Women and Tractors - A Woman's Touch

I thought I would give you a little background on how I got myself hooked on tractors and their restoration.

My family is a very "crafty" bunch of people. By crafty I mean good with crafts!! My Dad is a retired industrial engineer from Bucyrus Erie which made big shovels for excavating and he is also a wonderful wood worker. My mom and my "guardian angel" has had her own ceramic shop for 30 years and is an excellent painter. With these skills always active in our house it was hard not to adopt some of the talent!

Dad started me out working on cars. Whatever needed done we had our heads together under the hood and he showed me all he knew. The neighbors used to come over and watch us... they couldn't believe a girl could take a starter out of a car and put it back in.

My life took a turn to the crafts side of me! I worked at a craft store and started teaching classes on everything you could possibly make with your hands. Painting classes turned out to be my most popular class, we painted saw blades, slate, clothes, baskets and anything that had a flat or semi flat surface. I was now going out to colleges and senior centers and malls to teach classes. What a fun way to make a living!

I met my husband Ben and his love for farming and tractors was great. We worked constantly and tried to figure out what we could do for fun to get us away from the farm for some much needed breaks. We knew of a local tractor club called Brokenstraw Antique Tractor Club (BATC), and we joined. They were mostly John Deere but they opened up to accept other tractors also.

We went to an auction and there was a nice Ford 8N that we got at a great price to use as a scrape tractor for the barn. Well with my painting experience I said to Ben "why don't you let me paint her up before you put her in the barn?" Well that was the BIG start for me! I tore her all apart and sand blasted her down and primed everything up and repainted her like brand new. Ben was so surprised how it turned out.. he was shocked!

Well of course, the tractor was not going in the barn now.. she was going to a SHOW!

When we went to the first show, Ben told all the guys in the club I restored the tractor, and alot of the guys had some great responses: "MY WIFE DOESN'T HELP ME!" and "DOES SHE HAVE A SISTER?" and "WHEN CAN SHE COME AND REDO MINE?"

The best though was the ladies of the club's responses: "DON'T YOU DARE TELL MY HUSBAND THAT YOU DID THAT! HE'LL WANT ME TO DO HIS TRACTORS!!" I had alot of fun that day.

I do truly enjoy the time I spend on restoring a tractor and the fun of seeing it completed. I now help out some of the club members with special detailing that needs done on their tractor projects, they say Im better to work with than the other guys because when I come to work I bring cookies and rice crispy treats!! AWWW! THE WOMAN'S TOUCH!

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