Back to our story...



So after having left the grey market tractor place, I go back home and continue to tear up my father-in-law's riding mower.  Now, he's not happy about this either, but what can you do when your favorite (and only) son-in-law needs help. (God bless him.) So I'm kicking things around for a few weeks and every Sunday on the way to church I pass, not one, but THREE tractor places. It hurts me bad. One day on the way home I stop at on of these places, the FarmTrac dealer, and just look around. At the front of the dealership...



was Fergie. Well I didn't know she was Fergie. I just thought it was a very old, very dirty, oxidized red tractor. Most of the decals were gone, so I couldn't tell even what she was when I looked. An older man came out and told me she was an MF35. "Never heard of it?" he said. "Nope," I replied. Well she was a trade in on a new tractor from an old land owner who used her just to cut the grass. "These old diesels run forever," he said. "She doesn't blow any smoke and she comes with a 6' brush hog." I asked how much, looking at the $3995 sign stuck to her bonnet with a magnet. "Well I can take of $500 right now, she is a deal at $3495." "Uh huh", I drone. She wasn't real fancy, but I saw something in her. The lines, they just don't make lines like those on tractors these days.



In the 70's and 80's, someone, somewhere decided that tractors should be boxy and square. Thus begins the dark ages in tractor design. It wasn't until the later 90's that manufactures started smoothing out the lines again and making tractors look close to how they should. But nothing compares to those old ones.



And nothing even comes close to the MF35, I knew it then and I really know it now. (Except maybe the 9N, but Ferguson made that one too, so it doesn't count.)



Back to Fergie. Well, she had a bunch wrong. She was faded, she was rusty, none of her gauges worked, she had water in the tranny, and her clutch was a mess, but with all of that, her motor, her heart, was like brand new. I don't know if her motor had ever been rebuilt, but she runs like she was built yesterday. And I had to have her.



Next time... bringing Fergie home.