The best-laid plans of mice, men and editors …

This wasn’t intended to be our special “All Tractor” issue – it just happened that way.

In each issue of Farm Collector, we try to provide servings from each of the major food groups: tractors, engines, implements. Then we attempt to add a bit of seasoning in a mix that varies from month to month: offbeat collectibles, tools, barnyard collectibles, horse-drawn implements, scale models, toys …

But in this issue, through a series of accidents, tractors were followed by tractors and still more tractors. If this issue had been a slot machine, we would have come up with three tractors. All the stars were in alignment, it would seem, for tractors in this issue.

Our customary goal of a well-balanced diet was thrown off first by a trip to California where, it would seem, I made the personal acquaintance of every vintage tractor in the state. On my return, various elements of the magazine came in from a variety of sources, all of whom apparently had tractors on the brain at the same time. I felt like a trader on Wall Street who’d begun to sense a trend … one moving in the wrong direction. Panic set in.

Even Mother’s Day followed suit: my firstborn proudly presented me with, yes, a tractor (a figurine now at home on my desk). “That’s it,” I thought to myself. “Give up: Go with the flow. It was meant to be.”

Next month, we’ll strive to return to our customary balanced fare. What’s coming down the pike? Stories on an extensive collection of apple peelers, restoration of a vintage steam engine, a look at decades-old silos, a report on some noteworthy auctions, and lovingly restored dairy collectibles. And that’s just some of what we have simmering on the back burner … you won’t want to miss any of it.