JD’s Journey

Tractor: noun▸a vehicle used on farms, for example to pull machines (Macmillan Dictionary)

One thing that I never thought I’d be the proud owner of is a tractor. I know nothing about tractors, zero, nada; except maybe that farms use them. If you’ve read my previous blogs you know that I consider myself to live on a Poshranch. However, that Poshranch includes 5.6 acres of land that need to be maintained. And….we live in Wyoming, which allegedly (and statistically) gets more snow than our previous location of Longmont. And, we’ve heard from the neighbors that the snow drifts on our very long driveway can be impressive. So, what to do what to do??

Hence the need for some form of equipment (besides just our arms) to be able to handle the forces of nature on a Poshranch, i.e. native grasses that continue to grow without regard to whether or not I want them to, snow that falls and drifts in impressive amounts across our driveway, and perhaps the transport of land maintenance goods around the hilly backyard (tree fertilizer anyone??)

I’ve been singing the chorus of this song lately by The Judds (John Deere Tractor) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXK2CBYTiyc). When this song came out I always wondered why someone would write a song about a tractor, but apparently that is not the only country song written about tractors. Who knew?? In fact, if you’re interested in learning more about songs written about tractors, check out this Top 10 Country Songs About Tractors list at https://www.liveabout.com/top-tractor-songs-933608.

The Search

My father (with whom we live) has always wanted a tractor, and not just any tractor, a green John Deere tractor. MUST be a John Deere. My father worked on a farm during his youth, but never had his own land or land maintenance equipment. He was like a little kid when talking about the tractor that we were thinking of purchasing. He even bought a green John Deere cap to wear (while driving the tractor perhaps?). Lifelong dream complete!

My husband, Neal, started the search online to hopefully find a used tractor that fit the specifications he was interested in (a John Deere 1025R with 24HP compact tractor with heated enclosure, 54″ mower and plow). It was not easy. New tractors are prevalent in Cheyenne, but used are hard to come by. Neal found a few around the country; the midwest, New York and Nebraska. Having a tractor shipped from a far away state proved to be extremely difficult. That left the option of driving from Cheyenne to pick up the tractor.

The tractor that was the closest was in eastern Nebraska, about 500 miles away. However, the dealer where the tractor was located also has another location in North Platte, Nebraska, only about 200 miles away. This lead to contacting the dealership and asking if they could transport the tractor from their eastern NE location to their western location. And lo and behold, after multiple phone calls, they did!

The Journey

So a few days ago, Neal and my dad rented a trailer to pull with my dad’s new red Ford truck (future blog on the truck saga), to head to North Platte to pick up the tractor.

After driving through rain and hail that led to visibility of 5 feet and needing to pull over and wait it out, they arrived home. Upon their arrival home we all rushed outside to see the new piece of farm equipment. I never would have considered being excited about a tractor; seriously, I’m the one who wrote about a Poshranch. (Tractors? What do they even do? What even IS a tractor? You want to spend that much on a piece of farm equipment? We don’t even live on a farm, or really a ranch, maybe a microranch without the animals. I can think of tons of other things I’d rather spend that money on.)

However, when we all rushed outside to see the tractor, I can’t say I was disappointed. It sort of looked intriguing. Didn’t really know what I was looking at, but thought it looked useful (don’t all tractors look alike? No, the answer apparently is no).

We all stood around and ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ over the tractor with smiles on our faces. Not only does this tractor mow, but is comes with a snowplow and a snowblower. Woo hoo? Yay? I suppose I’ll be saying that this winter when the snow drifts are piled up in our driveway. And one important requirement for this tractor was a heated enclosure because, you know, we live in Wyoming.

Am I excited about the tractor? Well, not really, but everyone else seems to be so maybe it will grow on me. Is it necessary for living on a ranch even though it may be posh? Yes, I believe that to be so, but time will tell. I’m sure my husband will be reminding me in the winter how much easier it is to plow the driveway with the heated tractor. And you can bet that it wouldn’t be me rushing to run out to the driveway to start shoveling, and shoveling, and shoveling, for the entire day.

I decided the tractor had to have a name, and the name that seems obvious (and boring, I know, but maybe something catchier will be created later) is JD, because of course John Deere. So that is where JD’s journey beings, from Nebraska to Wyoming, to become a part of our Poshranch for mowing, snowplowing and snowblowing, and whatever else it is that tractors do.

Don’t let me down JD. I’m counting on you.

Thanks for reading!!

Until next time…