Posted by JD Seller on November 24, 2018 at 07:33:34 from (208.126.198.213):
All tractors and equipment have stories that go with them. You know the type. "we bought this because ????? acres/farm, etc. came up for rent/sale needed this "xyz" to farm the extra". I am going to tell you a different story about this tractor. It is the emotional part of buying this tractor and then keeping it these last 25 years.
In the late 1980s my first wife was diagnosed with cancer. At the time we had a line of late model machinery and had just bought the home farm. I was working at the JD dealership as a mechanic. My wife was a farm wife with three kids at home under 10 years of age. We had about 1000 acres of row crops and had just started expanding the feed yards at the farm. Things where working but we had debt. As my wife's cancer battle raged on she wanted to get debt free. She was raised dirt poor and did not want to die in debt. So we sold all the late model machinery and cut back the crop acres while expanding the livestock more. Within a three year period we became debt free.
In late 1991 her cancer had been in remission for about a year and a half. She started being sick every single morning. Deadly sick. Miracle of all miracles, she was pregnant. She should have been unable to have anymore children because of the cancer treatments. Also she was 42 years old too. In March of 1992 she had her miracle son. This started a period she says was the happiest of her entire life. She was just energized to do everything that she could. By late summer she had taken over the morning livestock chores so I could get to work easier. So I would take the three school age kids to school on my way to work. I did the evening chores.
In the late fall I was watching her do those morning chores. She had my youngest son in a baby sling right on her chest. She was loading feed with a 1964 JD 4020 tractor with a 48 loader. Using the dash controlled remotes to run the loader. Not the handiest thing to run. You run out of hands shifting while running the loader. She had a smile a mile wide on while she was doing this. She would talk and sing to my son while doing this. She loved the farm wife life!!!! I wanted to do some thing that would make her life easier but also some thing she would want done too. We had a nice car. The house was in great shape. So the normal stuff just did not fit.
We had just started getting information about the "NEW" 6000 series tractors at work. I got to thinking about a newer utility tractor with a joystick loader. She put in a lot of hours doing farm work. Loved mowing hay, raking, feeding cows/cattle. The dealership had a used JD 2955 with MFWD and a 260 loader. I got to talking to the store owner about that tractor and what I wanted it for. In a few days he called me into his office. He had figured up a NEW JD 6300 Mfwd and a 640 loader. Long story short, he sold me the NEW JD 6300 for just a little bit more than the JD 2955 was priced retail. We ordered it hoping to get it before Christmas but that did not happen. The JD 6300 arrived on Jan 4th. The guys in the shop all pitched in and we mounted the loader an prepped it so I took it home on the dealership's trailer Jan. 5th. 1993. She did not question me abut it as I did a lot of deliveries of new equipment. So I did the evening chores with the JD 4020. Right before bed time I told her I wanted to check on some calves. I snuck out and switched the tractors. I moved the dealership truck behind the grain bins where she would not see it. In the morning the three kids and I went out like normal. We hid in the barn to see her come out and find the JD 6300. I had a BIG red bow on it and a sign telling her it was hers. She was dumb struck. The kids just had to run and ask her how she liked her tractor. She saw me and ran full tilt to hug me. She ended up tackling me to the ground. LOL I worried about the baby but he was fine. So on Jan. 6th, 1993 that JD 6300 started its working life. I did not get to run it for almost a week. She would have the evening chores done before I got home. LOL Good times!!!!
She used that tractor to do anything it would pull. She loved running it. She would check the brood cows with it. Feed them hay with it, etc. If any of the cows or cattle heard that JD 6300 they knew feed was coming. LOL Heck she ran the six row corn planter one week while another tractor was being worked on. She loved running equipment and really loved that JD 6300. My youngest son drove that tractor standing between his Mother's legs when he was 2.
Then darkness came back into our lives. In late winter 1994 her cancer came back. It came hard too. None of the treatments worked at all. They just made her sicker. By May she decided to quit any of the treatments as they just where killing her faster than the cancer by that time. Her doctors agreed. I had taken a indefinite leave from work in March. So we where able to get things done together. With a Home health care nurse she was able to stay at home.
By July she could no longer walk. On July 18th we had a pretty summer day. Hot but not bad. After lunch she asked me to take her around the farm. She wanted to see the cows and calves. I took the JD 6300 as she could set in my lap and steer. She was saying Goodbye to the lifestyle she loved so much. We parked the tractor under a big old shade tree. We talked for hours that afternoon. She was telling me goodbye too. We talked about the life she wanted me and the kids to have after she was gone. We cried together for things that where not to be. She "drove" back to the house. This was the last time she was out of the house. The next afternoon she stayed in the living room and talked to the kids all day. When going to bed that night she told me she was feeling better than she had in awhile. She passed that night at around 4 AM. July 20th, 1995.
Over the next twenty years "Mom's" tractor was the one the kids and grand kids learned to drive on. I could not guess at how much feed and manure that tractor has loaded. It just worked every single day year round.
At around 10,000 hour I had to replace the transmission input shaft, along with the drive shaft. I went ahead and did the main clutch while I was in there. At 15,000 it blew a head gasket. I just had the head resurfaced and the valves replaced. Put new injectors in while it was apart. Just the normal batteries, starters, and alternators over the years.
Life was marching on. In 2017 my only daughter and her husband came back to Iowa. They were able to buy a farm. She soon became pregnant with twin sons. In Jan. 2018 she was able to quit full time work and become a farm wife like her mother. I gave her the JD 6300 to take care of their 50 brood cow herd.
She had me modify the JD 6300 seat. She wanted the entire factory seat removed. She wanted a bench seat to reach from fender to fender. Then three sets of seat belts. So she does chores with each son right beside her. They will be 2 soon. She has to rotate them from right to left as the one on the right "helps' run the loader joystick. LOL so they take turns helping Mommy. She sings the same songs my wife did 25 years ago on that very same tractor. She looks so much like her Mother, when she is doing chores with that tractor,that my heart aches for times long gone.
Now the tractor part. Yesterday I looked and the tractor has 19677 hours. Not a show piece. Not fancy looking. Dead dependable for 25 years.
P. S. The picture is from a few years ago. I ran with the ROPs down to get into my lower barns. The loader is up because I was pulling wagons up to an auger and wanted the loader out of the way. (Yter police!!! LOL )It is up for her as she does not have any low places. So they are safe doing chores.
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