Tractors have gears. I might not have known that a few years ago, and some of my city friends might not have known that as well…but it is true! Tractors have gears and I don’t just mean forward and backward. Most of my gear language knowledge comes from My Loving Spouse (The Brit). When I learn vocabulary from him, I am never quite sure if I am speaking ‘American’, so there you go, that is my very own ‘disclaimer’. The gears have ‘ranges’ too. ‘Low range’ for slow and ‘high range’ for not so slow. Except, here is the problem…everything is trial and error. There are NO fancy dials (actually even the dials we do have don’t work), to say…Low Range=SLOW, although occasionally there is the voice of My Loving Spouse saying,
‘Why do you have it in that range?’
To which there is no real answer, because a lot of times I am not really sure which ‘range’ I am actually in.
Changing gears is a lot of fun too (enter sarcastic font here). The gears don’t slide in like they do in a modern sports car (not that I’ve driven many of those) the gears grind like you’d expect on a tractor that is older than I am, here’s the math (56). I mostly drive in whatever gear I can get my tractor into.
There is a gear called ‘road gear’. Yep, that’s right it is for ‘fast’…for driving on the road…for getting from one field to another or for visiting your neighbor on your tractor.
What I have learned, is that tractors kick up a lot of dust-dirt-mayhem and it goes down the back of your shirt, on your neck and in your ears…so I always wear a hoody…with the hood up. I also protect my seat…my seat, not the tractor seat. The tractor seat is often wet and it is metal, so it is wet and cold…I try to never sit on the tractor seat without a barrier between me and it…usually an old cat food feed bag (feeding all those cats is good for something)!
Driving my tractor is good for my heart…it calms me down, it makes me feel productive and it is best when both my head and my seat are protected. Every once in a while I accidentally put the tractor into ‘road gear’ (fast), when I don’t want ‘road gear’, I just want go-forward-sort-of-normal-gear and I get a big unhappy surprise, a bit of whiplash and I have to jump on the brakes, before I run into something.
Lately, that is how life has felt, as if I’ve been slammed into road gear when I wasn’t ready for it…or just didn’t plain old want it. The truth is, I’m just doing my best with a bunch of old difficult gears. Tractor driving is a lot like life!
Lord,
help me to find the right gear…
keep the dirt out of my ears…
make a productive difference…
do what is good for my heart…
visit my friends…
and not run over or into much…
Amen
Your prayer is priceless! Happy tractoring, in whatever gear you find yourself in. 🙂
😉
Well, I have to confess that any other tractor of that vintage I’ve seen is rusting in some ranch house side yard hereabouts. I imagine that the gauges and dials are in similar condition to the headlights, BUT it goes forward and backward and does what tractors are required in order to get the tough stuff done.
On Easter Sunday your prayer seems to be appropriate. I hope that you were able to get to church today.
David
Church on Easter was blessed! I hope for you as well!
much love,