The Rural Voice, 2002-05, Page 64GREY
446 10th St., Hanover, Ontario N4N 1P9
Email: grey@ofa.on ca Website: www.ota.on.ca/grey 519-364-3050 or 1-800-275-9551
County Federation of Agriculture NEWSLETTER
' The Rural Voice is provided to all Grey
County Farmers by the GCFA.
Hits, close calls and near misses
Everyone ‘1. ho farms should always
be aware of farm safety issues every
day. However. it is usually only the
really tragic accidents resulting in
death or serious injury that make us
focus on why that accident happened
and what could have been done to
prevent it.
I've been fortunate to have not been
involved directly in any serious
accidents. Having said that. I can
relate two instances where. if nothing
else. safety lessons could be learned.
These I will call "HITS":
1) When I was working in Borneo in
the late '60s. I had the misfortune to be
thrown off my motorcycle. Although I
was wearing a helmet, I still received a
concussion and stitches. I eventually
gave that helmet to a friend whose
motorcycle ran into the back of a
vehicle. He died of head injuries.
Lesson to be learned - Discard any
head protection, (snowmobile helmets.
etc.) which have been in an accident
because they may have invisible
cracks and structural damage.
2) The other incident involved me
going into northeast Thailand to check
out a potential placement for poultry
instructor. A farmer from Sarnia
arrived for this placement. was
working on a chicken -raising facility
when his aluminum ladder hit a high
voltage line - killing him instantly.
You already know this safety lesson.
How many of you have said to
yourself, "Wow, that was a close call!
Another minute or another inch, I
would have been a goner!" If you
survived such a situation you may
have even laughed about it later. Let
me give you some personal examples
.if close calls from which I trust, you
can learn from my stupidity:
1) Adventures of a tree -topper:
Picture a dying 60' spruce tree
surrounded by a house. a 30' mulberry
tree, a tool shed, a small maple tree
and a garden fence. It seemed like a
good idea at the time to tie a chainsaw
on my back, climb up 45' and start
sawing off 15' sections. Spruce trees
have lots of branches, no }problem
climbing up, no problem starting the
saw and getting three-quarters of the
way through. Then the wind caught the
60 THE RURAL VOICE
top and it settled down on the saw,
binding it tightly. I should mention it
was getting dark. (mistake number
two) so 1 tied the saw to the tree.
descended. and decided to wait until
the next day. Well. the wind came up
overnight. dropped the 15' top into the
maple tree below with the chainsaw
dangling at the end of its rope.
LESSON: Next time get neighbour
with log skidder, put cable on tree and
cut from bottom.
2) Burning your manure spreader:
One mild March day, I cleaned out the
barn and had one bucket of wet. slushy
material left which I dumped into the
spreader. It turned cold overnight - in
fact. no thaw for more than two weeks.
By this time the barn needed cleaning
again. but guess what. the bottom of
the spreader was frozen solid. I had a
fair accumulation of baler twine, so I
thought by burning this in the spreader
I might get the frozen material to melt.
The first two bags didn't do much, so
maybe some diesel fuel would make a
better fire. How right I was! I suppose
that some fuel had splashed on the
wooden side and that started burning
merrily. I jumped in to stamp out the
flames, started smelling burnt rubber
and realized my rubber boots were
also burning. A bucket of water soon
got everything under control. Certainly
there has to be a safer way of
attempting this job.
3) Falling off a roof: I was once hired
• to shovel snow off a two-storey house
in Owen Sound. Along the eaves there
was a layer of ite which I attacked
with an axe. Things went well until, all
of a sudden, a 10' section of ice let go
and I went with it straight down to a
cleared asphalt driveway landing on
my feet. As I was moving each limb
gingerly, figuring out what was
possibly broken, the homeowner stuck
her head out the door asking "What
was that awful crash?" In a shaky
GREY COUNTY FEDERATION OF
AGRICULTURE
DIRECTORS' MEETING
Thursday,May 23, 2002 - 8:00 p.m.
Grey County Agricultural Services Centre
meeting room (Grey Gables)
206 Toronto Street South, Markdale
Members are welcome to attend
voice I replied "Oh, just a large chunk
of ice fell off the roof."
• About that time, I decided that
shoveling snow off buildings was not a
good off -farm job.
4) The groundhog that nearly did
me in: This final episode could get me
into trouble with PETA but 1 don't
care too much for Wiarton Willy's
relatives due to broken axles, lost bales
of hay. damaged pickups, etc.
One day as 1 was round -baling a
hilly field near Woodford, I noticed a
groundhog venturing further and
further away from his hole as I was
getting closer and closer with each
round. Finally it got to the point where
I was sure I could outrun him to his
lair. I stopped the tractor, grabbed
something from the tool box and took
off.
I did beat him to his hole,
dispatched him, did a little victory
dance and turned around to see my
tractor and baler starting down the hill
all on its own. "Oops, forgot to put it
in park."
There was a fence, stones, and a
dry creek bed at the bottom of the hill.
No choice but to run back to the
tractor, mount it, and get it under
control. As the outfit was rapidly
picking up speed, I decided I couldn't
get on the tractor from the rear as one
misstep would end up with me in the
center of a round bale, so I had to
chance grabbing the hand hold and
pulling myself aboard from the side
before the rear wheel ran over me.
This would be a good time to say
"continued next month." Obviously I
did make it, suffering only a bruised
hip. An amusing story many years
later, but certainly my CLOSEST
CALL AND NEAREST MISS.O
- Submitted by Roger Lamont
Congratulations
The Grey County Federation of
Agriculture Board of Directors and
Executive would like to congratulate
Bev Fry, the winner of the 2001
Tommy Cooper Award presented on
April 5 at the Meet The Members and
Tommy Cooper Award meeting in
Durham. Bev was nominated by the
Ripley Agricultural Society.°