Ag tires pick up so much stuff

In this modern world of paved roads and interstate systems, the automobiles are spoiled rotten. Even I’ve got a car that only has a couple of inches of ground clearance and can’t go very far from the highway without getting in some sort of bind. Long gone are the days when the best of the best was bad pavement and dirt was always on the route. I’m not complaining, by any means. I enjoy the spoils of luxury maybe a little more than the average citizen.

Because there’s a lot of driving to do that isn’t anything but work. Fourteen hours in my highway vehicle is like a long day on the tractor, but with a comfy seat, nothing much to worry about behind you, and the buddy seat is an actual seat. You can stop for coffee and fuel and snacks at your leisure and the number of levers and wheels and pedals that you have to manage, even with a manual transmission, is pretty minimal. No hydraulic ups and downs and tongues to just barely not run over every half a mile. The road from here to California is one long pass with no sprinklers or pipe-casings — but there can be a bit of a herd. I’m pretty sure I still haven’t put in a highway drive as long as the longest days I’ve put in on the tractor.

The tires on my car have seen the blacktop of a few different states and a county road or two. There’s probably particles of things that I can’t conceive and wouldn’t want to. But the highway miles mark more of a loss, I think, than a gain, when it comes to the stuff on your tires.

Off the road, in the pickup that has spent as many miles off the highway as on, the tires seem to gather more than they lose, more often than not. Mud when it rains is nice, but it’s more likely mud from a leaking pipeline, tank that runs over, or a sprinkler pivot marsh. Manure from a variety of livestock and wild animals. Rabbits, snakes, coyotes, porcupines, and a really dumb bird or two. Maggots, feed, grain both rotten and new. Oil and grease and various other collections of lube. Nails, fence staples, goat-heads, bear-grass, cactus, and mesquite, alas.

The kinds of dirt and the things that somehow get underwheel… A lot of stuff has stuck to the tires over the course of a life on the untreaded path of agriculture.

Audra Brown doesn’t really want to know all the stuff on her tires. Contact her at [email protected]