Red Dyed Diesel

by Douglas M. Crawford

We were all up at our beloved Sky Ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains over the Memorial Day weekend doing all manner of farmer activities. The tranquility, fresh air, warm weather and shear beauty of this place with its view west toward Soquel and Aptos, the Monterey Peninsula, and the Pacific beyond is, I am sure, a preview of heaven.  The steak and salmon barbeque on Monday ended a near perfect weekend.

Myself, wife Barbara, her sister Kris, and mom Margretta had busied ourselves getting the orchard into summer season.  Margretta has the only valid claim toward being a farmer and orchard keeper.  Her husband, Neil, was the real farmer until he passed away a year ago.  Actually he was a pilot for PanAm for almost 40 years.  But basically he was a farmer by conviction with a thoroughly enjoyable flying hobby that provided a comfortable living.  Despite claims to the contrary he was a natural farmer with an innate knowledge and appreciation of his land and all things growing on it.  Fortunately Margretta, a Washington DC city gal and socialite, had been able to give us the farming time tables, theoretical ideas, and concepts behind what we are doing.  This information has formed the basis for all of our acquired farming skills (such as they are!) in Neil’s absence.  But ask her how to start a tractor or repair the well pump and we are in trouble right away.  We “ain’t” farmers yet but are all thrilled at the idea and make up for it with perseverance and unbridled enthusiasm.

We tilled the entire apple and persimmon orchard over that long weekend - about 13 acres.  The whole idea here is to create a finely textured layer of soil over all of the tree roots that will slow down the escape of moisture during the course of the hot summer months.  The timing for tilling is critical - too soon and the soil is wet and will only clump up (we have had record spring rainfall this year - thus the late tilling).  Too late and all you do is create a dust storm.  When done right this fine soil cap also helps absorb the moisture from the fog that comes in from the Monterey Bay.

The fog swirls in regularly in the early summer during the late evening, silently weaving through the orchard and big redwoods.  When it is in all outdoor sounds become muted - when I am lying in bed I can tell it has come in just by the way the night sounds have changed.  If it is really heavy you can hear moisture lightly patter down from the trees on to the ground.  In the morning it is often still a grey blanket - thickening beyond the first rows of apple trees to block off all views of the valleys and ocean beyond.  And then it burns off, slowly at first, and then it is gone, magically disappearing into a brilliant blue sky and bright sunshine.  But it is almost always out there - visible as a distant grey cottony stripe resting on the surface of the ocean - and eager to return.  It is really, truly, summer when it spends most of its time out there kept alive only by the cold water and repulsed by the warm land.  If there is no fog bank visible off shore in the late afternoon get ready for a hot day tomorrow.  That was the case Friday afternoon.

Until you have some time and experience (”logged some hours” as Captain Neil would say) driving a tractor the process is mind boggling.  Other than a steering wheel and four tires this contraption bears absolutely no resemblance to any other vehicle you have every driven.  Here are the controls: 6 speed transmission, hi-low range transmission split (now you have 12 speeds) with reverse, two-wheel or four-wheel drive gear selector, manual and foot peddle accelerator, clutch, hand and foot brake, three speed power takeoff (PTO) selector, hydraulic rear attachment adjustor (depth, height, angle, lateral movement), idle speed lever, manual choke, glow plug pre-warmer, brake lock, hydraulic control valves, engine kill switch lever and button and dash gauges, light switches, and some other ominous levers and knobs that I have been avoiding.  These things require your undivided attention and focus when they are running.

There are three bright orange diesel Kubota tractors at the ranch.  The locations of the controls are different on all three.  Each time you get on one you need to stop and think - “lets see - that knob on this one raises the plow, and doesn’t change the speed to the PTO”.  The smallest has been nicknamed “Baby” by Barbara, and it is able to plow, till, mow, etc. between the dwarf row apple trees planted tightly together on 4 acres in the efficient European style (”Baby “?).  Mid size is really the most useful - it has good power, traction, and is easy to drive. The BIG tractor is permanently attached to a front bucket with side booms enabling up and down and tilt of the bucket - real handy for scooping up and lifting a huge pile of dirt, branches, gravel, or small European cars.  This intimidating brute has tremendous torque - in low/low you travel at about 1 mph and could push a house over.  This huge tractor is very, very rewarding to drive - deep throaty exhaust, huge tires, and a very masculine adjustable rear grading and ripping attachment.  I mean you get on this thing and you want to go out and make roads and move hills around.  So according to Barb there is Daddy tractor, Mommy tractor and of course Baby tractor - some kind of tractor version of the three bears (”and Goldilocks found the Baby tractor was just right”).  I question her fundamental farming instincts when she is constantly suggesting a tractor race.  Guess which one she would want to drive.  Farmers Don’t Race Tractors - Ever.

