My old friend

This old girl (and she is a girl) has been with me for a long time. Yesterday, in the blazing heat (what was I thinking?), I took her out for a spin. It was the first time I'd been on her in quite a while. I decided that I couldn't stand looking at the weeds in the donkey lot another minute and so I mowed them down. We keep the donkeys in a sparse paddock behind the barn because sometime before we got Jenny, she foundered and she can't be put on lush grass anymore. I feel bad for them, but know we are doing the right thing to keep her walking around healthy.

There is a story behind my old friend. She was mine in my "past life" and came with me when I married Mike, almost 12 years ago. I like to remind him that I'm probably one of the few women he would ever meet who would come into marriage equipped with her own tractor (and come to think of it, I came with a chain saw, too!). Blue was the only tractor we had for years after we moved out here to the farm, but a few years back, Mike decided he really needed something bigger and stronger (you know.......more manly). He now has a big John Deere, complete with enclosed cab, air conditioning and stereo radio. It pulls a huge bat-wing mower and can make short work of fields that take me hours to mow on Blue (and he stays cool while he's doing it!). So mainly we use her to mow the small places. Mike puts a big blade on the back of Blue to work on our driveway when we get gully-washers, so she sees a little action for other farm duties that the big John Deere can't do. She's getting some age on her and she's fading some, but hey, I am too.

I suspect she'll still be on the job long after I'm gone.