If I heard it once, I heard it fifteen times….”Mom, we need to set the Allis up for pulling…we don’t use it for anything else, we might as well make it a pulling tractor…did you see that one there pull before me…man that thing was a beast…mom, really…we need to put weights on it and set it up to pull….really mom.”
After our neighbor..the tractor mechanic, aka: tractor babysitter, came down yesterday morning to make sure we were headed to Waldron, he went to the neighbor who promised to haul my chicken chaser down to the tractor show. After he helped get his Farmall loaded, they came to our place and loaded the Allis, my three boys and headed south.
We followed and we were in for a day of tractor pulls. Luke got the Allis weighed in and then we waited for the start. Because the little tractor is light, it was in the first class and Luke was the second one to pull…right after this other Allis Chalmers B that was set up for pulling.
Luke hooked up and started off and the old Allis jumped and Luke thought he was done. But then she took off like a champ and with her front wheels off the ground most of the way down the track, Luke made a decent pull and ended up in third. Not too bad for her debut pull. Luke enjoyed having the front end raised up too, his Farmall never does that!
The rest of the day was just watching tractors of every make and color go by and pull. I really can’t think of any other way to spend a hot summer afternoon than to watch old tractors make their way down the track making their owners and anyone else who has ever owned that make and model proud. They are great old tractors. But like farming, I think an appreciation for tractors is in your blood…either you have it or you don’t…and I have it. I love listening to these old putt, putts, watching them and smelling them…I just love it all! I do come by it honestly…my grandfather was an implement dealer…so it really is in my blood!