Vrooooom!

Our tractor is in the shop right now (it was inexplicably running a little hot, especially under a load), and the guy has been super duper slow to get it back to us. In the meantime, I have had some chores stack up that really need to be addressed. These chores require a tractor.

[Farm geek elaboration: Basically I have two open strips in the field that we aren't using this year, but that we want to use in future years. The best way to hold the soil, and to add organic matter as well, is to plant a cover crop in the interim. The key is you have to till the cover crop in before it goes to seed, otherwise your cover crop distributes its seeds and it just becomes a weed in future years. So, on these open strips we seeded oats this spring, but now the oats (and the weeds, including a wild mustard) are developing seed heads and they really needed to get turned under. If those seeds mature it exponentially increase the amount of attention these strips will need down the road. Now back to our normal post.]

So I borrowed/rented our neighbors beautiful John Deere. (John Deere tractors are considered the Mercedes of the tractor world, at least they are up here in Vermont).

I'll tell you, this tractor probably cost 8 times what our tractor is worth, but boy, is it nice.