Before you start thinking that my husband and I have lost our marbles, our new addition is not of the human variety. In fact, it’s not of the living variety.

Thanks to the wonder of modern marvels and the amazing world of online auctions, we are the proud owners of a new combine. And by new, I mean antique, but we’ve never owned it before, so it’s new to us!

One of the ways that we keep costs down on our farm, or so my husband tells me, is that our equipment is pre-loved…or pre-swore at, however you want to look at it. This new beauty is probably a late-70’s, early-80’s Massey Ferguson model…and I’m pretty sure it’s an 860, but don’t quote me on that.

It’ll look something like this:

They're oldies, but goodies.

Now, we have newer heads for soybeans, but the same old corn heads for corn harvest. So, we get to mix old and new alike. The nice thing about sticking with these older models is that Boss Man is able to make all the repairs himself. In fact, I’m pretty sure he could take one apart and put it back together in the dark. Actually, he may have had to do that last fall, come to think of it! LOL! Just kidding, kinda…

I tease him about having to have a 6-pack of combines, just so that two are running, but it’s not so funny any more. The problem with having a vintage fleet, is that parts are getting harder and harder to come by…unless you buy a whole combine as a donor. Which is basically what we do. The plus side: the combines don’t cost much…as in we could buy them by the dozen, and not get close to touching what a new one would cost.

So, as long as there are old ones in the area that can be bought at auction, we’ll be sticking with what we know…and what Boss Man can fix.

They haven’t left a crop in the field yet!