Somebody's Messing With My Mind...

Granted, it ain't THAT hard to do, but REALLY...

I have been working on and off at finishing up with the small parts on the Farmall F-20. Nothing major, just a few pieces here and there. Mostly, I run them through a wire brush and clean them up real good in the barn, then bring them onto the porch to paint and dry.

One of the things from the original tractor that was broken was the seat spring. On these machines, that consists of a coiled spring made from 3/8" steel. The whole thing is about 6" tall and 2 inches wide.

Since it was broken, I needed to find another. The friend who gave me the tractor, told me to take the one off of his "parts" tractor. So, there we were, braving the cold wind on a Sunday afternoon in November, getting the spring and a few more parts off his machine.

We gathered up all the bolts, nuts, washers and - of course - my "prize" seat spring (amazing how simple things can bring so much joy...), and tossed everything into a small, one gallon plastic bucket.

I drove home with my pile of parts, and unloaded them from the truck.

Fast forward three days. I wanted to work at cleaning the seat spring, so I went out to the barn to collect it (and a few other small parts). No big deal, I'd just go grab it, and the bucket from off the bench, and bring it on in....

No big deal...

Except that the bucket was NOT ON the bench! I looked on, behind (although the bench is against the wall...), under, beside, and around the work bench, but it just wasn't there. Reasoning that I had left it in the truck, I even searched THERE.

Nope.

Time was getting short (and it was getting dark), so I abandoned the search until the next day, and the next, and the next, and....you get the idea.

That stupid bucket had run off and hid good. I even interrogated the cats, but they weren't talking. The search was widened out to include shelves in the back of the barn, shelves in the milk room, shelves in the feed room, on top, behind and under my hay baler, in the hay stack (those cats will do anything...). I even searched the shop, and CHICKEN HOUSE (you just never know what those chickens are capable of....).

It was a daily ritual, go to the barn, look everywhere because I might have missed someplace the day before, tour around the barn, in case I left it outside, and even search the pickup again in case I was sitting on it and didn't know, etc, etc.

I was beginning to think I had left it at my friend's house when I got the parts. I could envision it sitting out there, freezing in the cold, wind, and snow.

Then again, I could also envision it sitting on the work bench....

This went on for over two WEEKS. That *#^<* bucket was around somewhere, and I HAD to find it. I was gong crazy(er) trying to find it. The cats would scatter every time I mentioned the ordeal, for fear their situation might escalate to some form of water boarding or something.

Then, one day last week, I was out on the back porch messing with some other stuff when I noticed Peaches, our 4 1/2 month old Dachshund, with her hands on the rim of a 1 gallon plastic bucket, and her head stretched down inside to see what was in there.

I bet you can guess what was inside....

Yup. The seat spring and all the other stuff I had been searching for for all that time. The bad thing is, the bucket was in PLAIN sight - I had walked by it a couple hundred times during the course of my intrepid search. It was INCHES away from where I put on my coat every time I went out the door (several times a day). I had to have even KICKED the thing a few times on my way out.

To my credit, there was a part of a paper towel inside, on top of the parts, so if I even saw the bucket, the towel would have partially obscured the parts.

Hey, it's a feeble excuse - I know - but it's all I got.....