Foghorn Leghorn, the Looney Tunes cartoon character, famously said after an explosive encounter with Dawg, “I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency.”
I think of Foghorn whenever I blow snow on this little farm. There’s nothing like a snowblower to find stuff that’s been missing since last summer. The first pass every season can be hair-raising. That’s when you wrap up the garden hose you left at the corner of the lane or chew the corner off a ladder lying in the grass.
My neighbour who blows snow for a living says he once backed up a customer’s lane and snagged on a light chain. The chain tightened up out of the snow right across the yard to a doghouse and jerked a surprised collie dog out of its slumber. It took my friend a few seconds to hit the PTO brake, just enough time to see the expression on the dog’s face as it snowplowed toward him. He had been dreaming about rabbits when he was suddenly yanked out of his abode and set on a path to certain destruction.
A decade of mild winters and little snow made me drop my guard and fall back on the services of a one-lung walk-behind that is more of a leaf blower than a snow blower. A lump of ice the size of a snowball brings it to a halt and makes it gnaw away like a fish feebly gasping for air. As winter reasserted its traditional chokehold on the region last season, I cruised Facebook Marketplace looking for a three-point hitch model that would fit on the back of the Massey 135. I found a six-foot Hagedoorn made in Paisley, Ontario in 1971 and called the number, which was in my area code.
“Hello, Dan,” said a voice. It was my old friend Ross from Thornbury who was retired from the apple business and now getting rid of a few pieces of farm machinery. My son and I went over to look at it. It was built like a bulldozer and weighed about as much, but Ross assured me 50 hp was plenty to run it. I asked him what kind of shear pins he used.
“Any bolt made in China,” he replied.
When I got the machine home, I found it didn’t really get interested until it found a snowdrift three feet deep. But then it settled into a throaty growl and hurled snow 30 feet.Unfortunately, the combination of a ragged chute and our gale-force winds meant all snow had to go by my ears before it went anywhere else. My daughter in Calgary saw a picture of me coming into the house like Admiral Peary coming back from the Pole and promptly ordered me a new set of insulated coveralls, goggles and wolverine hat.
This winter has been old-fashioned in its steady freeze, high winds and the ever-grinding snow gun that fires off the lake beside us. I was keeping pace with it handily with the Hagedoorn until one day the Massey buried itself in a deep drift, then coughed and died. I do have a heated shop. But…have you ever noticed that no machine ever quits while it’s in the heated shop? It’s always at the other end of the property, a hundred yards away from any electrical outlet. So you have to construct a secondary heated shop, using an ice-fishing hut, a generator and a rescue tractor to bring the tools.
I am not a diesel mechanic, but then, apparently nobody is anymore. You’re on your own, unless you are one of those fortunate few who are paid-up members of the Driveshed Coffee Club.
“It’s always fuel delivery,” said Steve. “Start with a small bottle of diesel conditioner and a hair dryer. If that doesn’t bring it back to life, then change the fuel filter.”
I did as I was instructed except for the hair dryer, which is a high-end Italian model that my wife does not allow out in the barn. I substituted with a propane torch, forgetting that I had already squirted several shots of Quickstart down the air intake. A sheet of flame shot up from the intake, curling my eyebrows and sending the dog scurrying for the house. But the tractor did start.
Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency.