Almost every vehicle develops a personality. And every vehicle that does indeed take on its own persona needs its own name.

This is not the chrome script on the nose, fender or rear that identifies the maker and the model. This is personal.

My first car, a 1953 Mercury, was given the moniker of “MJ special” by the fellow I was working for at the time.

In terms of efficiency and effectiveness, few tasks on a farm match preventive maintenance of machinery.

Dedicating time to preventing damage can keep all components of a job in working order; as harvest season looms for hay and forage growers, these preventive maintenance steps can provide optimized use of time in the field.

Among the fleet of harvest implements to consider are mower conditioners, balers and tedders.

It was a picture that stopped you in your tracks: a magnificent sorrel stallion with nostrils flared, flames reflecting in his wild eyes, mane flying aloft and a ball of fire roaring at the tip of his teeth!

If ever there was a dragon horse snorting fire, this would be it.

This image was the brain-searing mental picture I formed as CB spun his tale. It seems CB had made his regular morning visit over to his neighbor’s house.

It started to snow hard. We were on Highway 6 headed southwest out of Ely, Nevada. I was helping a friend move from Washington State to a wonderfully desolate Shangri-La due north from the fabled Area 51 in Nevada.

We were running three trucks more or less together. The Maestro was in the lead truck, the second piloted by a fellow who came along to help if the Maestro would swing back through the Salt Lake City area on the way home and haul some equipment he had there back to Washington, and the author in the third truck.

I’ll call the other driver Wilbur, just to protect his identity. “Wilbur” had not been in a big truck for over a decade but seemed to get along without difficulty.