I’m continually impressed by the mechanical skills of farmers. Many farmers are comfortable repairing engines, transmissions and other systems in everything from lawnmowers to late-model farm equipment. Many fly by the seat of their pants as they make repairs, intuitively diagnosing and then repairing complex problems.
I salute those fearless farmer/mechanics. They build their own splitting stands to work on tractors, they figure out how to diagnose hydraulic flow and pressure problems, they tackle large-scale repairs that make a dealership technician pause and wonder, “How the heck am I going to do this?”
Many of these mechanical geniuses do the work themselves to save money, but I believe their secret inner attitude was well expressed by a mechanically-inclined farmer who asked me to stop by his farm and diagnose a problem that had him baffled. He was deep inside his combine making other repairs when I arrived, and crawled out to chat.
After seeing all the projects he had scattered around his shop, I suggested that if he ever got tired of farming, we could use someone with his mechanical skills at the dealership. He paused, adjusted his greasy seed corn hat, and grinned.
“Nah, that would like working,” he said. “This,” as he gestured around his cluttered shop, “is fun.”
