Tom Bruce was having trouble with the end gun of a pivot.  The end gun contains the last nozzle of the sprinkler system, and shoots water a hundred feet beyond the reach of the pivot.  The end gun is on a long arm that sticks out from the last tower of the pivot.  The arm is supported by three cables that act as guy wires to hold it up and keep it stable.

Tom decided that he could fix the problem by shinnying out onto the arm, which he proceeded to do.  As he neared the end, his weight caused one of the guy wires to snap.  The snapping of the guy wire caused the arm to career wildly to the right.  Tom somehow managed to hold on, but when the arm somewhat stabilized he found himself dangling by his knees several feet above the ground.  He writhed around trying to get a good hand hold so that he might gracefully let himself down.  His efforts only made the arm buck and sway some more, and he ultimately fell off onto his back.

“There was only one scotch thistle in that whole field, “Tom says, “and of course I landed on it.  I was picking thistle spines out of my back all day.”

The disappointing thing about the episode is that no one was there to make a video recording.

No one was there to record me broad jumping the Wilcox Ditch, either.

I was trying to head off some cows.  The only way to get around them was to be on the other side of the ditch.  The ditch was five feet wide, and two or three feet deep.  With a running leap, I calculated that I could do it.  I backed up and ran toward the ditch to build momentum.  My foot slipped on the takeoff, however, and I never even touched the other bank.  I went clear under.  It was more than surprising.  It was shocking.  It was cold, cold water.  I crawled out dripping and shivering and grateful that no one had seen my performance.

I was luckier than my friend, Farel Baxter.  When I told him this story he replied unsympathetically that the same thing had happened to him at age five as he showed off for his sisters.  He did it over an open sewer.  His sisters wouldn’t even help him out.

Aaron sent his friend and co-worker, Kevin Rich, to finish a hay raking job.  “The tractor has a hydraulic oil leak,” he told Kevin.  “Check the oil level, and we’ll fix the leak after we finish raking the field.”

Kevin began raking.  Unbeknownst to either of the boys a pulley was rubbing on a hydraulic hose up by the tractor’s fan.  In a short time the pulley wore through the hose.  The pressurized oil sprayed onto the fan, and the fan blew the oil back onto the driver.  Aaron noticed when the tractor stopped, and went to see if he could help Kevin with whatever was wrong.  Kevin was waddling toward him with legs apart, arms held out to the side where they wouldn’t touch his body, and was bathed from head to foot in oil.

“Does it always do this?” he asked.