I wish I understood

So I had a good weekend. Why? Because with some perseverence and good luck / divine intervention (to whichever you normally show gratitude), my second (now) expensive hobby finally showed some fruit for the first time this summer. My tractor runs!!!


I had spent about $500 getting some catastrophic engine failures repaired and was eager to get to Mom's and try it out. It wouldn't start (sad droopy face here). So Mom and I started tinkering around with the starter, something we are practiced at doing. We took it apart, cleaned it up a little, and put it back together none to hopefully (if you never get your hopes up then the letdown is a little easier that way). The silly thing started working! (Delusions of grandeur of being a mechanic are born during these moments of euphoria.) Quickly the tractor was running, sounding beautiful to the ears (rather than deafening as it had been before Raymond fixed the hole in the exhaust). Once I had a purring tractor, Mom and I scrambled to get the brushhog attached and I went to work, cleaning up the world (around her house), ridding it of villainous tree sprouts and sirecia lespedezea.
euphoria


However, trouble struck again. The tractor inexplicably died. We looked at the tractor, checked the oil and a few other useless gestures of mechanical bewilderment. So we tried starting it again. It ran for a while and then died again, this time with Mom driving the tractor (I wish I'd gotten a picture of that, but I was distracted wondering what was wrong with my beloved tractor). The second time it died I resigned myself to calling Raymond, the real mechanic. He said it had happened to him too, but he didn't realize the significance of it. So he offered a sugegstion of what part needed replaced and how to test to make sure. When it died the next time, I would be ready to test our hypothesis.

So I hopped on the tractor waiting for it to die. It didn't. It wouldn't. I brushhogged the rest of the afternoon getting everything around the house knocked down and somewhat of a firebreak from brushfires for the house.

Yes, more happened than just the tractor fun. I got to hang out with Mom and Brian for the day. Church was fun. But the tractor was what made this weekend unique from the blur of everything else that is always special. Hee,hee, I'm so happy that my tractor is back.

1950 Allis Chalmers
Model B
Bought used by my Granddad Graham in the 1960's.
Used on the farm since then.
We still have the owner's manual!

"For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself." (Philippians 3:20-21)