Winter is over; it is warming up nicely and at least in our area very dry! A neighbor says that his father always said that a windy spring meant the chances were good for a dry summer. It has been a windy spring but hopefully there is rain in the future in spite of what my neighbor’s father said.

Because of a trip to Florida that included some business activity, I missed the Winter Convention and our March meeting as well. While that is a bit of a bummer, on the plus side, I missed at least one substantial snowstorm! So now I can get busy working on the items that have sat in the shed patiently waiting for some TLC.

I picked up a set of tools at the LCPPA Swap Meet that are designed for straightening out the grills on A, B and C Farmall’s. I have started to work on the grill for an old 1939 A. The set seems to work quite well and if the final product looks right I may invest in the other sets of tools that this man has made for H’s and for M’s as well. The manufacturer of these tools is located in Faribault so it is a local product and one that has potential for all those collectors that have tractors with bent up grills.

I have a friend and former co-worker who is also collecting tractors. He purchased a bankrupt auto body shop in a small town in Southern Minnesota and does his restoration there. In early June he and I are going to pick up another former co-worker of ours who is elderly and has some health challenges for a “Boys Day Out”. We will have lunch and visit both of our collections and have a generally good time reminiscing. My friend has chosen the more unusual route of collecting the largest tractor made by tractor manufacturers in 1976. Many of those companies had a “Bicentennial” version and he has restored them to their full glory. The decal packages must be downright pricey!  

In the last article I mentioned we were waiting for Guinness World Records to decide on the application for being recognized as having the most M Farmall’s assembled in one place. In late March an e-mail was received from them. Our application was turned down for the reason that we had not done anything with the tractors. They would have liked an activity, not just a passive gathering of tractors. Nothing is lost other than some time spent in preparing the application. We did not start the activity with the intention of getting a world record. It was an idea that surfaced after we realized what we had accomplished in bringing 150 M Farmall’s together in one location. Irrespective of what Guinness says, we had a great time with our “Field of M’s”!

The Red Power Round Up hosted this year by Wisconsin Chapter 4 is just a couple of months away and this year it is also just a few hours’ drive away. It is always a fun time and I hope to get to at least a part of it. The Little Log House Antique Power Show in Hastings is featuring IH the same week so it will be a busy time trying to fit both events into the schedule. Fortunately one starts a day or two earlier and the other one ends a day later. So with some creative scheduling, it should be possible to do both. Hopefully, we will meet up with one another multiple times this summer. Enjoy the events and “Keep Seeing Red”!

Filed under: Collector's Corner