One Man's Junk is Another Man's Treasure

In the middle of last summer, when we needed it most, our combine broke. You can read about it here.

Since that day, the combine has not moved from where The Farmer parked it. The grass grew up long underneath it the rest of the summer.

When we finally found a replacement combine, we used the old one as a "parts barn," harvesting still-good parts from it to replace worn parts on the new (slightly neglected) combine.

A few months ago, we contacted a couple of companies who are the equivalent of the auto junkyard, only for larger agricultural equipment.

There are still a lot of good parts left in this combine, and after that, the remaining steel can be sold for scrap.

Finally, last week, they came to pick it up.

The whole process was fascinating. There was no need to fire up the old combine--it was just hooked up and dragged onto the trailer.

Yes, I was nervous. Stuff can really go wrong with these processes.

Notice our border collie off to the side, sniffing out critters. We did a fair bit of yelling, trying to get her away from the combine, in case something went wrong. In the end, we figured she'd die happy, if something did go wrong. She loves to sniff.

Once the combine got part way over the hump, the trick was to keep it from kalumping too fast down the other side.

So we thought of another way to take years off my life as I watched.

The whole process went wonderfully. Probably because I worried.

Off to the scrap yard for the last bit of its life...