Mason's World Is Now Complete

Ever since living in Minnesota, Mason has been pining for a tractor. He'd spend his unemployed days surfing Craigslist for tools he didn't need, and he'd marvel at how cheap the tractors were in Minnesota. He threatened to buy one and park it down in Bear Hollow. I reminded him that perhaps he'd first like to fix that 1967 Triumph motorcycle he bought off Craigslist when he first got laid off. The chopper didn't run, of course. The bike had a named etched on its gas tank: Sweet Cocaine. It sat in our garage until we sold it for a huge loss at our garage sale.

Since moving to Tennessee, he restarted his tractor search on Craigslist. Sure, a tractor might come in handy up here, especially when I start my veggie plot, but as he kept looking at all these aging machines, all I could think of was Sweet Cocaine.

I tried to appease him with a promised trip to an antique tractor show on Saturday. But Mason can be insistent, and I can be weak. And frankly, the opposite is true much of the time, so ... I caved.

OMG! Isn't it the cutest tractor you've ever seen? I have to admit, I'm smitten with the girl!! She's a 1948 Farmall Cub, made by International Harvester in the good ol' US of A. Purrs like a kitten -- all 9 horsepower of her -- no Sweet Cocaine here!! And don't the headlights look like eyes??   To go with it, we also scored a plow (hello veggie garden!), a cultivator and a 5-foot finish mower (perfect for the "trails" that wind though our whopping 5 acres).

After a long day today -- driving about 150 miles to pick up a trailer, the tractor and then sweat out whether the old Dodge could get her up the mountain -- Mason promptly hopped up on the ol' girl, with a beer between his legs, and took off across the property.

He can now die a happy man. Likely in some sort of tractor accident, I fear.