Orchard tilling began in earnest on Saturday morning with at least three hours and several skinned knuckles devoted to connecting the tilling attachments to Baby and the mid size Kubota and making sure all fuel, oil, hydraulics, and grease fittings were tended to.  A tilling attachment is a series of very sharp hardened steel blades that rapidly spin through the soil and are enclosed by a large rectangular protective housing, plastered with instruction and warning stickers.  At the ranch there are attachments to tractors that you can only imagine - sprayers, plows, forklifts, mowers, portable saw mill, seeders, log splitters, and a complete mini backhoe with its own seat, controls and an intricate attachment system for hydraulics and PTO (power take off) shaft.  The later is an axle that comes out of the rear of all of the tractors that rotates via its own set of controls to power all of this equipment.  Hydraulics move the attachments up, down, and side ways, the PTO makes machinery within the attachment rotate.  There is even an attachment that distributes gopher poison in the form of sinister looking green and blue colored grain below the ground where these little monsters live.  But the gophers always win in the end and continue to eat anything vegetative they encounter under ground - including the roots of fruit trees.  Gophers rule.

Kris was on Baby and I drove the midsize.  Tilling is really, really fun for about an hour and a half.  The weeds, old branches, leaves, fruit, and other winter junk on the ground are ground up into this beautiful one-foot thick carpet of finely tilled soil.  The ground behind you looks gorgeous and very professional looking.  Gopher hillocks disappear as well.  The gophers, deep in their little bomb shelters, survive.  In the whole time I nailed only one for sure - he was old, blind, deaf, lame and not very bright.  The other 11,000 survived.

You go back and forth in the orchard - east to west and then north to south.  Except in the compressed dwarf tree area where you go only north to south.

Due to the width each row requires two to three passes.

After three hours you are filthy, thirsty, scratched and whacked by branches, and nearly numb from going back and forth and up and down.  Where you are not filthy you are sun burned.  Your eyes are rimmed with dirt.  Your nose fills with snot and there is a gritty feeling in your mouth. Then you begin to break an occasional branch.  The gorgeous trail behind you is not as straight and as inspiring.  Then you hit a tree or nearly tip over or forget the finer points of the controls and nearly backup over the tilling attachment.  This instantly reminds you that hundreds of people are hideously killed or maimed every year driving these things.  This means it is time to break, eat lunch, and restock your water supply.   No cold beer until you are done - basic rule #2A of farming (the ban on tractor racing is #2C).  I heard that in Arkansas most severe injuries and deaths on tractors occur after the farmer is heard to say:  ”Bubba -  hold on to my beer and watch this!”.  After another half a day you quit for the day and shower.  I slept like a log.

Sunday was a repeat of Saturday except no time, skin, and brain cells were lost hooking up attachments.  We finished up entirely Monday afternoon.  Wow!  The orchard looked absolutely gorgeous - like a picture out of Modern Farming magazine.  Hey - farming is strenuous and a little difficult but rewarding !

Cleaning up equipment is the final step in spring plowing.  So I broke out the pressure washer and really cleaned up the tractors and equipment.  After I finally figured out how to use the washer I was amazed at the pressure produced.  This thing can flay your skin off.  I inadvertently removed a couple of the dozens of warning decals that are conspicuously  posted all over the tractor - showing in bizarre cartoon fashion the consequences of putting your hand into the revolving tiller teeth or your finger into the fan belt.  Detached cartoon hand.  Detached cartoon finger.  All surrounded with little cartoon lightning bolts.  With explanations in at least five languages in case the graphic still doesn’t make sense somehow.   Who would ever want to put their hand or finger in these areas?  Would this same person want to see what would happen if they touched their wet tongue to a spark plug while the engine was running?  What would that cartoon look like?  I purposely blasted off some of the more macabre cartoons as they were too disturbing and could interfere with concentration while splitting logs, spraying carcinogens, or ripping redwood logs into rough planks - which I was looking forward to doing.  Only hundreds of deaths and injuries?  I’ll bet there are thousands. The tractor industry is sand-bagging us big time.  I got the tractors gleaming and free of some of those pesky stickers.

