I see this shit almost every day on my road, the only difference being I live on a two lane road with ditches on both sides and no shoulder. If you're driving down my road and see an oncoming truck with its emergency flashers going and the driver waving a red flag out of his window, you better start looking for a driveway to pull into, because there's a sprayer or a big-ass tractor a hundred yards behind him.
Same here. The sprayers are the worst. Must be hired out because they are always cruising pretty fast. The big tractors run a lot slower, pulling or not.
ReplyDeleteFarm equipment and amish buggys on my road is a feature, not a bug!
I get pissed off at the people who get pissed off that there are ag machinery on the road.
DeleteWe have that here in rural SW Michigan too more days than not. I love living out in the country. It keeps the yuppies away.
ReplyDeleteNot really. Our two lane would shut down to a crawl because some city yahoo has to slow way down - or even stop without pulling out - to look and take pics of cows in the field.
DeleteHaving lived on a farm all my life [retired from farming four years ago] I've driven combines and large tractors on gravel roads with zero room to meet any kind of traffic. For the most part, the people traveling the opposite way are polite and pull into any available driveway or field to allow the big stuff to pass. It's hard to pull a combine far enough to the side to allow traffic past going either way, but if I had a long stretch ahead of me, I often pulled way over into the ditch to allow someone following to not have to follow for a long period. Politeness works both ways.
ReplyDeleteI live on a county highway that has a fair amount of traffic I am on a short straightaway between a couple s curves its a fun road to zing down on a bike , but we also have some large farm equipment that also uses the highway too , and I fear that some day some kid on a hell cruse on a bike will come through the corner a little hot , and take it a bit wide .At the same time a tractor comes the other way and it will be an ugly scene .Ive seen a couple near misses .
ReplyDeleteI'm seeing less and less farm equipment out my way. What was once alfalfa, or corn, or wheat is now just houses. We could see east twelve or more miles to the rimrocks on the other side of the river. Now can we look across the street.
ReplyDeleteRobertson's the same. There are several large fields down the road in either direction; like you, Ken, we have ditches, no shoulder.
ReplyDeleteIf you're unlucky, the turn-in you pull into to get off the road is the field they're headed for.
--Tennessee Budd
Yeah, I just smile, back out onto the road and head back the direction I was coming from. I don't argue with guys driving big farm equipment. My truck will lose every time.
DeleteI was coming home from a job late one night right outside of Loretto KY. The road I was driving down was a two lane country road with hills and curves. (If you've ever been here, it's the same road that the Makers Mark distillery is on.) Anyway, I round a curve going about 45, and there in front of me, moving about 2 to 3 mph was...
ReplyDeleteA house! (There was a guy perched on the roof who was using a wooden pole to lift the wires as they moved underneath.)
There was no getting around that, but I still had to follow them until the next driveway which was maybe about a quarter mile. When we finally got to the next one, I just turned around and headed back the other way. I know the alternate routes but it still cost me extra time.
I see farm equipment on the road all the time around here and I don't really mind something like that. They're usually pretty easy to get around and if not, they're not going very far. I wave and go on by.
Yep, we get them out here in north Texas too! Scares the hell out of you when you run up on one just as the sun is coming up!!!
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