I cringe when I see farmers depicted as country bumpkins. You know the drill: They are in overalls with a wheat straw in their mouth, but it doesn't matter anyway because they sound like uneducated fools. It's the "Green Acres" syndrome.
Of course, there is an increasing number of people who actually
want farmers to take a step back into the early 1900s. While they bite the hand that feeds them via their latest version of iPhone and tweet their opinions about how farmers are poisoning the world, they would rather farmers use a horse and plow ... while wearing their overalls, of course. (By the way, my Grandpa Neelly wore overalls, and he was no country bumpkin either.)
So, when Randy fires up the old Ford 8N tractor and I share a photo of it on a Facebook post, I hope people don't think it's the way we farm. We have our Case STX 375 tractor. (It has 375 horsepower, compared to about 25 horsepower for the Ford tractor.)
We have finally joined the army of
semi trucks that take grain to our local co-op. (It has 425 horsepower.)
And we really went the Army route with our
new-to-us feed wagon.
But, this past week, Randy again used the Ford tractor. These days, we have a wire winder on the back and use it for building and rolling up electric fence so we can move cattle there for grazing.
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| A photo from fall 2013. |
I think the rust is the only thing holding it together.
But there is something about tradition. That tractor seat has been occupied with five different generations now. Melvin and Clarence bought the tractor back in the 1960s, when Randy was
in grade school. They used it to load silage for feeding cattle. Randy
remembers using it to pull a two-row John Deere planter when they
planted milo. He also cultivated milo with it when he was junior high
age.
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| Clarence (Randy's Grandpa, seated), his Dad Melvin and Randy holding Brent in 1988. |
Randy was insistent that the tractor served as a focal point for a 2012 Easter-time photo with Kinley and Jill.
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| April 2012 |
We'll see if the weather is good enough to get
both granddaughters on the old Ford this Thanksgiving.
It may be tired, but it's not retired.
