The Would-Be Farm: Tractor Dreams

Tractor envy. The green-eyed monster has been whispering to us about the rumbling of a diesel, big ole knobby tires, a power take-off connection that would strike fear into a worried soul.

​I've had my eye on a pair of Jiminy Cricketty brother-tractors down the road. Not planning to purchase, as they lack any of the safety features of the past three or four decades, but still. 

The flames of feverish desire were fanned by the loan of the neighbor's brand-spanking new tractor to mow our fields last summer. 

Likewise also was desire inflamed by the week's rental of a small but feisty Bobcat excavator, which enabled us to move dirt and rocks in a most gratifying way. 

One of the really surprising parts of the Would-Be Farm is how things go from concept to reality. Mr. Linton perused the interwebs (on his tablet! haHA!) and chatted with his tractor-driving friends. We piled into the pickup and bounced down to the tractor store. 

We took a mechanically-inclined friend, Curt, along as the designated cooler head to prevail over our starry-eyed amateur purchasing impulses. Curt suggested that we might want to have a bulldozer, too. Not sure his head was cooler. 

Anyway, it was the matter of a morning's shopping, negotiation of some refurbishment on the 14-year-old beauty, several painfully slow days of waiting for delivery, and it's official. The Would-Be Farm has a tractor. With a back-hoe attachment. And a brush cutter.