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I had posted in another thread about some of things I remember when I was a kid growing up and my father and his tractor. I know it was a 1939 because I thought the thing was ancient because I was born in 1949. We did not have a farm but we had a weekend place about 160 acres. The tractor had a sickle bar and Dad just loved to cut the grass with that thing. So here is my memory. I believe it had a high compression 2 cylinder engine. He had a beer can(Stag Beer) covering the exhaust pipe I would always stand to the side and watch him start the tractor and watch the beer can fly up in the air. Being 4 or 5 at the time I just knew it went 100 feet in the air:laughing:. I remember the disappointment when for whatever reason he did not launch the beer can into the air. Things were just different back then. You just had to use your imagination and simple things were just plain cool.

I was raised a city kid so I didn't discover tractors until we bought our property from my wife's family. My father-in-law had a Farmall Model C with a trip bucket that had to be hand cranked to start. I was never to fond of that tractor, the tricycle wheels always made me feel like I was about to tip over when I turned.

He also owned a Ford 8n that was his pride and joy, it was the first tractor his dad bought brand new. He taught me how to brush cut and grade roads with that 8n and I was hooked on tractorin' at that point. Somewhere, my wife has a picture of me sitting on the 8n in a 3 piece suit looking like Oliver Wendell Douglas from Green Acres :laughing:.

I now own my own pride and joy, a 1998 Kubota L2900GST. Maybe someday I'll be able to teach a son-in-law the pleasure of working with tractors too.

Hand2ThePlow said:

I was raised a city kid so I didn't discover tractors until we bought our property from my wife's family. My father-in-law had a Farmall Model C with a trip bucket that had to be hand cranked to start. I was never to fond of that tractor, the tricycle wheels always made me feel like I was about to tip over when I turned.

He also owned a Ford 8n that was his pride and joy, it was the first tractor his dad bought brand new. He taught me how to brush cut and grade roads with that 8n and I was hooked on tractorin' at that point. Somewhere, my wife has a picture of me sitting on the 8n in a 3 piece suit looking like Oliver Wendell Douglas from Green Acres :laughing:.

I now own my own pride and joy, a 1998 Kubota L2900GST. Maybe someday I'll be able to teach a son-in-law the pleasure of working with tractors too.

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Cool story!:thumbsup:

Growing up in the fifties, have many fond memories of Dad's Model A. Had to start it by spinning the big iron wheel on the left side. When we used it to pull wagons of hay bales into the barn, Dad would put a wet towel over the exhaust to prevent sparks from burning the barn down. :biggrin:

Another great story!!

Not necessarily my fondest memory of a tractor but certainly my most memorable occurred when I was about 6 years old. My father and grandfather were working on a tractor implement, and I was sitting on the seat tractor of his Farmall tow-row tractor. The tractor was parked outside a one stall corrugated metal tractor shed. I heard my grandfather say that they should back up the tractor and hook up the implement. My grandfather had let me sit on his lap and steer the tractor. He had also let me start it. See where this is going? So i think to myself, I'll start if for them. Unfortunately, he had not taught me about using the clutch or shifting to neutral, not that I could have reached the clutch anyway. So the tractor fires up and takes off, running into the shed, knocking out rear wall, destroying a barbed wire fence behind the shed, and mashing quite a few hills of young corn in my grandmother's garden before my grandfather caught up with the tractor and reached over and depressed the clutch. I did not get a scratch.

Another great memory

Dad made a wooden sled out of a couple of 2*4's and 1*6's. when he plowed, mowed or much of anything on the tractor, I was standing on that sled riding behind the tractor. I logged many miles behind that tractor and wore out several sleds. All in all, I remember having a real good time with the dog chasing us. Only bad memory was once when the wire cable broke and came back and him me on the forehead. That hurt. Started out with a 8n then he swapped and got a oliver super 55. he was real proud of that 55. I got to have real good balance riding plow furrows with that sled....Good Memory..I was about 6 years old then.

When I was a kid my dad had an old one that was an antique at that point. It was an old Ford one and sadly, he still has it even though it really doesn't run anymore, I guess now its just sentimental to him.

My fondest memory of a tractor would have to be a fairly recent one. My father was doing some carpentry work a town over from me in September 2008. He is kind of a Mr.Fix-It kind of guy, and one day shooting the breeze with his customer, his customer told him about an older diesel tractor that he had sitting in his barn that he didn't know much about and hadn't used in a long time, and it needed to be gotten running. So, My dad told him to push the tractor outside and he would take a look at it the next morning. He came back, and took a look at (as he described it) "It's a Mino- Moto or something like that, it's pretty neat, around 25 hp with a rototiller and a plow" so then a couple of weeks later he told me he was planning on buying it. He picked me up after school the next day and took me over to take the first ride (of many to come) on my current pride and joy, My Hinomoto E-21. I remember thinking how awesome it was to be driving a diesel tractor that's actually reasonable for me (considering the smallest diesel I had driven before that was a 54 HP Fiat/Long). He traded the work for the tractor, and I ended up with the thing in January. It now runs happily, starts drives and works whenever summoned, and can be seen on YouTube. I'm going to restore it next summer, if all goes as planned. It's also been affectionately nick-named the "Smurf Blue Pain in the Ass"

In the 1960's, my Dad plowed gardens in the spring on Saturdays with a Ford 8N. When he came home for lunch, he would have me sit on his lap and let me steer the tractor out of the driveway. I was 6 and could not reach the clutch or brake pedals. Steering it down the driveway was fun!!

My uncle in the Upper Peninsula used to let me and my cousin drive his tractor to plow his garden which amounted to about 1 acre. The tractor was a dead ringer for the one in Green Acres. Lot's of fun for a kid about 10 years old.

My fathers first tracto was a Farmall Cub with mid mount cutter bar. Not much power but enough to cut the fields. He then got two fords, an 8n and a 9n. I was old enough to drive tractors when he got them. It sure was a bear stearing the 9n with a bucket. Spent many hours dirving them around the fields. Picking rocks out of the garden and building up the rock walls and hauling firewood. Those wer the good old days.

My Grandfather had A 1952 Ford 8-N that I learned to drive when I was around 8 or 9 . He had A New Holland bailer with it's own Wisconsin engine on it and I spent many A hot afternoon bailing hay with that rig. He died in 1966 (With his boots on! He was on his way out to service machinery for the spring plowing when A stroke took him. No chance of him surviving as the nearest phone was 2 miles away. All my aunt could do was watch her father die.) That 8-N was sold at auction in the fall when I was 14 years old and at 58 I still miss it and him.

Good Luck!
H.R.

My first recollection of dad's first tractor was a Farmall Cub. Nothing huge but it had a side mount sickle bar mower and a set of plows to break up the ground for growing our produce. It was the tractor that I first learned to drive. I think I was about 12/13 years old when I first learned how to drive it. I used to rake the fields for dad with it. Roger