Ganging Agley

Appeared in Pioneer Press newspapers

September 30, 2010

Poetry being an even more romantically non-remunerative endeavor than farming, Robert Burns, the Scots national poet, had to supplement his versifying by working the land, earning him the sobriquet of “The Ploughman Poet.”  I’m not much of either of those things, but I had a highly Burnsian experience the other day.

Our north and east fields hadn’t been cut all season.  We didn’t have the equipment, and our focus has been on getting the house built.  So, the fields were about up to my neck.  But I was told that they wouldn’t grow in right next year if I didn’t get them cut this, so I went at it. 

I borrowed a beauty of a John Deere 4320 (almost sounds like I know what I’m talking about, doesn’t it)?  It’s a nice, big hunk of tractor.  Ron, my Deere guy (yes, I now have a Deere guy) showed me what I needed to know to get going – and so I did.

And it was kind of a blast.  It went through that high growth like it was nothing at all. And, as I cruised along, I noticed a field mouse, running on ahead of me, doing everything he could to get out of my way. I’d see him dashing through the leavings in the last row I’d cut, rising over the top and diving back under, reminding me of the pair of cheetahs I’d seen bring down a gazelle in the Serengeti – just a rustling in the tall grass till they resurfaced like a wave over the crest of the savannah and brought down their kill.

All of which put me in mind of Rabbie Burns and, probably, his best-known poem, “To A Mouse,” in which he disturbs said rodent’s nest in his role as ploughman, sending his poet side into some lyrical, fellow-travelers-to-the-grave stuff.  The poem contains perhaps his most quoted line, “The best-laid schemes of mice and men oft go awry,” or, as it’s rendered in his Scots’ pidgin, “aft gang agley.”

In any case, I was glad he got away.

I’d quickly knocked off the first half of the north field when Lis arrived with our neighbor, Marie. So, I turned off the Deere and clambered down to chat a bit.

It had occurred to me that Ron hadn’t shown me how to refuel the beast – presumably because it was too simple and self evident to bother with.  But, making my way around the tractor, it was not all that simple.  Nor self evident.

I asked the ladies for their thoughts.  Lis isn’t experienced with tractors – but, again, how hard can it be?  And Marie, who used to spend six hours a week cutting around her big, beautiful place, does know a thing or two.  So, we looked it over. 

We found one orange cap clearly marked “Oil”.  So, not there.  And we found another, smallish cap marked with an icon of a kind of tank containing a droplet. So, could be that.  There was a dip stick in the neighborhood, so it occurred to me that it might be oil.  But we just couldn’t find anything else that looked like a gas tank – a feature that is wonderfully obvious on my smaller Deere mower.  So, the panel concluded this must be it.  Marie did ask if this big rig might take diesel.  But Ron hadn’t mentioned it.  There was no operator’s manual.  And my smaller machine took regular gas.  So we went with that.

And it ran just fine.  I finished the north field and rode down to the east one, along the creek. And I’d happily knocked off about half of it -- wondering all the way why I was getting a flashing exclamation point on the dash, along with a message reading “Lo Fuel” -- which was crazy, because, after careful deliberation, I’d just filled the tank, right? – when it briefly sputtered and stopped flat.

Could it already be out of gas?  Well, maybe it just burns that much.  It did say “Lo Fuel”.  So, I added some more.  And nothing.

So, I looked around.  And it was then that I figured out how to open the little plastic hatch thing, up in front of the steering wheel, that I couldn’t get open before.  But that couldn’t matter, right, because who’d put the gas tank there . . . on top . . . with no words or symbol to indicate it’s there?  Well, turns out John Deere would.

Sure enough, when I flipped that hatch open, there was an obvious gas cap.  With the word “Diesel” on it.  Yeah, I’d filled the oil tank with gas.

So, I called Ron, and he talked me through it.  Drain the oil/gas mixture – about 16 quarts’ worth.  Put back that much just-plain-oil.  And fill the right tank with the right fuel. Check, check, and check.  And nuthin’.  Just that sad, sad sound of an engine not starting.

But I’m a farmer now – resourceful and undaunted. And embarrassed.  I would get this thing to work!  Unless I didn’t.

And, ultimately, after toying with me some more, it did start up. And I finished the field and got it back into the barn.

But not until I’d spent a couple of grim hours, stranded in that half-cut field, reflecting on – and loudly cursing – my cruel fate. And that’s when Burns and his mouse came back to me.  My day had ganged seriously agley.  But, in the end, it proved to be a good one.  I’d been neither helpless nor hopeless.  Some of my instincts had been on target – if not quite sufficiently.  I’d asked the right questions – though I’d answered them wrongly.  I’d learned a few things.  And both the mouse and I lived to tell the tale.