Well, I guess I have caught redneckitis....

[Rich Z]

Been living in Wakulla county for too long, I suppose. Used to be I would drool over Corvettes and other fast cars. You know, NORMAL stuff for a guy who thinks he is younger than the number of candles on a birthday cake would prove otherwise. But now, lately, I have been looking at tractors.

That's right folks. WebSlave has gone full red neck.

Heck, I am even thinking hard about buying one.

But let me explain what happened to change me.

The other day I wanted to move a concrete bird bath across the yard. Our old metal one finally, and suddenly, bit the dust. So we have this concrete one that has been next to the old reptile building nearly forever. It was leaning to one side, so wouldn't really hold water very well. So I figured, heck, why not just replace that broken one with that old concrete one?

First thing I did was to straighten it up and make sure it would hold water. Yep. So far, so good. The bowl came off, and it by itself was pretty heavy. At least for this aging feeble body of mine. I brought one of the wagons over and figured I would just lift the base up, put it on the wagon and roll it over to the spot it needs to relocate to. Eh?? Not so fast Herc. I couldn't even lift it off of the ground, much less the foot or so to go onto that wagon. Connie is away, so I couldn't ask her for help. Actually, probably best I not do that anyway, as I sure wouldn't want her to hurt herself. And she sure as heck would, trying to keep ME from being hurt. She still worries about that heart attack I had last year. And it's not been quite a year since that second heart stent was put in. The stuff she has gone through has really weakened her, so I CAN'T put her in jeopardy of hurting herself.

So what to do?

Now, I have an engine hoist in the garage, but with the small metal wheels on it, it wouldn't get more than a foot once it came off of the concrete garage apron and hit that soft sand. Then I would have to figure out how to get that thing out from being stuck in the sand and back onto hard surface. I would need some sort of big balloon tires on it, but that might be it's own world of problems trying to lift something heavy with those kinds of bouncy wheels on it.

So that got me thinking, I am getting too old to be lifting crap like this. And it will probably get worse, rather than better. So I thought of my friend Rickey, who has a small tractor, and uses it a LOT to help lift and move things around for him. Hmm. Well, can't say I ever thought twice about a tractor before, but suddenly I was thinking hard about one. Connie and I together might never be able to lift the kind of stuff we used to in the past. Sometimes I will have to cut down some trees, and the number of very small pieces I would have to cut that tree into so we could lift them and cart them away, well, that would really wear us out quickly. This past year really changed us. For that matter, it is still touch and go as to whether I will still have Connie around at all for any kind of help for the long term. Four hands have always been better to two, and it is quite sobering to think there might ONLY be two hands in the future.

So there you have it. I just need to be thinking about a helping hand around here, and a tractor might be that help I can see myself needing.

Never, ever pictured myself riding a tractor before.

But probably better than waiting for some sort of AI robot to come along that would crush my skull in my sleep when it went rogue on me from buggy programming.

I just hope that if I do get one (tractor that is, not a robot), that I will be able to find enough things to do with it to justify the cost and the upkeep it will need over time. But one thing of interest. I have watched a lot of videos by people who have gotten tractors, and the general consensus from those people is that they don't know how they ever got along without one before. Of course, they are mostly farmer folk or people doing a lot of work in rather sizeable tracts of land. But heck, I have 50 acres, most of it heavily wooded, and I would like to cut some walking trails through it. So who knows? Maybe it is something I would find a lot more uses for than I can imagine right now.

I think I can afford one. When my mom passed away, she left me a little bit of money that I haven't done anything with. Maybe it would please her to have me use it on something that might save me from my final heart attack some day.