Say hello to the newest member of our family.
My family has a long history with John Deere. Many of my uncles and cousins are farmers on the western side of the state, and they almost always had a half-dozen or so big John Deere tractors sprinkled across the landscape when we visited them.
Brian and I used to sneak into the shed next to the big barn at my grandma's farm and sit on the tractors. They were big and old, dirty and banged up from many years of hard use. These were the old two-front-wheels-together kind, with seats made of unpadded metal, sitting atop big springs. We would press the pedals and try to turn the big squeaky iron steering wheel.
Sometimes my uncles would take us for rides and let us steer. What a cool vehicle for young boys to ride on. Big. Scary. Dirty. Powerful. Loud. The odd-firing 2-cylinder "Johnny Popper" engine was very distinctive-sounding, that uneven chugging echoes in my head to this day. What a glorious machine. Almost alive.
So when it came time to get a lawn tractor for our new big lawn, there was only one brand I would consider.
The green and yellow one.
