...it's JUST like riding a bike...

...famous last words...ha! So Kevin went with his dad to the farm show today, leaving me in charge...no problem...EXCEPT ONE of KEVIN's jobs is dragging our arena and removing the tractor each.and.every.morning. from our indoor arena. Except THIS morning...he forgot in his hurry to get on the road with his dad...sigh...
So my morning starts like this...go to feed, 2 horses are wandering about, one stall door is off...sigh.... after some jiggling and master engineering, I manage to get horses in their own stalls and stall door on by.my.self. (patting myself on the back there for that one...it's quite a feet when the doors are 10' long!)
Come in, surf, try and get dh up for the billionth time... watch him hurry out the door...
Then I go to the barn...enter the arena and lo and behold, we have a TRACTOR in the middle of the arena...sigh... ok, I remember how to start it....right? It's only been about 10 years...gosh, I THINK I can...but better get the arena door open first... that'll be easier..right? NOOTTTTTTT... the door froze to the ground over night (keep in mind the doors are 15ish feet tall and 20ish feet wide) and after searching here, there and EVERYWHERE for something to wiggle the door loose from frozen mud I came across an old pitch fork...managed to sneak it under the door and wiggle, wiggle, CRACK...broke a tine off the old, steal pitchfork...groovy... but managed to loosen the door up enough so I can slide it to bring the tractor out, if, when, I start it...ha!
So now onto the tractor, I climb on board and sit in the cold seat (it's made of steel too...lucky me!) and look down...yup, clutch, I "think" that's the brake...now where do you start it? Now the "newer" tractors have little "labels" that say such things...I'm in a 1940ish Allis Chalmers that's been repainted a "few" times...labels don't exist...sigh... I finally give up and call K...who's phone is busy...so I call my FIL..who just hands the phone right off to K and he walks me through starting it... gotta pull the start button, then pull the ACTUAL start thing, while making sure the choke is down, but gotta get that down before the tractor dies AFTER it starts...sigh... then he says.. GO AHEAD AND WALK AWAY while it warms up...yeah...right... I have my foot on the clutch not knowing that IF I let up on it, if it's in gear or not, images of tractor running through barn walls ran through my head...and if I let up on the clutch, will it die like me little car does...I just hung tight (cold buns and all...buns of steel..snort!)...THEN I had to figure out where the GAS was...it's not on the floor like in a car...oh yeah, a cobweb in my brain figured out it was my right hand...and THEN I was in business....THEN it was ALMOST like riding a bicycle... I did manage to drag the arena and not take out any walls (kudos for me!) and drive tractor safely outside door and turn off with only ONE backfire... it's only gonna get better... right?
K just called, all happy he "bought" me something...he bought me a sham-WOW...yup...it's gonna be an AWESOME day! LOL