Doin' it the old fashioned way....

Local farmers were out getting ready for a few days of wet weather.
One couple (64 and 65 and 92 year old Mom) were out in about 10 acres of potatoes hoeing away. Same for some othersin sunflowers, corn, and beets.
Noone younger than the 64 year old.

Dave

Gives ya insporation doesn"t it dave? LOU

Reminds me of the Japanese and Filipino truck garden farms around Tacoma and Fife, Washington- was talking to a middle aged Japanese farmer one time (I was a PCA loan officer), and mentioned that I was surprised he would let his 90 year old mother hoe the crops in the hot sun. He looked shocked that I would even bring it up- "We respect our elders above all else- I would not think of trying to tell her what or what not to do."

Most of those farms are gone- now are condos and apartments.

To get a little tractor into this- most of those farmers had eight or so tractors, all the same, each with a different tillage, cultivation, spraying or harvesting implement sort of permanently attached. You had your Farmall A guys, and your Allis G guys. They were proud of their tractors, and worked on them over the winter to be sure they were ready in the spring. They would all be in a shed, lined up perfectly.

The Farmall guys always kind of looked down on the Allis guys, because the A's were a "real tractor", but the G's were just kind of funky. When they sold out, you could get 3 grand for a G in a heartbeat, while the Farmall A's were still around a thousand, and the Orange guys were getting the last laugh.

Grandpa used to hoe in his garden for hours, said it was very therapudic. He had all the power equipment to run 90 acres of grapes, 40 some acres of strawberries and tomatos and 2 large apple orchards. He would say the equipment was for the fields and he was for the garden. He hung up his hoe in August and was gone in September of his 94th year.