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Hard lessons learned are worth more if they are remembered. When my livelihood came from hauling hay to dairies and ranches in remote places in the Northwest, I was never stranded in the truck without food or drink. I recalled that knack when the solar eclipse came close enough to witness with minimal travel.

A farmer and a farmhand were hiking in the forest when a bull moose suddenly appeared and charged them. The farmer climbed a tree, and the farmhand ran to a nearby cave. The moose stood its ground. About every minute, the farmhand would run out of the cave only to be met by the angry moose and chased back in.

Despite the labor pains of farming, a farmer eagerly lines up to experience it again and again, season after season.

By the time you read this, I’ll once again be walking the aisles at NCBA’s convention in Phoenix. I learned something last year at the convention in Nashville I think will prepare me for a better show this year and a better year beyond that.

Ralph Feller of Caldwell, Idaho, once stated he had never seen a truck with too big an engine or too much brakes. He had his own fleet of potato and cattle-hauling trucks. He started out with F-600 and F-800 series Fords, with tag axles and fifth-wheel hitch, pulling 38- and 40-foot-long semi trailers.

Minneapolis-Moline gave us several other mechanical innovations still in use today. I have often thought about what the agricultural equipment industry would look like today if Minn-Mo, Allis-Chalmers and especially Oliver were still in business.