I Just Need a Bigger Tractor

Lee and I built a new home in Rockwall county, just outside the city limits on 3-1/2 acres. The other houses on Norman Trail were on about an acre each. What made ours different was the 2 acre rock quarry in the back yard. Filled with crystal clear water and two sides vertical rock…the other two sides almost solid cattails.

As we were building the house I placed a 4’x8′ sheet of plywood on the wet bank of “the pond” and each day would go down with my shotgun and shoot the 1 to 3 snakes that were hiding in the cool shade. By the time the house was complete the pond was pretty well snake free. When summer rolled around the girls (in the 7th and 5th grade) would row the john boat out…trying to accidentally fall in.

I Get A Tractor

Our first summer in that house was 1980. That was the second hottest year on record in North Texas with 69 days exceeding 100. While there was no grass to mow, I bought a 14 HP garden tractor to mow the weeds. The truth about a “garden tractor” is that it is a big lawn mower…NOT a real tractor. It had a belly mounted 48″ mower deck and a category 0 manual three point hitch.

Leave the Fire Ants Alone

I would forget it wasn’t a tractor and do tractor stuff. Most Saturdays I would move from my chair to the tractor and be mowing while Lee and the girls did girl stuff which normally involved going somewhere. On a particular Saturday as I mowed the bottom near the water I spotted the largest fire-ant mound I had ever seen. Without too much thought I pointed the mower towards the 18″ high hill and asked for all 14 horse power. Well the blades on the mow deck caused the mound to explode throwing the little biting critters in all directions including some my way. The impact caused the blades to lug the motor and it died…the mower resting atop what was left of the dark dirt and now very disturbed ants.

You would think they would scurry down into the cool soil rather than head upward on the hot metal. It almost seemed they knew where I was. I restarted the motor…put it in gear and watched the back tires spin a couple of inches off the ground. I was dusting ants off my pants legs now. I began to rock the mower back and forth and each time the wheels came in contact with the ground it would lurch forward a few inches. When it finally leapt free I headed to the back yard where there was the smallest patch of green grass. I baled off the mower to the grass and rolled like I was on fire…which was pretty close to the truth. You would think I would learn my lesson…but I still can’t pass up a mound of fire ants without getting a stick.

Not a Four Wheel Drive

So one day I was on the tractor and the pond was low exposing some of the cattails on what appeared to be dry ground. I would mow over them causing them to lay down and when the mower passed over the heads, they would explode and the wind would scatter them. My backyard and pond area was covered by the fuzzy material.

I was watching some birds…not watching where I was going when I drove off a raft of cattails and onto some black slimy mud and promptly stuck my tractor. I mean really stuck. I caught one of the girls attention and they brought me my wheelchair which I got muddy transferring from the tractor. I brought my El Camino down and tied a rope from the hitch to the tractor and after just a couple of tries. I had it stuck also. Odd looking mud…sorta dry on top but a couple of inches down…real goo and sorta stinky.

It just made sense to get Lee’s full size van to get the El Camino out…right? Well that didn’t work and now everything I own is stuck down at the pond. It’s time to call Uncle David. My brother in law David Honea lived about a mile from us…so I called and explained. Being from west Texas also, my predicament didn’t seem odd at all. And that is when he came up with a legendary solution to my problem. There was a maintainer (road-grader) at the end of my street.

Do you know that they almost always leave the keys in the toolbox. So David drove down to my pond and one by one drug my vehicles to dry ground ending with my 14 HP garden tractor. I spent the rest of the day washing cars, tractors and wheelchairs. The only artifact testifying to what happend were the 4′ to 5′ ruts around the ponds edge. When a 4′ road grader wheel slides in black slick mud it pushes up huge mounds of dirt that dries and takes many years to level it back down. Something to remind me…..

Give up Tractor Driving

When we moved to town some 14 years later I would sell the tractor and hire lawn people to mow my corner lot. Without the tractor I can’t really get in too much trouble. But then I bought an airplane.