At the Louisville Farm Machinery Show

I'm at the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky. This is the largest farm equipment show in North America, and I've never been before. It's a lot like the Regina show in June, but bigger and all indoors. I'll be here two days — Thursday and Friday — wandering up and down the aisles, talking to people in booths. I'll write a summary for Grainews on what "catches my eye."

At the show I happened to meet John Sawatzky and Hank Enns, farmers from Altona, Man. (John was on our flight.) I asked what they thought was interesting. For them, it was not the big flashy tractors and combines. Instead it's more the smaller stuff, the interesting gadgets.

As one example, John liked the oil pan drain plug with a quick attach hose. (In the photo, the plug is at the top with the hose, right, and a dust cap, left.) It's called the Femco No-spill System. When you attach the hose, it pops up a valve in the plug so the oil can drain. When you take the hose off, the valve closes. You thread in the plug once and then all you need after that is the quick attach hose. It works really well for plugs that are hard to reach. And if you're emptying into a five-gallon pail and the engine contains more than five gallons of oil, you can easily stop the flow by removing the hose end. Then you go empty the pail, come back and reattach the hose. The simple kit is $60 or so.

I'll describe this and 10 or so other things from Louisville in a Grainews article in March. The list will probably include more little things — under $1,000 — than big things — $100,000 plus plus.