I Heart Tractors

Tom, my born-n-raised farming husband, has been driving tractors since before he was old enough to drive a car. He’s even won awards at the county fair for his mad tractor driving skilz, maybe that’s not a big thing for most people, but for FFAers, that is a reason to come to the fair! It may seem crazy to think that after knowing the guy for 8 years, he hasn’t once said, why don’t I teach you how to do this? But he hadn’t, until this spring. Come to think of it, it never crossed my mind to hop on a little green machine and take it for a spin myself. I have never even driven a riding lawnmower.

I thought it would be like driving a car, foot on the pedal, hands at 10 and 2, but it isn’t. First of all, there are so many levers and not like with a manual transmission either. You hold down the clutch, put it in gear, and then you push another little lever to get it to go forward. Then you let go of the lever, sit back and relax, it stays at that speed. No wonder they can drive for hours, you don’t have to have steady pressure on the gas or anything else. You have to use other levers to get implements (the attached tools) to move and run but you don’t have to hold those either. I really like the brakes, you can hold 1 side down and not the other to tighten your turning radius, which is handy. And you don’t have to go at super slow field speeds to get where you’re going, there’s a lever for that.

The reason I was on the tractor was because I wanted to plant a pumpkin patch. So, I was the one that needed to rototill our little pumpkin patch. I tilled 9 rows in all, once planted we had 8 rows with pumpkins and 1 row of gourds. The pumpkins include Luminary white pumpkins, Hercules (big orange ones with super strong handles), Triple Treats that are good for baking, seeds and carving, Sugar Babies that make divine pumpkin pies, and of course Giant Prizewinner pumpkins. Got to have the biggies, or it just isn’t a true pumpkin path. I’m hoping we get at least one large enough I have to hop on another tractor just to get it out of the field.

I have a goal of learning how to use all of the tractors and implements used for doing hay this summer too. But that’s another tractor tale for another day.

Anyway, I drove a tractor and I liked it. I guess I could have said just that.

Hate to run, but eggs don’t collect themselves,
Natalie