Yesterday, the first thing we did at the farm was put the fork lift blades on the tractor and take the new excavator bucket off the truck. My wife was watching and waved at me. She wanted me to know the tire was low, and pointed toward the back of the truck.....I thought. I said I had seen it and she moved away and I started moving backward with the pallet. When I turned the wheel to move forward, I heard a woopie cushion noise and felt the front tire of the tractor give way. Set the pallet with excavator bucket down and backed up. Flat tire. Ok, now I need to jack that up.....with what??? I looked around and about 20 feet away was rise at the side of the driveway. I drove over to that, used the FEL pushing downward, then angled the forks downward a bit to life enough to take off the tire. And yes, I know this was dangerous for a number of reasons. It had the short hairs tingling while I did it, but we needed the tire off and that was all I had to work with. We headed off toward town, trying to figure out where I was going to go. I stopped at the general store to ask there, since it seems to be the gathering place for the The local farmers, etc. I was introduced to an older man was leaving with his grandson. He said to follow him, and he took me down the road a mile and onto his farm. We fixed the tire at the shop. He was 84 years old. Wouldn't let me pay him anything....I think I made a friend. I'm sure we will see him again. He is also a welder....still working. And a neighbor dropped by with a piece from a lawn tractor that needed welding. We swung by the local hardware shop on the way back and got a 12v tire inflater compressor. I"ll be checking tire pressure on a weekly basis. Just to maintain.
