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MG Hay wagon

Darren Wright

Darren Wright

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Springfield, Missouri
Over in the bay of the barn has been an old hay wagon. Today I broke the news to my wife’s grandpa I ordered the new tractor. He got really excited about it as I showed him the brochure , he said he wishes he could have had it back in the day.

I asked him about the old hay wagon in the barn as I’ve been thinking about getting new tires on it to use. He said it was bought from the Montgomery Wards catalog. It belonged to my wife’s GG-grandfather. The tires on it came off a new 1956 Studebaker that my wife’s Great aunt had bought new. Apparently the new tires in it weren’t of great quality, so her GG-Grandpa had them replaced and used the Studebaker tires on the trailer.

There is another of the same trailer in the field, it was used to move their belongings from Nebraska to southern Missouri when they bought the farm in 1954. He drove it down with their 8n tractor over the course of several days. When he arrived at the farm, the electric company was there to pull the electric meter. He hollered at them to hold off as he had a deep freeze on the wagon to plug in with food in it, they read the meter instead and left the power on.

He had a few geese that he was leaving and left some corn and water in their cage. Then he hitched a ride back to town with the electric truck and took a bus ride back to Nebraska to get the his wife and kids to drive to their new home. When they arrived one of the neighbors had found the geese he left and watched after them for him, it turned into a life long friendship and good neighbor.

Anyway, enjoyed the story, thought you might too.
 
Darren, you need to get this recorded on an audio tape, at least on your phone to preserve his telling of it. I once bought a like brand new flare box wagon. Asked the guy why it wasn't used. His dad bought it during WWII through the Sears catalog because it had the same size tires as their car. Couldn't buy tires but bought the wagon, it sat on blocks until the sale. Told you, he'll be driving the tractor and you being the young one will be out rolling stuff into the bucket!

Edited to add, you guys are adding quality of life for him beyond measure. He knows his farm is staying in the family and more importantly, they love his farm and aren't "cashing it in" when he passes on. I'll bet you see a new twinkle in his eye. Good job Mr and Mrs Darren!!!!!!
 
Brent Dowell said:
One of the presents she got when she got married was a big can of bacon grease
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When we were moving my grams into assisted living at 95/96 she had a spice jar of cinnamon that she said she'd gotten as a wedding present right after the war. We couldn't figure out if it had ever been refilled or not, but if it had you couldn't tell by tasting it, indistinguishable from cardboard.
 
@Jonathan Shively I shared your story with him, we had a good laugh over it.

I spent some time drilling anchor holes for the posts I put in last weekend. I accused him of having a diamond mine hidden on the property. He said there might be. I asked if he used diamonds in the concrete, I dulled 3 bits so far and only got half of the holes drilled. He did use stone from the creek, not sure what is in it.
 
Darren Wright said:
I dulled 3 bits so far and only got half of the holes drilled.
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If you're using up carbide concrete bits its worth investing in a diamond wheel to sharpen them.

An angle grinder clamped lightly in a vise with a wheel like this (doesn't need to be super high grit, I've never bought this specific one so just using it as an example not a recommendation, the diamond wheel I have is some ancient thing I bought at a road show 15+ years ago...).


makes short work of them and they're kind of the easiest drill bit to sharpen as it's just one simple bevel per side. Also makes a drill that works in hardened and HSS steel which can also be real handy.
 
Mom's father, my grandfather lived to be 99 years and 5 months. He had an interesting life. He grew up on a farm. He was a mechanic while in the Navy during WWI. After leaving the service he worked for Dupont for a while in Wilmington, Delaware where he met his wife. He eventually went to work for the police department as a motorcycle patrolman and worked his way up to Captain. He became an expert at fingerprints and was on the team who investigated the Lindbergh kidnapping case.

He liked to tell stories about the good old days and had a lot of them. I loved listening to his stories and asked him to write them down. He was hesitant to do that so I got him a tape recorder and a bunch of cassette tapes. He started recording these stories.

Then he went on to transcribe his stories and type them on notebook paper. He ended up giving a copy of his book with hundreds of stories to each of his grandchildren and great grandchildren. I wish I had the original tapes. I don't know what happened to them.

Sure miss my granddad....we played a lot of Parcheesi and many a game of checkers.
 
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