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Howdy folks, Boy that picture sure brings back memories. Though, not too old of memories. Aside from that hat, your grandpa looks a lot like mine did. Right down to the overalls and plaid shirt. I spent a lot of time down at grandad's when I was little. Of course we live just up the road from his farm so it was merely a couple minutes walk to that fun place. I can remember a couple of the times my sisters and I got to stay all day with grandad and grandma. They had a few cows to milk, single cow milkers with the small tank attached, and dirt floor with wooden stalls. I can still smell the feed. Unfortunately I caught grandad late in life and didn't get to watch the full blown farmwork. I can remember seeing him picking corn in the late october evening with his 127 JD picker and 46 JD A tractor, I can remember riding inside the cab of his model 40 self-propelled combine. But, like I said, that didn't last long. I really caught the tractor bug in 1999 when I bought and restored my first tractor, a 1944 farmall A. I bought my second tractor, a 1951 JD R, in 2002 just about a month or so after grandpa passed away. I sure wish he could have seen that tractor. The 46 A was the biggest tractor he ever had and I know he'd have gotten a kick out of the old R. I take both tractors to our show here in southern ohio, the Ohio Valley Antique Machinery Show, and get to swap some nice restoration stories with some real nice folks. Occaisionally I also get to swap farm stories as well. The old machinery of grandad's still sits in his barns and I am gradually inching my way into the farming operations. Just got some more old equipment last year to get me better set. I aim to keep it up. I've done bits and pieces for several years and can't explain the feeling you get when that steel shines at the end of a furrow and that fresh earth smell hits your nose. I can't describe the peace I get when the tractor is shut down and I hear the field birds in the furrows diggin for worms as the march sun sets in the west. I can't begin to tell you the pride that sets in when I walk toward the house for lunch and look back into that sun drenched corn field and see the tractor and cultivators hidin under the fencerow shade trees. I could go on and on. I'm proud of my grandpa and feel a sense of duty to carry on the legacy he left. He was a quiet but sturdy man who loved the Lord and his family. As I walked today through the field I plowed last fall I just felt a type of feeling that only a farmer can feel. You look at what God's blessed you with and just hope you can be worthy of it all. It's what drives me to keep our old stuff going and, though when I graduate from college this spring I'll have to find a steady 9 to 5 job, it is what will drive me to keep on farming whenever time allows. It may not be the full-time farming I'd like to do but I wouldn't trade it for anything this old world has to offer. God bless. --old fashioned farmer
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