Not complaining, just relating a story mind you.
Our farming operation has been in need of a "grain drill" to plant some wheat, cover crops, food plots, and occasionally reseed some pasture/hay ground. The last few years the market for grain drills has stratified into derelict, worn out junk or newish, very expensive tools much larger and heavier than we want/need.
A month back, I stumbled onto a piece that mostly fit our needs in a price range we could live with. Last week we bought it and it looks like tomorrow is moving day. Oh, there's the fact that this is 60 miles from home.
The "easy " way is to tow it BUT there's a catch. It's 15' wide which is nearly the width of many MO 2 lane highways and ALL the width of gravel roads. It's also a fairly delicate contraption and the wheels are at the outermost points. This means that dropping a wheel off the pavement is an invitation for serious damage.
I thought we had access to a "float"(a trailer with a drop frame that allows such things to be loaded by driving over the trailer frame with a tractor) but later discovered the "float" hadn't been used this century and had settled into the dirt on the donor's barn lot up to the hubs. Now, this drill isn't something that can be loaded onto a trailer w/o a lot of messing around, 3 loaders, and risking damaging the drill , trailer, or both.
Looks like I'm in for a 3-4 hour white knuckle drive but at least the forecast is for a nice, sunny day.
Our farming operation has been in need of a "grain drill" to plant some wheat, cover crops, food plots, and occasionally reseed some pasture/hay ground. The last few years the market for grain drills has stratified into derelict, worn out junk or newish, very expensive tools much larger and heavier than we want/need.
A month back, I stumbled onto a piece that mostly fit our needs in a price range we could live with. Last week we bought it and it looks like tomorrow is moving day. Oh, there's the fact that this is 60 miles from home.
The "easy " way is to tow it BUT there's a catch. It's 15' wide which is nearly the width of many MO 2 lane highways and ALL the width of gravel roads. It's also a fairly delicate contraption and the wheels are at the outermost points. This means that dropping a wheel off the pavement is an invitation for serious damage.
I thought we had access to a "float"(a trailer with a drop frame that allows such things to be loaded by driving over the trailer frame with a tractor) but later discovered the "float" hadn't been used this century and had settled into the dirt on the donor's barn lot up to the hubs. Now, this drill isn't something that can be loaded onto a trailer w/o a lot of messing around, 3 loaders, and risking damaging the drill , trailer, or both.
Looks like I'm in for a 3-4 hour white knuckle drive but at least the forecast is for a nice, sunny day.
