[AT] Farmall to the fields

[Grant Brians]

Well, folks, I just bought another tractor for my farming operation. This is 
Farmall 100 #3. Well, I should clarify that statement. We have one working 
Farmall 100 that is used as a pipe rack / vegetable hauling tractor - it has 
a platform on it that allows these two activities that was fabricated by a 
local guy about 6 or 7 years ago. We also have a parts tractor that has been 
missing a few parts for a while now....
    This "new" Farmall 100 has a rattle-can paintjob. It also has front and 
rear hydraulically operated cultivating bars that are JUST wide enough to 
cover the full bed on our 60" beds along with the shovel and the inboard 
side of the furrow knives. We have been needing a way to get our precision 
cultivating done on all of the ranches in the vegetables and this should 
work fine. The tractor even came with two pairs of the precision discs! All 
this with a good used porta-potty on a trailer for 2 grand delivered.This 
seems reasonable to me, given that the tractor seems a good runner.
    Does this sound like a resonable price in other parts of the country? 
I'm curious. Also, Are others finding that there are a lot of people the 
last two years who have gone out of the farming business? The fellow I 
bought this from did and I'm buying his irrigation pipe too - we have to 
irrigate here for vegetables and nearly everything else.
     I'm curious to ask the other vegetable farmers on the list (I'm 
including Farmer Robinson with his Pumpkins and Melons in this one), are you 
using more drip irrigation and row covering? We are doing both.
     Also, are other vegetable people than me expanding? I am having better 
sales this January/February than in a number of years and am leasing another 
20 or so acres this spring.
                    Grant Brians
                    Hollister California
p.s. I'll be at the Tulare World Ag Expo this week along with Richard Walker 
and Don Bowen. My time there will be a high pitched rapid fire checkut of 
all of the things that I might be looking at in the next year or two in 
used/new equipment.......