A Shiny Distraction

While most of our brains (speaking broadly, universally) are occupied with worrying about the novel coronavirus, some of us have a shiny distraction parked in the shed. Our timing may have been risky, now that we see that this may be a year of diminished income -- again, speaking universally.  So the coronavirus is linked to everything, since the economy and public health is linked to everything. But it still makes me happy to have this new tractor.

Last fall, while performing its normal duties, our 70-something year old Allis Chalmers G imploded. A rod came through the engine wall and poked a hole in the radiator.  This little tractor is a classic -- it weighs a little more than 1000 pounds, and it looks like an orange spider. We used it to drive over the beds and mark the rows so they would be the right distance apart for cultivating with the same tractor, and Carrie would then use a walk behind push seeder to put the radish seeds in the ground, following the markings. When we bought this tractor ten years ago, it was a big upgrade from just doing everything by hand. Ten years ago we got all the way up to the middle of the 20th century.

It didn't seem worth it to try to keep this old tractor going.  When she wanted to put the cultivators down to touch the ground, Carrie had to stand up from her seat and grasp the handle on the lever, clamp the handle tightly and push with all her strength, physically lowering the cultivators. To lift it again, she had to use the same arm to pull the weight of all that metal (with a lever, of course). No hydraulics, quite a lot of effort.

Of course we knew there must be something better out there in the world. I knew of one farmer friend who is all about the tools and the toys, so Jon and I took our one intentional day off last September and went to see Dave and his assortment of tractors.

We walked around his super tidy farm and talked about the mechanical projects he was working on. Dave is a former Navy guy, an airplane mechanic who retired and loved having a big garden so he decided to become an organic farmer. His good habits of finishing projects and cleaning up make his farm about the neatest and most intentional place we have ever seen. He doesn't seem to have clutter. He barely has weeds. But in his collection he didn't have any tractor capabilities that we don't already have.

"So, Dave, if you were going to buy a new cultivating tractor, what would you buy?"
"Well, there's this business I have been following for a few years. They are trying to design and produce a tractor for less than $20,000 so it can be accessible to farmers in developing countries. I think this company is worth knowing about.  Tilmor.  Look them up."

So we looked them up and learned that the tractor wasn't quite ready for sale. They were still fidgeting and redesigning. Hoped to have it on the market by November.  We brought our other G in from Loudoun and limped through the rest of the season.

Then this winter when we were in Little Rock at the annual sustainable ag conference (Jon just went to keep me company since we were on our way back from New Zealand), I bought Jon a special ticket to go to the trade show and told him he should go look around. He is the Procurement Specialist at the farm, whether he likes it or not.  I thought he should look around at the hand tools since that's where we usually find good stuff.

But he found the Tilmor tractor on display and he talked to the engineers who had worked on it. They talked for a long time. Then I got to go see it and talk to them too. Then we did something really uncharacteristic for Jon (REALLY) but quite normal for me and we decided to buy that tractor. And then we bought a lot of implements to go with it.  Then I sent pictures to Carrie and Ciara and everyone else. By the time we got up to our hotel room, my heart was pounding with totally unusual anxiety. It's the first new tractor I have ever bought in my life. The last person to buy a new tractor was my father, 40 years ago. Yikes.

A happy, if anxious, customer.

Skip ahead to early March. We had decided to go get the Tilmor ourselves since we had spent all this time and money on acquiring a big trailer.  Road trip! The guys in Little Rock had told us their business was near Pittsburgh so that seemed like it could be a one day trip. But when I checked the map, it was really much further away than he had said.

I wrote an email: "You said you were near Pittsburgh, but you are actually closer to Oberlin!"
Him: "I hope that's good?"
Me: "Well, it makes it into a two day trip instead of just one day."
Him: "Well, you can stay overnight with the family if you want. Or we can get you a hotel."

So we went to stay with the family. Why not? The salesperson/engineer had told us that we were going to be like family to the Tilmor folks since they would want to stay in touch and learn from our feedback. We had bought #42! There are only 41 other farms out there with this tractor right now.

We arrived after dark -- after missing the driveway the first time and having to make a U-Turn with that 18 foot trailer. Luckily the neighbors had a wonderfully wide driveway.

We drove down a long driveway -- the family has an organic farm and they grow lots of spelt and other organic grains.  Got out of the truck and walked up to the door with some small amount of trepidation since no one had come out to say "yes, you are at the right place! Welcome!"

The young man who came to the door, Lydell Steiner, reminded us both instantly of a combination of our nephew Jesse and our friend Paul Benton. He moved and talked like them -- when he sat on a kitchen stool, he folded his legs under himself and kneeled. Only people with a specific body type do that without even thinking.

He hadn't come to the door instantly because he was in charge of his two kids -- his wife had just left for a long visit with her sister in Brazil.  His kids stayed out of sight in another room while Lydell told us about how this tractor came to be, and about his family story.

It's a long story, but they are a Mennonite family with a history of creating equipment and manufacturing it and running multiple businesses. Lydell's father has 6 brothers and Lydell has many cousins. They recently sold off a big part of their business -- they created a heavy duty lawn tractor that mows steep hillsides and golf courses -- to Toro. It was just getting too big to feel like a family business anymore. They had 350 employees. But they negotiated as well as they could with Toro so that the employees would keep their jobs.  They moved the new Tilmor business to a new location.

The next morning we got a full tour of the new location, including meeting two uncles and the dad. People were welcoming and friendly and they totally knew we were coming.  Lydell showed Jon everything he would need to know to be able to assemble all the tools. Everything was labeled and packaged and ready to load. They are really experienced at getting all the details right.

While we were looking at all the dials and levers on the new tractor, there were people moving more equipment into the warehouse (they are still moving). One of the uncles backed a trailer through the door, with very little room on either side, at a speed that took our breath away.

Lydell drove the tractor onto our trailer and I had that feeling I remembered when they first handed me my new baby as we left the hospital. Wait, I have to take care of this now? You are just giving him to me?

On the road home.

On the long trip home, I gained a new appreciation for all the things that truckers have to think about as they go through towns or up and down mountains. We were studiously avoiding weigh stations (not that we were overweight but we just don't know anything about that system) so Jon had us on some small roads in Ohio. But the trip was uneventful and the trailer rolled along perfectly. I love it when the lights and the brakes work.

Many adjustments necessary for the initial use.

A few days ago Carrie planted the first seeds with the new tractor, sitting in the comfortable seat, moving a small lever to lift and lower the seeder. I told her she is going to get fat and soft now since she won't need those powerful biceps.

Doing the job, planting radishes.

No regrets yet, even though we have no clue whether there will be farmers markets open or whether people will continue to sign up for the CSA. This tractor will last for generations, way past the current crisis that is spreading through the world. There is nothing like having a shiny new machine
that will be ready to do the work. At some point, people will remember they want fresh vegetables and we will be equipped for the job.