The last step in the clean-up process is refueling all of the machinery.  All diesel fuel for these machines is bright-red dyed to instantly differentiate it from the clear highway fuel.  The reason it is red is that it is produced solely for off-road use like on farms, ranches, and industrially for forklifts and construction.

It is far less expensive than highway diesel because of much lower taxes. Other than that it is identical #2 grade and works equally well as the clear stuff coming out of station pumps.  Those highway truck scale stops and inspection stations check the fuel of commercial trucks using a long clear dip tube.  The color red in the dip tube means a huge fine.

The following weekend I only had one more tractor to clean and fuel up.  The big one, the one without a fuel gauge (huh?), and I had never put fuel in to it in my year as farmer trainee/intern.  Turns out it has a huge tank and was still half full.

The 600 gallon capacity diesel storage tank is on the top of a steel frame that is about six feet high, located on the side of the garage/shop building away from the house and not visible from the house.  Diesel flows by gravity through a valve at the base of the tank, then through a filter, and then down a hose to a conventional grip-trigger nozzle like the one you find in filling stations everywhere.  Next to the diesel tank is a 1200 gallon capacity gasoline tank within a concrete containment basin. Gasoline fuel is pumped by a regular electric motor and works exactly like a gas station pump.  I am giving you all of this useless information so you will better understand what happened next.

That afternoon I broke several Rules of Farming.  I left the tractor idling while fueling it (great exhaust sound, remember?), I was working by myself (farms are deadly - always have someone nearby who can help you) and I was day dreaming and not really paying attention like I should have been.

I fueled the tractor up, hung up the hose, turned off the shut-off valve, returned to the still idling tractor and backed up slowly while throwing a stick for Penny, our border collie, to chase.  She never chases, but I always try.

I had snagged the fuel hose on the edge of the front bucket when hanging it back up.

I looked up from Penny to see a stream of reddish-pink diesel spewing out of a big crack in the valve caused by the hose, wedged on the  bucket, bending it backwards until it broke.  The diesel was blasting out in all directions, shooting maybe 15′ in every direction like a giant shower head. I sat there for several moments just dumb struck - probably with my mouth hanging open in shock.

I finally jumped down, ran over to the tractor bucket, jumped in, went up to the spewing pink diesel shower, and tried to bend the brass shut-off valve back in to place to staunch the flow,  It snapped off and fell to the ground still attached to the heavy hose, nozzle, and fuel filter.  I now had a 3/4″ diameter stream of red diesel fuel shooting out of a naked pipe, arching about 20′ over the bucket to the ground.  The chickens that were milling around nearby squawked and ran off like feathered bullets.

I was now completely soaked with red diesel.  I could barely see - I think that if I had not been wearing glasses I would have been blinded by the gushing diesel hitting my face.  I pushed the fleshy part of the palm of my left hand over the diesel stream at the pipe - it was hard to slow the flow and I had to really lean from the bucket of the tractor into the pipe to slow it at all.  I finally got it down to a trickle.  Now I am soaked throughout - my boots are full and I am standing in a pool of diesel fuel that has collected in the big bucket.  To my horror I realize that the tractor is still idling with all of its fuel ignition threat intact.  A big spark, a hot manifold and - Oh my God !  there is a huge gas tank 10′ away and a garage full of other fuels, flammable lubricants and vehicles and tractors with full fuel tanks right behind us.

When all of this flashed before me my first thought was “what would McGiver do in a situation like this?”  McGiver?  What? The thought seemed to come out of nowhere.  Do you remember the TV show called McGiver, where he was an investigator of some sort that always got himself out of trouble by making a weapon, tool, or some kind of life-saving device out of stuff right if front of him?  He could make a bazooka out of a drinking straw and a box of pop tarts.  He could make a scuba tank out of a can of tomato soup and a water hose using his nail clippers for tools.  I had not thought of that TV show for years.

Then I suddenly got an idea (I know, I know).  I let go of the pipe for a minute while I removed my shirt and belt.  The stream of fuel resumed about a foot above my head.  My soaking beltless jeans fell down to my knees.  I folded the shirt up and used it to block the pipe.  I pulled the belt (also soaked and now extremely pliable, which I think helped) around the back of the steel frame behind the front of the tank and over the shirt blocking the pipe, and then tied it.  I only had enough belt to make a one loop knot but it held - I really pulled hard on it to tighten it.  The flow slowed to a trickle and I put down my arms.  They felt like they were on fire.

