Me on a tractor!

You may not believe it, but I never ridden a tractor before today! Ours is pretty old and we are babying it until we can afford a nice new automatic one in a year or two. As there are so many things you can break on it through ignorance (which I as a city girl have in droves when it comes to machinery) I have always preformed non-tractor tasks...

Anyway when I got home from work today I noticed hubby was out on the tractor, so I grabbed a bottle of water and went out to let him know I was home... He was rough tilling one of our new for this year fields. He says "You want to finish tilling this when I pick rocks?"

All new fields have tons of rocks, the larger of which can damage the tiller. I looked at him and said "Sure, but you'll have to show me how."

So up I went on the tractor. This peddle's the break, that peddle's the break (why are there 2 breaks?), that one's the clutch, that lever engages the PTO be sure your foot is pressed all the way on the clutch before you press it!, that lever raises and lowers the tiller, that is the gear stick for high, that is the one for low, and that is throttle... UH? OK...

In all honestly all I had to do was drive in a straight line and raise and lower the tiller, turn around at the ends of the rows, and when I was driving a far distance turn off the PTO. I NEVER took it out of first gear which hubby put me in, and I never adusted the throttle, which hubby had adjusted for me, and I only pressed one of the breaks... Still there was a lot to remember and I was almost paniced at the end of the first two rows, because there is a lot to do even at .8 mph!

And I did not break the tractor and hubby said I did an OK job... Obviously I still need lots of practice because he is doing the final tilling right now himself... So we will get 7 or 8 more hills done tonight, these each 300 feet long.... And those planted will make it the most ahead April we have ever had!