Letters to the Editor

By Jerry Whipple
Published on January 1, 2009
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I really enjoy your magazine. I am a city dweller who moved out to the farm. I always wanted a tractor, but living in town I didn’t have a place for one.

When we lived in town, I collected Cushman scooters, Schwinn bicycles, bowling items, clocks, pay phones, pop machines and jukeboxes. I was looking for a tractor. Something unique. One day at the International dealership I saw this M with a comfort cab. It was on a trailer getting read to be unloaded. I fell in love instantly. She has an AM/FM radio, cigarette lighter, chrome ashtray, inside light and now an oogah horn.

I took my wife to look at it. She thought it was ugly. So I had to tell her that I already owned it and that she was just dropping me off. I rode that M to work. Next I bought a 1948 Allis G. One trip around the yard and the scooters, bikes and the rest of the stuff was sold at auction. Now to the good stuff.

My wife has a row of horse-drawn farm equipment. Our collection includes about 100 steel wheels, four slop carts and three wooden wagons.

This summer we redid a 2-story home to look like a barn. It has a haymow door but no hinges, fake barn windows, a lightning rod, a cupola from a 1918 barn and an antique weather vane. To celebrate, we thought we would have a barn dance. I have been in the food business for 25 years and thought I would like to have all my kitchen equipment in one place. So why not have an outdoor kitchen? I would need a tractor to put in it. My wife said I could have her 1928 10-20 McCormick-Deering. I didn’t want that, so I looked on the Internet and found a 1918 Ford Model T tractor. I had the kitchen built to the tractor size. When was the last time you had dinner with a 1918 Model T in the kitchen?

I named our kitchen “Jerry and Doraine’s Tractor Barnyard Paradise.” The sign above the door has a steel-wheeled tractor on it. We have a fire ring and 1,600 bricks for a patio. This little spot is our paradise.

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