Posting All the Drafts Today: Back When the Fendt Was at the Farm
There’s something bittersweet about going through old drafts. Like dusty photographs in a drawer, they capture moments frozen in time—some finished, others just scribbles of an idea. Today, I’m posting them all. Because back when the Fendt was at the farm, things were different. Simpler, louder, more mechanical.
The Fendt 716 Vario was more than just a tractor. It was the muscle of the land, the heartbeat of our fields. Sleek in its green armor, it came with a cab that felt like a spaceship compared to the rumbling tractors of our neighbors. But to us, it wasn’t fancy—it was family. And every draft I wrote back then had a little bit of that diesel-throated hum in its background.
Back then, early mornings meant coffee on the porch, mist clinging to the corn stalks, and the low growl of the Fendt starting up. It never needed convincing. It was reliable like that. Like an old friend who always shows up when you call. Draft #17—never posted until today—was a half-written poem about that. Something about “green paint and grit” and “tires big as hope.” I’ll post it anyway, because it meant something when I wrote it.
You learn a lot on a farm—how to fix things, how to respect the seasons, how to take pride in work most people never see. The Fendt taught me some of those lessons. It showed me what precision felt like. That German engineering wasn’t just a sales pitch. The way it moved down the field with a kind of elegant purpose made the rough work seem almost graceful.
Draft #9 was an attempt at a short story, written after baling hay one summer. The plot wasn’t much—just a fictionalized version of a breakdown in the backfield—but it had characters drawn from memory: my uncle, with grease on his cheek and a wrench in hand, swearing at a slipped belt like it had insulted his mother. I never published it. But reading it again today, I’m reminded that even small stories deserve their moment.
We sold the Fendt a couple of years back. Upgraded to something newer, bigger, “more efficient,” they said. But the new one doesn’t have soul. Doesn’t have history caked on its tires. It didn’t tow our childhood behind it or idle quietly while we tossed fenceposts in the bed of the truck.
Posting these drafts is like tilling up old ground. You never know what you’ll uncover—maybe a buried line of poetry, or a forgotten scene that still has spark. And maybe, by sharing them, I’ll reconnect with that version of myself. The one who wrote with mud on his boots and the smell of diesel in the air.
So here they are. Raw, unedited, sometimes clumsy. But real. They’re from a time when the Fendt was part of our daily lives, and every word I wrote was anchored in that reality. Maybe some of them will make you smile. Maybe none of them will. But they’re going up anyway.
Because memories fade. Drafts get deleted. And the Fendt isn’t in the barn anymore. But stories—once posted—can stick around.
