Tractor 101

I had a teacher in high school who believed so strongly in the importance of adults continuing to learn that she studied a new language, instrument or skill every year just so that she would never forget what it felt like to be a beginner. This month, I had my own opportunity to put into practice the belief that one should never stop developing new abilities when my father asked me if I’d be interested in learning to use the tractor.

It’s a small tractor that Dad uses to maintain the grading on our shared half-mile-long driveway and also to plow snow. I’d never so much as set a finger on any part of that tractor, and it was hard for me to imagine taking on something so mechanical, where I consider myself not at all a mechanical person by nature.

On the other hand, my father is in his seventies and it’s not a bad idea for him to offload some of the physical labor around the farm. So I agreed to try.

The first step, he told me, would be to read the manual before our first lesson, which we agreed would be the forthcoming Saturday. I pictured the instruction pamphlet that comes with most of my new electronic devices these days: an eight-panel folded sheet of paper, along with a card-sized “quick start” step-by-step guide for people who can’t be bothered to read all eight panels. I didn’t expect the manual to weigh as much as my children did at birth, but there it was: my reading material for the week.

The job of perusing it became a little less daunting when I realized that the manual was printed in three languages, so in fact I had to read only one-third of it. Not only that, but Dad told me I didn’t have to worry about the maintenance sections, since he takes care of that, and he also gave me the somewhat inscrutable pointer that I could ignore anything referring to “PTO’s.” There’s a section in the tractor manual devoted to parent-teacher organizations? I mused. Although that sounded a lot more like my domain than the maintenance part, I was grateful for any of the three hundred pages I wouldn’t have to read, so out went the PTO sections as well.

And I became even more confident when I saw that the very first instruction following the safety rules was how to “preheat” the tractor before starting the engine. Yes, the manual really did use the word preheat. I’ll be right at home in this world, I thought cheerfully.

Our first lesson was the first Saturday in December, and it went surprisingly well. I graded the entire driveway twice – which means pulling a scraper blade behind the tractor to even out the contours in the dirt and gravel – and then did the same thing the following Saturday. This past weekend was my third hour of tractor practice, and this time Dad wasn’t even home to oversee the start-up procedure.

Nonetheless, it went without a hitch. In fact, I discovered something useful on the third session: previously, when I thought I’d been switching into second gear, I’d actually been going into fourth, which explains why I thought the tractor had only two speeds: glacial and bat-out-of-hell. Turns out second gear is easy and comfortable, not quite so much like watching paint dry as first gear but not as heartstopping as fourth, so it was a discovery well worth making.

As I see it, having successfully completed my third session of tractor work, I’ve essentially completed Tractors 101. To draw upon an overused phrase, it’s not exactly rocket science. Although my dad has been highly complimentary of my ability to pick up this new skill, it’s not that different from driving a car, and fortunately I learned to use a standard shift back when I was sixteen. Speaking of those early driving days, my only regret so far is that never yet has one of my friends passed by and seen me while I was driving the tractor. Like a sixteen-year-old with a learner’s permit, I’d really like to get a little admiration from my non-tractor-driving peers for this new feat.

There are a lot of things I like about driving the tractor. I like proving to myself that I can learn something new, even as I acknowledge it’s something pretty easy. I like spending more time outdoors. I spend a lot of time already every week walking and running; even if I’m a little guilty about the pollution and fuel use associated with driving the tractor, I can’t help getting some enjoyment over the fact that this is a way to be outdoors without expending much physical exertion. And it’s just fun to perch high atop the tractor as it rumbles along.

The next step is to learn to plow snow with the tractor. That might turn out to be more of a challenge. But right now there’s no snow in the forecast and I’m just relishing my new Tractor 101 skills as I go up and down the driveway every Saturday. If you pass by and see me, be sure to wave, because I’d really like to show off a little. Being handed the keys is still a thrill, almost thirty years after I first took my parents’ car for a spin.

Birthday cake

Late yesterday afternoon, I made a chocolate cake.

For many reasons, that act felt like a luxury. I had worked hard throughout my regular workday to finish a draft of a story so that I would feel justified in not working any more after three o’clock. And the house was empty, which was unusual for that time of day. Rick and Tim were at a baseball practice; Holly was at her pottery class, and since I’d driven her and two friends to the studio, one of the other mothers would drive her home, so I didn’t even need to watch the clock.

With All Things Considered as my soundtrack (and Nina Totenberg warning listeners, just as she did nineteen years ago, that content regarding her story on Clarence Thomas might not be appropriate for all audiences), I melted chocolate, measured flour, greased a cake pan. Atypical for me, who usually rushes to get everything done, I’d remembered to take the butter out of the fridge hours earlier, so it had reached the perfect consistency for creaming with sugar and eggs. I whipped egg whites, all with a somewhat dreamy sense of decadence.

Usually I rush; yesterday I had time, and no distractions. It was a more complicated recipe than I generally use. I bake a lot, but normally if I make a cake it’s a traditional layer cake with soft moist crumbs and creamy frosting. This recipe called for crumbled almond paste and stiffly whipped egg whites that then had to be folded into the butter/sugar/chocolate mixture. I’m not very good at folding batter at all. And I wasn’t sure I’d greased the cake pan sufficiently for when it came time to unmold the finished product.

It didn’t matter. I was immersed in the task at hand and thoroughly content to be doing it. The cake was for my father’s birthday dinner; I would be taking it next door to my parents’ house in another hour or so. The recipe I was using is his favorite, and normally my mother makes it for him, but she was taking care of the rest of the dinner so I’d offered to take on this responsibility.

Two months ago, I didn’t really expect my father to have another birthday. He was recovering from surgery but not very well, and the thought that by mid-fall not only would we be having a birthday dinner but that we’d have to schedule it in between his stints out on the tractor mowing the fields and volunteering at the prison would have seemed utterly improbable. But here I was, glazing the cake and wrapping his present.

Dad shares a birthday with my niece, Hannah, who turned eight yesterday. I hoped that turning eight would be easier on her than the beginning of being seven was. A year ago, she ended her own party with a trip to Children’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., where she was hospitalized for a week with H1N1. She missed out on Halloween, but made a good strong recovery; her birthday celebration this year will include her first sleepover party.

It wasn’t a sure thing that either of yesterday’s celebrants in my family would get to this next birthday, but of course, it never is, for anyone. Yesterday morning when I dropped Holly off at school, I ran into my friend Lisa, who said she’d had dinner the night before with a friend of hers who was mourning her own mother whose birthday it was that day. A year ago, Lisa’s friend’s mother, who was several years younger than my dad, had no reason to think she wouldn’t be around for another birthday, but as we all know, these things happen. Her death was sudden and unanticipated.

Dad’s birthday was a very happy day for all of us. We were glad he was there to celebrate with us; I could easily imagine spending the day under other circumstances. But in fact, I always feel this way on my parents’ birthdays, and my husband’s and children’s too: just glad they’re around for another yearly milestone.

The cake didn’t come out as nice as when my mother makes it. It stuck to the pan a little bit, and I had to reconstruct it somewhat on the cake plate and then slather glaze over the many cracks. But no one complained as they ate it, and I certainly didn’t complain when I made it. Baking a birthday cake yesterday felt like a privilege. I had the time; I had the right ingredients – even a tube of almond paste, which I dug out from the depths of the freezer -- and I had my dad to bake for. It was a happy birthday all around.