Its almost time to plant sweet onions so I fired up my 1948 John Deere M and attached the M2 bottom plow. The tractor has been in my family since 1949 - 1950 when my grandfather purchased it slightly used after the original owner traded it in after 1 year and the plow and cultivator set came with the tractor when he purchased it. Pretty much all of the implements are specific to that tractor as it does not have a 3 Point Hitch and all of the fertilizer and cultivating gear is belly mounted so that you can see what you are plowing from the operator's seat. My dad did a overhaul and cosmetic restoration on it back in early 2000, in fact the morning he was to have a quad bypass he started telling me how to put John back together as we were waiting for them to come and take him to the surgery suite. At the time it was in a million pieces all over his workshop. I gently reminded him that he couldn't die and that if he ever wanted to see that tractor put back together he needed to get better quick. He planted his last garden using it about 13 years later and passed away two months later. Somewhere in a box I have a B&W photo of my grandfather holding me in his lap as he sat on the tractor, I was still in diapers at the time so "John" is truly an old friend to me.
I took it out to my grandfathers old farm which is still in the family and spent about a half day turning two plots, one will be for my sweet onions which I'll plant in the next week or so and next spring I'll plant potatoes and sweet corn as well as a separate plot for field corn. The JD M is a two cylinder "Popping John" as they have a distinct popping sound when running and which is really pronounced when idling. My dad always said it popped better when it was at "home". I would have to say it sounded pretty happy and was popping away when I was working with it out there this week.
Got to love that old iron!
I took it out to my grandfathers old farm which is still in the family and spent about a half day turning two plots, one will be for my sweet onions which I'll plant in the next week or so and next spring I'll plant potatoes and sweet corn as well as a separate plot for field corn. The JD M is a two cylinder "Popping John" as they have a distinct popping sound when running and which is really pronounced when idling. My dad always said it popped better when it was at "home". I would have to say it sounded pretty happy and was popping away when I was working with it out there this week.
Got to love that old iron!