My eyes felt like they were also on fire.  I could barely see.  I rushed over to the tractor, backed it up about 25 feet, and switched it off, and then ran to the water hose at the corner of the house nearby, turned on the hose, and flooded my head and eyes with cold water.  It felt very soothing and the fiery eyes diminished.  I then ran back to the diesel tank and saw that the T-shirt-and-belt combination were still holding the flow to a trickle.  Sprinting to the tool room next to the garage I grabbed a broken rounded wood tool handle and a hammer and went back to the tank with the idea of pounding the wood handle into the pipe to stop it.  Unlike McGiver’s some ideas are not good ones.  I pulled off the belt and shirt and tried to pound the much too large handle into the pipe.  No way. Just more fuel all over the place and again in my eyes.  I put the shirt and belt back, again stopping most of the flow, ran to the water hose (still running) and again flooded my eyes.  I was truly worried about the effect of all of this on my vision.

Next I ran all the way to the parts room below the house and rummaged through the plumbing parts. I needed a 3/4″ inside diameter threaded cap or something I could improvise.  I made do with a 3/4″ short nipple and a same-sized male plug for one end.  Grabbing a pipe wrench from the tool area I flew back to the tank.  I was operating on pure adrenaline now.

Pulling off the shirt and belt the fuel stream began again with a vengeance.  I used the wrench to remove the broken remaining piece of the valve, blasting diesel everywhere when my arms passed through the stream.  I then tried to hand tighten the plugged nipple onto the pipe - the fuel flow quickly knocked it out of my hand.  I had to let the stream resume again while I retrieved it.  It was covered in muck made by mud and diesel - I was lucky to find it.  I had to use the stream from the tank to clean it off so I stood a chance of threading it on to the pipe.  I put it back up there, diesel spewing everywhere, holding it with both hands trying to get the thread to begin between the pipe and the nipple.  I must have tried half a dozen times. I was worried that the attempt to hammer in the handle had distorted the pipe to the point where it would not take the thread of the nipple.  At this point my eyes were useless - I could only make out light and dark.  I finally got the thread to begin.  Slowly at first, then a couple of turns, and now I could use the wrench.

I couldn’t find it.  I felt around with my feet - it is long and heavy - but I still could not find it.  I then dropped down to my knees, fearful that the nipple would fly off and I knew there was no way I could find it or make another.  I felt around and found the wrench - where it had fallen out of my pocket.  I had put it in a rear pocket handle down with most of the wrench hanging out at an angle and it had come loose. I tightened the nipple and could feel no more fuel coming out. None !

I staggered (really!) back to the hose and flooded myself for what felt like half an hour.  Then sat down on the ground, entirely spent.  After I caught my breath and could see again I shuffled to the front door and went in the house, heading to a shower.  I reeked of diesel fuel.  My skin on my face, arms, and chest was starting to sting.  I caught a look at myself in the hall mirror - red colored head to waist from the fuel, eyes even redder, shiny wet red from the oily fuel, hair in wild dissarray.  I looked like I had been bleeding.  No shirt.  Pants about ready to fall off.  Bright pink underwear visible.  The image of a complete madman.

Margretta had returned to the house while all of this was going on - completely unaware of what had occurred.  As I was opening the bathroom door she came around the corner and saw me.  I thought she was going to faint.  She staggered back against the wall.  She opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out.  Gaining her composure she continued to stare at me, obviously trying to make sense out of what she saw and smelled.  Trying to ask questions her mouth moved but no words came out.  She was incredulous.

I looked at her and could only think to say “red dyed diesel” as if that were a perfectly adequate explanation for everything.   I remember her looking at me and saying “what?” as I went into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.  I showered for over an hour.  I washed and shampooed myself literally a dozen times and still smelled like diesel the next day.  I am very glad that there was a next day.

My eyes remained red and inflamed for several days but my sight quickly returned to normal.  The skin on my nose, forehead, and upper arms peeled as if recovering from a bad sun burn.  All of my clothing wound up in the trash.  Two weeks later my hair remains a little oily.  I still get a whiff of that noxious diesel odor occasionally - real or imagined I am not sure.  I even had a kind of funny dream about it.

But that was all. I hadn’t pulled the whole tank down onto the tractor (and myself).  No paramedics.  No conflagration.  No article in the paper.  No 6 o’clock news.     I am a much wiser farmer.  I passed the top secret farmer initiation ceremony.      I am in the fraternity of farmers.  I have given thanks many, many times now.  Thank you.

The diesel tank needs a new valve.  What should the diesel leak warning sticker and cartoon look like?  I shudder to think.

Farming is not for the faint of heart and uninitiated.