Below, Gip gets a hand from son, Tony, as he fires up the Boomer
for a first pass over the dead zinnia rows left over from the previous season.
Tony is the mechanical brains behind Farm operations. He helps us keep all
the equipment running!
Boomer mid-size utility tractor, model
TC35D. Son, Tony, helps insure a good first start.
We should each pay close attention to what calls to us, even when we are
quite young! The two pictures below are of Gip on his tractors -- the left
shows his first tractor when he was only about three years old. It even had a
little tow-behind cart! The right photo shows his reliable old John Deere.
We inherited it when we bought the Farm, and it served us for about four
years....But then came Boomer! After the Farm began to demonstrate its
worth to us, we took the leap of faith and bought a mid-size utility
tractor from the local New Holland dealer. (It cost more than both our
other vehicles put together!) Larry Flanary, sales associate
with Lloyd Miller & Sons in Fowlerville, Michigan, sold Gip his first NEW
tractor! It's a TC35D with tiller, front end loader and brush hog -- Gip
bought the snow blade a year before he bought the tractor! Shows you how
confident he was he would eventually get his new "horse" -- it makes
tilling new rows easy as pie! Larry gave excellent customer service,
delivering the tractor to our site and showing Gip how all the gadgets
work. If you want a good tractor, go see Larry at Lloyd Miller &
Sons! He will make sure you come away satisfied.
Time kept getting away from us last fall. It was clear we
needed a new tractor to make the hard labor easier and make it go faster, and we
needed a commercial grade seed processor. The winter of 2001 at Redbud
Farms saw us executing the plans to make these large capital expenditures - we
purchased both pieces of machinery as we made ready to take the next step to
expand the business. Doing so gave us the ability to pursue larger
contracts, expand onto our 15 acres, and process cleaner seed for our
customers. We were ready for the 2001 growing season!!
Below, Gip shows off Boomer with the bucket on the front -- now the mountains
of cow manure won't seem so high!
Gip takes the
tractor out for a test drive before first mowing (top).
Below: Love that John Deere! Bottom:
Who's kiddin' who? These guys are havin' fun! Son, Tony, tows Dad
around with the cart and riding mower Easter Sunday! The neighbors must
think, "Those people never stay inside!"
Do the corporate officers play? Or work? Which is it? They
make it seem almost fun....
"Pop"
introduces Boomer to Marilyn, Sept. 01 @ Redbud Farms
Tractor Fun with Uncle Tony @
Redbud Farms, Sept. 01
Marilyn plays "shy" with
Uncle Tony on the riding mower
"The Farm looks GREAT from up
here, Uncle Tony!"
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the Farm!
From time to time, we will offer web-only specials and publish
short stories about the Farm Dogs or the grandkids, and inspirations from life on the Farm in mid-Michigan, the
American heartland. Seasonally, we will write to help Gardeners grow beautiful Zinnias,
learn how to make a stunning
bouquet, or how to collect precious seed when harvest is here. Let us know
if you would like to receive them.
We have moved our web to a new server and resized all photos for faster load
times. As we approach another winter, I hope
you visit us often to see our pretty pictures and read about the simple things
we love most here. Thanks for being a
customer! -Sharon Baller, President
"To see life's
passages through the eyes of your heart is to know that all is happening exactly
as it was meant to." -- Flavia Weedn
