Was Saturday December 21st, 1963. Dad is in the shop working on something, I go in, grab my B-B gun, fill it with some B-B's, and head out to go hunting as usual on Saturday morning. I walk around the corner of the shop, Hmmm, 4 bottom Deere trailing plow? Dad must be keeping it for somebody. I walk back to the machine shed, slide a door open and walk in. My eyes adjust to the darkness but not this danged green thing sitting in the 3rd stall! I go back to the shop and ask Dad what's up with the green tractor. " That's YOUR'S, To do fieldwork with this spring." And we walk out and back to the machine shed. I slide the door open to let some light in. Dad's in the seat. It's an R diesel it says. Dad messes with some controls and what sounds like a mini-bike motor fires up, WAY UP in RPM, then pulls down and almost dies. He tries starting the diesel another time or two and the noisey little engine dies. Dad takes a little cup out from under the hood, hands it to me, "Go fill this with gas!" and off I go on the run. I can't run with it full of gas. More noise, more cranking, we do get a little gray/white smoke out the exhaust pipe, then had to fetch another cup of gas, Thinking maybe filling a 5 gallon can with gas and carrying it to the machine shed makes more sense! Dad stopped after the second full cup of gas ran out. Never did get a pop from the big engine. Really wasn't that cold, 25-30 degrees. We looked the plow over. Last spring I did some plowing, Super M-TA and IH #8 3-14's, Even plowed with Dad on his '51 M. And this Derre is Mine?
Late March, early April, 40 acres of alfalfa sod, 20 acres old hay ground, 20 acres old hog pasture, Dad says He'll lead and I can follow on the R, yes, we finally got it running. Dad's running 3rd gear, 5 mph, R with exact same hp only runs 2nd gear in sod, 3.3 mph with 4-14's. Had one clay hill Dad said I had to stop, shift to 1st to climb, can't lug the R down. We're plowing around the 40, Dad's rounding off the corners, he just about catches me and starts over again, I just sit there driving in circles all day. Took two days to plow the sod. Dad hooked the IH 3-14 on the R, could run 3rd gear then, 4.3 mph, then the township road commissioner heard we had an R, HE HAD to have it! Took a while to make a deal but but the road commissioner finally got the R. I plowed our last 16 acres that spring with the SM-TA pulling the Deere 4 bottom plow.
Dad bought a 4010-D about the 14th of December 1968. And about December 13, 1969 Dad bought a 1940 JD B, hand start, no hyd, small 1-1/8" pto stub shaft. We went back a week later with a NFE tractor dolly to tow it 20 miles home, Dad and I each cranked on the flywheel for an hour, we tried pull starting it for 2 miles, finally started cooking the spark plugs, they weren't wet, just black and finally it popped a few times and ran. Local Deere mechanic said a A & B needed engine running to flat tow. The B never did really start well. We tried using it on chores like hauling water to hog lots, every day haul a load a half mile, every day the B got unhooked, pushed out of the way and Super H hooked up to water wagon. The 4010 got parked every fall if we did any fall plowing, if no fall plowing, it sat from July till following spring. Kinda like the R, once started for the day it was never shut off till we were done with it.