A Tractor for Every Occasion

It's shaping up to be a great weekend for us -- by which I mean, all three of our tractors (one for every occasion) should be running!

You'd expect that they should ALL be running any time I want them to, but with older tractors, that's not typically the case.

Take Putt Putt, for example.  Our 1948, Ford 8N workhorse tractor is terrific.  Nothing beats this tractor's ability to pull stuff, whether it is the work wagon, a tree stump, or a tractor implement.  Three weeks ago, what happened?  Rats.  No, I mean it. Rats. They ate the insulation on the wiring and Putt Putt caught fire... fortunately after driving 15 feet away from our heritage wooden barn! Thanks to the heroic efforts of Antonio Serrano, our tractor mechanic, Putt Putt now has a new wiring harness.

Then there is Alice -- our 1964 Allis Chalmers B210 mini tractor.  Alice is truly special purpose -- we use Alice for tilling, and that's it.  For the $50 we invested to buy Alice, and about $300 since then in tune-ups and other maintenance, Alice gives us pillow-soft tilled dirt.  We only till a couple times a year to work in the cover crop or our "home-grown" rabbit and poultry manure, but Alice really does a great job. As long as she starts up, that is.   Thanks again to Antonio, Alice's latest tune-up has her purring like a ... cat. Fingers crossed for some good tilling to come this weekend when we set up one garden to be fallow this year while it decomposes a new load of manure.

Finally, our shining star, Cinnamon.  Our only new tractor, Cinnamon is a Sears Craftsman yard tractor -- a glorified, souped-up lawn tractor.  We can jet around the property, mowing as we go, dragging our small wagon full of tools, and Cinnamon just keeps on keeping on.  Happily, with the purchase we bought three years of tuneups and blade sharpening! We learned from our old tractors how much that counts!

More later with the results of the weekend's work.

Gauntlets and Goldie

Sometimes you have an animal that just won't settle down, no matter how much you handle it, hold it, work with it. Take Goldie, a half- Orpington chick we hatched from one of our hens. Here you see Goldie pretty calm. Why? It is due to the better grip from my Duluth Trading leather gauntlets. They keep my arms from getting scratched by nervous chicks and let the chicks have a more secure perch to cling to. Thanks Duluth for a great product!

Glorious Jeweled Gems

These jewels are pretty cool -- eggs from our hard-working flock of hens. They are really ramping up production with the longer days of spring! What's best is the variety of colors in our eggs -- that is what inspired me to call them "jeweled".