I love my tractor. I had fun with it at our land, but when things went wrong out there it was a pain to fix them since I didn’t have easy access to my tools. Plus, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do other than pull out small trees and run it up and down our road. Down here there’s so much more legitimate work I can do with it. So far I’ve mowed the lawn and lifted and carried lots of things that I couldn’t have done without it. I’m going to try to move some dirt from our piles to low spots on our trails, and smooth it out with the blade. This winter I’m going to use it for snow removal.

The other day I pulled it into the garage and installed my new gauges. Now I know my oil pressure is good, my charging system is in need of some attention (though nothing major) and my engine RPMs and moving speed at various gears thanks to the proofmeter. I want to get my rear hydraulics worked out asap so I can use my back blade and lift my mower off the ground more easily. There’s a guy across the highway that has a few Ns so I’m hoping to befriend him and pick his brain a bit.

I’m shopping for some new tires right now. The ones I have on are single rib marker tires and they carve a very noticeable notch in the lawn. I need to get some 4 or 5 rib tires so the front end floats more and doesn’t mess up the yard.

Tractors are so great – especially old ones. All I know about mine is that the previous owner, Dennis, used it to work on his road, and he bought it from a guy on Wolf Lake Rd. It’s painted yellow, so it must have been used for public road work at some point. I wonder what else it did during its 57 years. I wonder who hacked up the Jubilee loader to fit on an 8N. I love the fact that it’s as useful today as it was when it was new 57 years ago, that it’s done hard work all its life and it’s still going strong, and that supposedly half of the N tractors built (between 1938 and 1952) are still in use. Parts are still readily available, and pretty inexpensive. It’s an incredibly simple machine, and was made so that farmers could do their own repairs, even if they weren’t mechanically skilled. I love that it was built to last. I love the famous Ferguson 3 point hitch – an invention by a man who did a lot to evolve the state of ag machinery which allowed farmers to more safely and efficiently do the work necessary to put food on tables. And I especially love driving it with Delia sitting on my lap.