The epic story of a tractor

There once was a tractor, that was big, green, and mean — in more than one sense of the word.

Now, I know that you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. It wasn’t a John Deere. It was a more chartreuse shade of tractor known as a Steiger. Actually, it was The Steiger.

Referring to it without implying a certain amount of excess personality and gravitas is unacceptable.

In case you were wondering, horsepower, torque, reliability, and cold A/C are what you want in a tractor. Personality and a trailer-load of stories is not.

The Steiger’s story was an epic.

The short version starts with a big red tractor and chucks of massive planetary gears, quite literally, bringing things to a grinding halt ... in the middle of the field.

When the planetaries are locked down, the wheels don’t turn. When the wheels don’t turn the tractor does not move. It gets plowed around and the sprinkler knocks the windows out, and it just sits there until the gears get rebuilt and put back in.

But crops don’t wait and the plowing needs to be done.

Finding the parts was almost as daunting as putting them together, so, waiting on big red was not an option.

Now, there are the kind of tractors that you like to borrow; the kind that you feel a little guilty about using; the kind you hate to have to return.

Then there are the kind that you usually borrow; the kind nobody misses; the ones you would take down to the sale yesterday if you could.

The Steiger had seen better days, but it started and made the mile or two trip to where big red had left off. The ground got plowed and the driver got to work on a six-pack — not of something to drink ...

The seat was stuck in the maximum reclined position, so, on the straights, the driver had to look between the spokes of the steering wheel, and on the ends, you had do a sit-up in order to reach the gearshift before the turn.

The air was in a condition similar to the inside of a sealed, glass-walled oven. The radio had a wire or two loose, so there was no distraction even if it would have been able to play over the vibrating roar that is 400 diesel horses with only a rotted-out muffler in between.

That was a day on the farm. It was only the first of a many long days with The Steiger ...

Audra Brown wrote a song or two about The Steiger and kinda almost misses it. Contact her @[email protected]