T.J. Needs a New Tractor
If you’ve spoken to me personally in the last few years, I hope you can tell how proud and amazed I am by the support the farm receives from the local community. I consider myself lucky to have a job where I am routinely inspired by people’s generosity, cooperation, and goodwill towards their neighbors. Just when I have seen one too many news stories about conflict and strife, a group of volunteers will come to the farm to pull weeds or cut cabbages in the sun motivated by the hope their labor will be a help to others in need.
I also have the benefit of directly hearing from the recipients. I have witnessed people get emotional when I tell them how the produce was grown, and I really wish I knew better words to convey to everyone that your donation means more to our recipients than just a full stomach. This year, I received my first message from a food pantry “making sure we are on the list” before we had even put seeds in the soil. Your contribution outshines their usual fare in both quality and significance.
We’ve got great volunteers, a warm greenhouse, fertile soil, and I’m already preparing next year’s seed orders. The one concern I have for being able to maintain and improve our operation is our Massey 856 and tillage implements. The 856 has been rebuilt previously and extensively over its 50+ years and is needing another engine rebuild on top of its other problems. Our disc, roller harrow, and land plane were all bought used, rebuilt, and are approaching replacement status themselves. No matter how I do the math, I just can’t see how replacing and repairing all of that will have a benefit to the farm equal to the cost. Field preparation is necessary, but tractors that size have really increased in price over the last 50 years.
Instead, we have decided to pursue a smaller, 50 hp tractor that will allow us to use more current tillage tools as well as be much more versatile than just a tillage tractor. With a more maneuverable tractor, we can also use it during harvest without doing “wheelies” when the picking box is loaded. With the loader, we can move pallets or use attachments to maintain the ditch. We could plant late season cover crops or work sections of the field midseason without driving straight over other crops or hitting our irrigation pipes. We could use attachments without custom fabrication for fitment.
I can and have rambled on and on to several people about why I am excited to pursue this purchase, but it boils down to just making sure we are going to be able to do the job we’ve undertaken. We’ve “made do” with a lot of old equipment with creativity and with extra hands for help, but we’ve reached a point where it makes sense to invest in the proper tools for job.
I hope you will support us in this purchase. As excited as I am for next year’s crops, this purchase is about ensuring harvests for many years to come. It means we will have equipment capable of growing our capacity instead of just maintaining, and it means I might sleep the night before field work begins in the spring instead of wondering if disaster will strike on day one in the form of a blown engine.
Thank you all again for your gifts of time, labor, and encouragement, and thanks in advance for supporting this major upgrade. I am so excited to see all of you next year, and I hope to make it one of our best!
T.J. McDaniel - Farm Manager
Monthly giving gets an extra boost right now, too. Colorado Gives Foundation will match the first $100 of any new monthly gift you set up during this time, as part of a $250K matching pool across all participating nonprofits. The sooner you start, the better your chances of getting the match!
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