Cliff's new implements

Cliff was browsing Craigslist's Farm-and-garden section Thursday and saw a couple of things he really needed. Looking at the pictures, he recognized the implements as belonging to my cousin and her husband, and quickly made a phone call.

They agreed to hold the two items for us, and we picked them up on Saturday.

Cliff has an old-fashioned hay rake, but everybody who has this kind says they are bulletproof, and that you can rake just as fast as the tractor will go. Once the dew is off our rain-ruined hay, he'll try it out. Even though the hay is no good, it needs to be taken off the field. We needed this!

Cliff had an old disc mower he used for three years, but it was so worn out that it seemed he spent more time working on it than he did mowing with it; so this year he sold it for parts and went back to mowing with the old John Deere sickle mower. Folks, that's like going from an automatic washing machine to a wringer washer, and Cliff really missed having a disc mower.

We consider this one a blessing from heaven, because we didn't expect to be able to buy another one.

The icing on the cake is that my cousin and her husband take excellent care of their machinery, keeping everything oiled and greased regularly.

Cliff is so happy.

Here's a related footnote: Cliff mentioned to his Kansas brother who works on farm machinery for a living that he'd like a big plow to pull behind the Oliver 1855 tractor. Donald called yesterday: he found one free plow, and one six-bottom plow for $250 (that's cheap).

"I'll take both of them," says Cliff.

It's raining farm machinery around here!

We don't have much to plow on our property, but Cliff LOVES to plow. So he's going to see if one of the local farmers will let him try his tractor and plow out in some of their fields, once the harvest is over. Farmers these days don't plow at all, so he'll be doing them no favor; he just wants to put that big tractor to work so he can see what it will do.

I think it's some sort of macho thing.