…
WD0AJG