Masculine Conversations

Masculine Conversations

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Vermont Generosity


Recently I've been blown away by the generosity of the Vermont people. Everyone here looks out for the community, and they're quick to help out or do you a good turn whenever they can.

Just the other day Augs found the red tractor above for sale in a Craigslist ad - a fixer upper, as it was not running. He's always looking for good projects like that, so he went out and took a look. As it turned out, the seller had bought the tractor over 20 years ago, and it was rather an old friend. He was so happy to have a young guy planning to fix up the old machine that he just gave Augs the tractor!

Of course, Augs being so good with engines, he had it working within two days, and as I write, he is outside using it to mow the lawn. 

Augs, using the wheels of our old mower to replace the hopelessly flat front tires on the red tractor. He was using the front wheels here, but it turned out the rear wheels worked a lot better in the end. 

 Not 24 hours later, I was checking the community email for the day, and suddenly spotted someone giving a way a rototiller! It too needed work, but that wasn't a problem for us, so within minutes we were heading out to take a look. 

It turned out to be another elderly gentleman, who said he'd raised six kids on food grown in the gardens this thing made. Another piece of history, loved and cared for like one of his own.

Papa and I spent Sunday afternoon cleaning it up, and after removing a large mouse nest from in the fan and cleaning a lot of gunk out of the carburetor, we had it running!

 Me, bringing the rototiller back up the hill from where I've been reclaiming a scrubby patch for use as more garden and/or lawn. 

Once I finish, I'll take a couple of pictures for the elderly man who gave us the tiller - I know he'd be really happy to see it getting used again. And that makes me happy.

To end on a sweet note, here's a vanilla milkshake Ibs and I had the other day when it was just us at home, and we felt like a treat. We made it from a Paula Deen recipe on the Food Network website, and it was amazing! (But not even a shade healthy!)

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