What used to be pretty well accepted as
“normal” life is likely where we're all headed – tougher times.
Most people deluded
themselves into believing that the last several decades of post-modern
decadence would last forever. It was the “easy life”
characterized by a second mortgage-credit card existence securely tucked
in an endless immigrant-groomed suburbia and required little more than
showing up for some completely unproductive and over-paid 9 to 5 job.
The denizens produced absolutely nothing of tangible value, and that era
is crashing to a close. High five and six-figure salaries are
vaporizing like the morning fog off river bottoms, as the harsh light of
economic reality burns the hazy illusions away. When you have
off-shored the manufacturing of products that have true and measurable
value, and the Corporatists have turned our formerly productive economy
into one based on nothing but “service”, well, we can only wash each
other's clothes for so long before the money runs out. The
multiplier effect is dead, particularly once you have to import the soap.
“Hard Scrabble Times”
alright, maybe even the “Real McCoy” of economic depression is probably
what awaits. The last President who ascended to power after the
wheels had come off the economy once said, “Nothing happens in politics
that isn't planned.” Economics and politics are pretty well all
intertwined these days, just as they were back in 1933. Who am I - a
lowly occasional scribe and creature of the land - to argue with such a
respected intellect and connected man as F.D.R., therefore I shall simply
agree with his premise. Men with plans perhaps nefarious, best laid,
now coming to a devastating fruition.
“What,” you are
thinking, “does this presumptuous preface have to do with a 'Homestead
Tractor'?” Everything. Literally everything.
Let's face it: either
consciously or subconsciously, the folks reading this never really trusted
that the economic fantasy that became America could last. That
conscious call back to the land was also a silent plea from our souls, to
make and live lives that had real meaning and connection to real things of
substance. We desired a quality of life based not on the size of
one's Flat-Screen Television, but of relearning and understanding the
processes of “doing things” with your own hands side-by-side with those
of your family. The pursuit of the re-establishment of the “Land
Ethic” in one's being. The turning of the sweet-smelling earth in
the spring followed by the musty scents of the remains of a garden being
turned back over to the earth again in the fall.
When those of us who
choose homesteading as a lifestyle, rejecting the robotic regimentation
required by corporate existence, our first thoughts after careful
consideration of the land we purchased should have been what sort of
equipment we need to make this adventure work. Invariably, we think
“tractor”. An old Ford 8N or 9N, perhaps even a Massey-Ferguson 35,
a Ford Jubilee or maybe one of those sweet 861's. If blessed with
good fortune, you go buy a new Kubota or a Deere. All is well.
Not exactly.
It doesn't take long
to figure out that as “compact” as some of these tractors are, there is
simply a whole bunch of stuff they just cannot do. They are a bit
too big in practical terms. Of course they can go cut down the tall
grasses and the smaller shrubbery with the old Bush Hog, run the post-hole
digger, do some plowing, and scrape some snow away. If you have one
with a loader, well, you wonder how you ever got along without it.
But in real terms, size matters, and sometimes they're just “too much
gun”, and not nearly as versatile as one would hope.
So something smaller,
much smaller, is in order for things like plowing, roto-tilling and row
cultivating the garden, plowing snow in either confined or large
locations, even blowing the snow if necessary. Mowing the lawn and maybe
even it can, too, cut that tall grass and shrubbery. Something with
a small bucket to work the manure inside the small animal runs, and maybe
even run a chipper-shredder. Perhaps one that a generator can be
hooked-up to, and even a water pump, and a little cart to haul tools and
firewood around. One even with a log splitter? Maybe one I could
haul a little sprayer behind to hit that orchard and shoot those weeds
down. Does anybody make such a thing?
No. But they
used to.
