The Tractor

3/29/98
With only two acres to call a homestead, I don't need 
all the big toys that are so necessary to my farming 
neighbors but I can make believe, can't I? This is a 
story about a farmer-wannabe and his garden tractor.

The tractor didn't start. No surprise, it hadn't been 
started in three months. I checked the gas. I might be 
finally learning, it was empty, just as it should be 
when put to bed for the winter. I probably just got 
lucky and it ran out right in the aisle of the barn. The 
kerosene heater I had loaned a brother last week 
hadn't worked. The chainsaw is seldom put away 
correctly either, or the lawn mower, the weed-eater, 
or, or, or...

The only can with any gasoline in it was for the 
chainsaw and it was mixed. I put the battery charger 
on the tractor and took advantage of the setback to 
go to the store.. eat an early lunch... check out the 
newest bunnies... thin the tomato and cabbage 
seedlings and start some sweet peas and larkspur 
(just because there was a little bit of room left on the 
shelf under the grow-light), all before I went back to 
monkeying with the tractor. Like an amateur 
militiaman, the gasoline and a full charge did the 
trick, the tractor exploded to life. To a non-farmer, it 
might appear that I'd been procrastinating, they'd be 
right. Time to clean the pens!

I started forking Boots' pig-pen while she sniffed at 
the fork and nipped at my barn boots. After spending 
more time shooing her away than working I'd had 
enough of that! I threw her a piece of the last dried 
mint from the beam above. She took the stem to her 
bed and shook it over the hay then laid down. When 
the wagon was loaded with three times the amount 
the old manure spreader could handle ( a 6 yard, 
poly- wheelbarrow), I drove through the barn's rear 
sliding door and did a sharp turn back towards the 
upper gate. The bunnies, who had fled to their 
sunrooms when the tractor started, hopped back 
inside as I drove by, up the well-worn trail made by 
my old truck. She had been the real manure spreader, 
but I had to load her with a wheelbarrow and ramp, 
she wouldn't fit through the barn doors.

The tractor ( maybe I'll give it a name finally!), has 
been here almost four years, given to me as a job 
bonus. It's a Sears 10 XL garden tractor with weights 
and chains on low pressure tires. The mower deck 
was completely shot and the owner had opted to buy 
a new tractor instead of replacing it. What small 
lawn we have is easily kept clipped with a push-
mower or tethered cows. Until we bought the dump-
bed trailer last year, it had rarely been used, just 
hogging space in the barn. I might paint it green and 
name it Jane Dear...or red and call it Missy-
Harris...or just leave it orange and call it Alice the 
Charmer.

Earlier I had dropped a bale of hay in the divided, 
one-acre pasture and when the cows entered that 
section, pulled shut the farmer's gate, three extended 
strands of barb wire fastened to a short locust pole 
that slips into wire loops. The cows were not going to 
bother me like the pig had. The similar upper gate to 
the main pasture was open and I drove through, 
slowly tugging the wagon of manure in first gear. 
From this point our land begins to drop at about the 
same angle as the pitch of my shop roof, which is a 
six-twelve, ending with an ancient logging cut that 
makes a fine erosion ditch,and a four-strand barbed-
wire fence. Just across this fence is a brush-row (like 
a brush pile but longer), built of the tops and small 
branches of the locust and soft maples that used to 
cover this section of pasture. The trip to the bottom 
was uneventful. I dumped the wagon then spread the 
nitrogen rich fertilizer with my trusty fork. The 
pitchfork was given to me by my grandfather and its 
stirrup handle is well worn, but with care it should 
last until I join Grampa in the great dairy farm in the 
sky.

Ten more trips from the barn to the bottom of the 
pasture, dumping then spreading, took most of the 
day but the winter's heating pads in both the pig-pen 
and calf-pen are gone. I'll keep the cows in the upper 
section for a while to let the manure begin its 
metamorphosis back to that which it came from. The 
pens are now ready for their weekly cleanings which 
get composted in large bins before being spread on 
the gardens and pasture.