This I overheard at a grain elevator 40 years ago and still makes me smile every time I think about it.
I walked into the scale house to pick up my scale ticket and listened to this exchange- both involved were quite red in the face:
Farmer:" are you accusing me of bottom loading my truck?"
Elevator manager: " I know you couldn't do that- you would have to go to your neighbor to get corn good enough to put on top"
Made me smile again!
Bet there are a lot of good stories out there?
When I was younger and just getting started, I was chatting with the next door neighbor in the scale house. Our corn was making about 180. This neighbor's was making "230," like it always does. I know that's how he is, and it doesn't bother me, so I was going along with him, like saying "man, that's great! What hybrid was it?" On my next load one of the ladies in the scale house stopped me and told me that there's no way his corn was making that much, they had all his scale tickets and knew how many acres his farm was. She didn't want me to feel bad that my corn wasn't as good as his, because it wasn't. I had a pretty good laugh about that.
Years ago I was sitting in the elevator office waiting to pick up a check. An old guy was sitting there waiting his turn while a farmer was back talking to the manager blowing about his yields. Finally the old man got up, stuck his head in the manager's office and said "wish my half made that much". Turns out the old man was the guy's landlord. Next year there was a new tenant on the farm.
A truck driver took a load of beans to a corn plant. He sat in line in the fall of the year and pulled around, the guy from the probe stand came out. He told the driver that they reject for 2 beans in the sample so he didn't need to probe him to reject him. Then he had to wait to get out and go to the bean plant and do it all over again. The driver told people over the CB what he had done. He never lived that down.
Hauled two wagon loads of beans to the elevator 30 yrs ago, got on the scale and weighed, got out of the tractor and went inside and told Dan I had two loads of beans . He then asked me where the second wagon was, I thought he was joking till I looked out the window and saw I was dragging half of the tongue, apparently the spring broke on the extension pin. We got in his truck and retraced my route and found the wagon upright in the ditch on the opposite side of the road. This happened at night, needless to say I said a few thank you prayers before I went to bed that night.
Those are pretty good, aren't they? Do you have a good farm or elevator story?
Ed
Glad I didn't no-one met you on the road when you lost your trailer! lol
ReplyDeleteI watched a very heated dispute in a probe stand between the grader and the driver. The driver was getting rejected for a "rock" that got in the sample through the probe. The arguing got very heated. After a few minutes the grader set the rock on the counter. Being really fidgety and uncomfortable with the situation, I walked over and picked up the rock to look at it. While staring at it, the truck driver all the sudden spin around to me and yelled "give me that f^#<<]ing rock". That startled me and I dropped the rock. It fell to the floor and exploded into dust. The rock was nothing but a piece of dirt. The room was silent for what felt like forever. Then the grader said "now that this is settled go to dump #1" with a very embarresed look on his face.
ReplyDeleteYou bet, Gorges and Michael, that is a quotable story! There can be some tense moments at the scale and grading station!
ReplyDeleteOne from Australia - and this is true.
ReplyDeleteTrucks lined up at the grain elevator - busy harvest. Come closing time, if you weren't weighed to unload, you left the truck in line and came back at opening time next morning. Could be twenty or so trucks left in line overnight.
Guy first in line for the morning said 'see you in the morning' and walked off to where he could ring his wife to come and get him - before mobile [cell] phones.
Others figured they'd pull a trick, so talked to the silo boss, weighed his truck [keys left in it as we all did!], emptied it into the silos, then put it back at the front of the line.
During the night a shower of rain came through, so the guy came down to the silo in his ute with a tarpaulin. Chucked it up on the 'load' and it went thump on the bottom - no wheat!
He figured what had happened, drove the truck home. loaded it again and brought it back, once more putting it first in line.
Next morning the tricksters were snickering behind their hands as he turned up 5 minutes before opening, said G'Day, and drove onto the weigh bridge.
The smiles thinned a little as they realised the truck pulled like one loaded, not empty.
Truck owner hops out at the weighbridge, and yells back, "Thanks guys - that's TWO."