Recreational Tractor Thinking

Thinking is usually done in the pursuit of work, play, family obligations, problem solving and extricating oneself from a self made mess. Thinking could be a recreational activity, but our modern lives seldom give us the opportunity to pursue it as such.

 I have found an expensive, but useful tool to propagate Free Thought  My garlic farming requires a tractor. I have a mighty fine Yanmar tractor. It's painted green with John Deere on the front. John Deere says it's a Yanmar built to their specs...although I see the same "undressed" (no sheet plastic, wheels or seat) machine for sale by Yanmar. I here tell John Deere doesn't make a tractor in this country anymore...they just sell green parts for exorbitant prices. Whatever the tractor is or ain't; this tractor encourages more than agricultural pursuits. When I get her set up and working, she transports me to my "laughing place".

I find pictures in the clouds, watch buzzards looking for thermals, see myriad of small mammals and reptiles fleeing the bush hog maelstrom behind. She's got cruise control so I can "drift off" to recall experiences from long ago. I remember people from grade school high school and college, and sometime, their names. I do wonder what ever happened some of them.

How different would US history be if they had tractors, cotton pickers and the cotton gin in the South circa early 1800's?  Might have changed the need for a Civil War...naw, people always find a reason to start a war.

I think of blog post subjects, find solutions to mechanical problems. repeat words to songs I've been trying to learn. I spot patches of Kudzu that need threatened, as you never get rid of it in the South.

I visualized the need for a computer app while mowing the lower field the other day.

I find that when teaching guitar students an old tune, it would be advantageous for them to know what the  next chord would be a beat or two before their brain and fingers have to go there on the guitar. I can't play mandolin and holler chords two beats before the guitar player has to go there. It's hard enough for me to play the damn tune!

I envision  recording the tune to one's phone live, or from a recording. With the aid of a metronome in the program to pick up the tempo as the tune plays, the next chord would pop on the screen a couple beats before. I envision it being somewhat  like the Amazing Slowdowner You simply download a tune into Slowdowner and it programs the tune to what ever speed with no distortion. The app extension would  would just anticipate next chord needed a couple beats in advance and the symbol would pop up a couple beats before you have to play it.advance.

Yep, farm work has come a long way from watching the rear end of a mule and trying to keep a plow a straight row without falling down or stepping in something. They have GPS now that takes the driving out of the hands of the operator. Tractors have AC TV and Stereo. They even have drone tractors.

I'm old enough to remember riding Dorsey Thompson's team as he plowed grandma's top field. The Thompson's  had an old Ferguson tractor to think on, but they kept their horses just in case tractor thinking didn't get the job done, or someone else was using the tractor.

I love recreational thinking, thanks to my JD/Yanmar.