Tractor Driving Lesson.

 I didn't get to write about my trip out with dad on his tractor the other day so I am going to add it now.

We went to deliver a load of sugar beet to another farmer who buys it off dad to feed his cattle on. I enjoyed riding on the tractor immensely. After tipping in his yard we hung around a bit while dad and the farmer chatted about things, mainly to do with farming.

On the way back was the best though because before reaching home dad turned off down one of the tracks that lead across the fields and stopped the tractor and turned to me and asked, "How would you like a go?"

I hesitated. Looking around the cab is daunting enough, it's just one mass of buttons, levers, pedals and even little computer screens, I couldn't imagine how on earth I was ever going to drive it without some kind of intensive training session.

I think he detected my hesitation because he then added, "It's alright, I won't let anything happen." 

I told him he had no cause to worry about that as I didn't have the slightest idea how to make anything happen. That made him laugh.

Without further ado he got up and said for me to swap seats. "Don't worry, if you can drive that quad bike that you told me about you will be okay".

As I settled in to the seat he said to take no notice of all the stuff on my right as I wouldn't be touching that today. He said all you need today is this, and pointed to a leave on the left of the steering column, this here and he wiggled the steering wheel, and that little pedal down there on the far right.

He made me hold the steering wheel with my right  hand and the small lever by the steering wheel with my left hand. "When you lift that leaver and move it forward the tractor is going to move forward, but don't worry, it's only going to be at a snails pace." 

So he had me try it and it did as he said. After a few yards and while he explained how to stop again, which was basically by moving the level back to where I'd got it from, he asked me to stop. So I did that okay no problem. He had me do it several times until I was no longer afraid of it. Then he had me do it in the opposite direction which then made the tractor go backwards. He only had me do that a couple of times as I was used to doing that by now, also we had the trailer on the back.

"Right, that's good, now we are going to go forwards and keep on going forwards but speed up and slow down." 

He said that for this I would be using the right hand pedal down at the floor. This is where we had a bit of a problem though as I couldn't reach it properly so we swapped seats again and he altered the seat position for me which made things better, although I still couldn't sit back in the seat. So I once again set it going forward and he reassured me by saying that this was the same as when I used to make the quad bike go faster or slower. So after pushing the lever forward I pressed the pedal a little as instructed and we sped up a bit. Then I had to stop again. We did the stopping a starting bit several times, each time going a bit faster. Eventually he said for me to just keep driving down the track at a speed I felt comfortable with. The steering was dead easy, much easier than steering the quad bike which surprised me a little. I took it upon myself to play with the foot pedal and soon got a good feel for it. I was actually now feeling quite relaxed about it all and just enjoyed driving it. 

Next minute dad is saying with great urgency, "Whoa! STOP."

I nearly had a break down thinking some big disaster had happened that was going to ruin my tractor driving career dead in it's tracks before it hardly got going. But thankfully it was just dad testing me.

"Right, you see the junction? You're going right there and I expect you to make a mistake but don't worry as I want to show you how to correct it if you do". So I set off and when I approached the corner I slowed down and thankfully I'd been paying attention when dad was driving and I'd noticed that whenever he went round a corner the tailer came out to the side to try and cut the corner so i figured that if I kept to the left the trailer would stay on the track instead of trying to go in to the field. Anyway we got round okay and dad was right stoked about it.

"I can't believe you just did that, what a great girl. One of these days I'm going to learn to stop underestimating you,"

What he said pleased me so much I could feel tears coming in my eyes. I told him I'd been watching how he did it on the way to that farm.

"Oh I never thought about that, I could have been pointing things out like that to you couldn't I."

Further along the track we came to another junction where I did another right turn, again without cutting the corner. It was here that he said to try watching the trailer through the mirrors rather than looking over my shoulder. I had to lean over a bit as I couldn't see through them very well in my sitting position. Anyway we made it back to the road in one piece where dad took over again as it's a public road and I obviously don't have a licence.

On the way down the lane he asked me to look in to what's needed for getting my driving license as it would be a great help to him if I could drive and do jobs with tractors for him.

When I got in the house and told mum she said I should consider myself highly honored to be allowed to drive my dads tractor. It's his pride and joy apparently, only he is usually allowed to drive that particular tractor.

When back in my room I thought it all over and found myself feeling good about the experience. Then I thought about how different it was having dad teach me to having grandfather teaching me. The whole thing would have been one torture and ridicule from beginning to end. Anyway, never mind about him anymore.