My husband has wanted to buy a tractor for years and years and years. There’s been a lot of increased discussion about this over the past few months–mostly him elaborating about all the great things he could do with one (and needs to do with one) and me suggesting that renting is always a viable (and reversible) option. Just to clarify (in case you couldn’t tell already), this whole tractor scheme definitely falls under the umbrella of “Not My Idea.” It’s expensive and I’m not sure how much horsepower is safe for my husband to have unlimited access to.  Don’t get me wrong: He can fix or make anything, but there’s often a bit of collateral damage along the way.  Combining tractor power with a love of demolition and an impulsive nature seems like a volatile combo to me. (Here’s hoping he doesn’t read this post. He can be a bit sensitive about this topic.)

Anyway, one day last week while I was at work, he drove to the farm store, plunked down a chunk  of change, signed some papers, and finally bought himself a tractor. Then, much to his dismay, he found out that he had to wait for it to come. The tractor would not be delivered that day and might even take a week or two. Imagine the look on a 7 year old child’s face, bright and early on Christmas morning. Now, imagine if you had to tell him that Christmas was delayed and wouldn’t occur until next week….or maybe the week after.  Yup. That’s about what he looked like. I know this because even though I wasn’t there, he still looked that way hours later when I got home. Poor guy.

Late yesterday afternoon, I drove home through the unceasing rain and turned into our driveway. We have a steep gravel driveway and when I left for work yesterday morning, one area had some ruts and shallow channels that had been carved by recent rainfalls. When I returned yesterday, I immediately noticed that the damaged section of the driveway was looking much worse for the wear.  There were big tire tracks and uneven piles of gravel and grit interspersed with ruts and divits. What happened? I wondered. It looked like some sort of big vehicle had gotten stuck and churned around. Then the light went on.  Oh, wait, I know! I bet they delivered the tractor today and the delivery truck did this. They must have had a hard time with the grade. I looked closer. Wow! That looks really bad. I can’t believe they dug the driveway up that much. I wonder if they’ll repair it. I maneuvered my car carefully around the damaged area and continued up the hill. Then, sure enough, at the top of the driveway I saw the big, orange tractor parked in my yard.

A few minutes later, walking into the house, I called out, “Oh, your tractor came! You must have been so excited.” (I’m trying to be positive about this–remember, Not My Idea.)

“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “They delivered it this afternoon.”

“Wow,” I commented, “That’s great!”  Then I added on, ” They really dug up the driveway when they delivered it, though. It looks awful!”

“Oh, no! That was me,” he replied, smiling happily. “I was trying to smooth out some of the ruts with the tractor just to see what it could do.”

This does not bode well.