A winter like this one is tough on everyone, and no easier on equipment than people. If something is going to break in a manner that is catastrophic, it will probably happen when there’s snow up to your eyebrows and the temperature is minus something or other. My children’s father often came in for a cup of coffee and a call to the parts department while shaking his head and mumbling, “Tired Iron.”
We want to depend on the big machines being infallible, but that will get a body in trouble. One winter, probably mid-80’s, we had a “new to us” big tractor with 4-wheel drive. While feeding the herd, my husband and I were in the pickup, and our son played Super Hero in the tractor. We drove around a drift and looked back to see Superman headed right through the middle of what we had avoided. The middle was as far as he got. There was a stack mover loaded with bales hooked on, and the whole shebang sat in snow up to the axles. Luckily, it was a warm sunny day. We found three shovels, and were long past having breath for cursing or blaming after a couple of hours, when the county payloader came along to clear a drift on the road a hundred yards ahead. I’ve never been so glad to see a big yellow machine in my life.
That was the winter we took four clutches out of the 4 wheel drive pickup while getting around to feed cattle. When the transfer case began to go, we drove it to North Platte, knowing we’d be driving something else home, because that one wouldn’t make the trip. After the deal was made, Bob made sure to tell the salesman to get our handyman jack and shovels out of the pickup bed. “We certainly will,” he was told. As we prepared to drive the new rig off, Bob looked in the back. “Where’s my shovel and jack?” he asked. The shop guys said they’d go get it, but soon returned with bad news. “Sorry, your pickup was sold and the fellow just left with it.” We weren’t happy, but I reckon the feller that drove ours off was even more disgusted. At least he got a new handyman and shovel out of the deal, and he was going to need both. On the way home, Bob remarked that he’d never imagined he’d pay ten grand for a pickup. You can barely buy the tires for that these days.
That was also the year the National Guard came in with caterpillars to open the roads. They had to push the snow way back so county crews could continue plowing when drifts formed again. Some roadside fences were destroyed but we didn’t complain. Fencing is easier than shoveling snow.
This year’s early drifts are so hard that the county machinery is breaking right and left when they try to get through. Half the equipment is down and some of the parts needed are months out from being shipped. The workers are exhausted, physically and emotionally, as are law enforcement, from working long hours in life threatening conditions, to rescue folks who should never have left home. It’s not just the iron that is tired. Yes, it’s frustrating to be snowed in, or having to travel one way roads around huge chunks of snow that are too hard to move. But those workers are all doing their best, on any given day. Let’s all cut one another some slack, and try to do likewise.