The Recovering Farmer

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Nothing Runs Like A Deer

I am sitting in my office on a dreary Saturday morning, listening to the rain fall. Wondering what to do today. I had plans. But, of course, the weather will change those plans. I know, all of you are thinking the plan was to golf. Not so. Not this time. Although I did get an invitation for a game. Wait a minute. Had an invitation to go last night. One for this morning. And another one for tomorrow. How cool is that. In the last year or so I was becoming accustomed to playing by myself. Not so this year. Being in a new community has its benefits.

You need to know that I declined the invitation for this morning. I was going to help my brother-in-law help my father-in-law. Annual tractor show. Although I am not into antique tractors I knew this was an opportunity to help out. An opportunity to meet old friends. You see, the tractor show is in a community we lived in thirty years ago. And, obviously, gain some much needed brownie points. But, I suspect, the show will be canceled. My wife just suggested it would be a good day to clean up the car garage. Not what I had hoped for.

Okay. So I said that I am not into antique tractors. I will admit that I love hearing old, two cylinder John Deeres. Not sure why. They actually give me flashbacks to another time. You see, my father was a grain farmer. We farmed about 700 acres. Nothing big. But 700 acres none the less. One year my father decided we needed another tractor. I remember neighbors having nice tractors, with cabs, air conditioners, and duel wheels. So of course my imagination went wild. Soon we would be in that bracket as well. Well, things turned out different. My father came home from an auction with a Model R John Deere. A two banger. It had a cab. No air conditioner. No duels. Talk about a fantasy going right out the window. And to think, we just bought a John Deere lawn tractor. Paid close to what my dad paid for his Model R.

The new to us tractor did provide one benefit. It meant we had to have a bigger deep tiller. We went to a 12 footer. Think about it. A whopping 12 feet wide. We thought it was huge. Now picture this. The fields we had to work with that massive deep tiller were 160 acres. That means they were half a mile by half a mile. So I would head out to the field on a smaller tractor, because I did not have my drivers yet, fire up the two banger, and away I went. I would go up and down that field all day. We had to remove the back of the cab to get some air circulation. All that did was create a dust trap. It was hot. It was dusty. It was loud. And it was boring. No radio. Which was a good thing because we would not have been able to hear it anyway. All we could do was think. And with the noise and dust even that was difficult. At the end of the day I would look back at the field and it was difficult to see whether I had actually made any progress. Then it was off home on the other tractor. All to do it again the next day. And they say those were the good old days? Me thinks not. No wonder I need therapy.

How things have changed. Now we live in an era of big tractors, sound proof cabs, GPS, humongous air seeders, high clearance sprayers and other high tech equipment. Farming has become so complicated. So has life. Could we not make life simpler for ourselves. Think about it. Perhaps those were the good old days. Now, I suppose, it’s off to the garage. Perhaps if I get that done quick enough I can watch some golf on TV. After all, it is the U.S. open. Make it a good one.

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