What a beautiful day to work on the tractors. New air filters for everyone, new battery cables, oil filters, oil and spark plugs. The red craftsman gets to pretend he is a big boy tractor for a few months before he goes back to lawn mowing duties – if the weather holds out for just a couple of days the craftsman should be able to plow most of the main growing field – an important step in warming the soil and helping it dry out for planting. The wide tires help to spread the weight and this tractor weighs much less than the orange one so it is less likely to get stuck in the mud. The orange Kubota needs to be ready to tow the craftsman out of the mud if it does get stuck. We use the orange tractor for everything from watering new seedlings and transplants to towing the wagon loaded with the day’s harvest. In between those, it discs to break up the big clods in the field, tills smooth seedbeds and incorporates compost, digs trenches for potato planting, and cultivates (mechanical weeding between rows so we can concentrate our manual weeding on the spaces within the rows).