Good day dear mates! As usual in September all my family gather together to pick up potato harvest. It happens when days are warm enough and grandma decides that time has come and potato matured enough. Something like this happened and in this year.
So I decided to left my work on Friday a little bit earlier because I needed time to get home to prepare kids, and when we were ready our small trip began. In road was a lot of cars and we could reach our village when it was almost 11p.m.
On Saturday morning all of us walk up early in the morning took good breakfast and I went to the tractor which I was going to use to dig up the potatoes, because I needed to check the gas level, connect the battery, and attach the transporter. When everything was ready, we headed to the field where we were going to spend the day. The field covers an area of about 10 acres, part of which was set aside for plants such as zucchini, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, and watermelons, but most of it was allocated for planting potatoes.
To be honest, it was my first time digging potatoes in a field on my own without anyone's help, and I was a little nervous. Previously, my relative had done this, but this year he was unable to come, and all the responsibility fell on me. So, when I arrived at the field, I set up the transporter so that it would pick up the potatoes from the right depth, turned it on, and drove forward despite my nervousness. After driving in one direction and digging up a couple of rows of potatoes, I turned the tractor around and drove back the other way to go back and forward again. After that, I saw that half of the work was done, so I decided to stop the tractor so that we could gather the potatoes, and when the dug-up part was cleared away, I would have to dig up the remaining half. By the time I got out of the tractor, the rest of the family had arrived, and we began harvesting.
When we approached the dug-up potatoes, we saw that despite the return of frosts at the beginning of the season and a not particularly hot summer, the potatoes had grown quite large and good. The most experienced and seasoned workers developed a high speed of harvesting from the start.
Even the children decided to help us with this task this year.
While some even had time to observe nature and insects.
However, when half of the crop had been dug up, I got back into the tractor, started it up, and drove off to dig up the rest.
I drove along one row, turned around, drove back the other way, and that's when my adventures began. Suddenly, I saw smoke coming not only from the exhaust pipe but also from somewhere near the starter. To avoid danger, I decided to stop immediately and turn off the tractor. However, the smell of melting wiring continued to spread along with the smoke. After disconnecting the power supply, I jumped off the tractor with a fire extinguisher in my hands. When I got closer to the tractor, I saw that the starter wires and battery terminals had melted.
My attempt to start the tractor was unsuccessful. I went to get a multimeter and tried to check the voltage on the battery and whether the wiring to the ignition lock was intact. The battery turned out to be dead. While the rest of my family and relatives offered advice and tried to help, I removed the battery and took it to be charged. The others stayed behind to harvest the crops in the field. On the way, I met an acquaintance who has a tractor, but he said he was in a hurry to get to work and would only be able to help in the evening.
I grabbed a couple of shovels from home and headed back to the field. By noon, we had gathered all the potatoes we had dug up and, taking up our shovels, we began digging the remaining potato beds. By 4 p.m., we had finished digging. It took us another couple of hours to gather the rest. In total, we managed to collect more than 50 bags of potatoes. We loaded them into the car and took them home. After unloading and storing the bags, we went to have dinner.
At around 9 p.m., after returning from work, a friend of mine called and asked if I needed help with the tractor.
We agreed to meet in the field where I had left the tractor. When we met, we tried to start the tractor from another battery, but it didn't help. Jump-starting it from another tractor didn't work either. But we had a plan B.
My friend drove up behind the tractor and we started to unhitch the transporter from the tractor. First, he lifted the transporter with his bucket so that I could loosen the fasteners and pull the pins out of the eyelets. By slowly lifting and lowering the transporter, we were able to unhitch it. It took about 40 minutes.
After that, we got a rope and tied my tractor to the back of my friend's tractor. Then, shifting into high gear, he started pulling my tractor to get it going. We drove about 150 meters before the tractor started. After that, I returned to the transporter in my tractor, hooked it up again, and finally drove home.
Early the next morning, we began sorting potatoes for drying and storing in the potato storage facility. By evening, we had sorted all the potatoes.
Then I removed the starter to see what had happened to it. As it turned out, it had seized up after starting and could not be repaired. I have now replaced the starter, and the tractor can run on its own. And after it we moved to home. So it was a busy and challenging weekend. But I want to note that this experience was unforgettable for me!
That's all for now! Stay tuned yours @travoved
