'Cause I Got Friends with Tractors

Now I'm not a huge country music fan, I have some artists I like and listen to but I don't own a big collection of country cd's and I rarely ever have my car radio tuned to a country station.  But yesterday when we were digging out from under this storm, my son, who likes all types of music including country, starting singing a song by Rodney Atkins that just seemed to fit the situation perfectly.

The chorus lyrics aptly describe what it's like to live in a rural community such as ours, and how when you get a huge amount of snow and you live down a private lane, it is very good to have friends with tractors.

They’ll grow your groceries, haul a load
Pull you out then fix the road
They’re good at slowin’ speeders down
When they pass through from out of town
I live out in the country
Happily ever after
I got everything I need
‘Cause I got friends with tractors

Here is a picture of part of our driveway.  It may not look long, but trust me after you try shoveling it, you'll realize it's not just long, it's really long!

Luckily for us, we have friends with tractors.  Although we have two tractors over on our family farm about 8 miles away, we just have a riding lawn mower at our house.  But our wonderful neighbor "D" generously plows us, and other neighbors along our road, out whenever we have a big snow.  Because, as you can see, we live on a rural private lane that never sees a state or county snowplow.

We've had plenty of snow this winter, but this storm came with heavy snow and high winds which created some of the most beautiful drifts.

As we headed out of the many bumpy, winding roads it takes to get from our house to the main road, we saw lots of these friendly green, red, and blue machines helping to dig their own families and neighbors out! 

I learned to drive a tractor, an old rusted Allis-Chalmers with a metal seat, long before I learned to drive a car, and so did our children.  And now even Mr. Tides, suburban boy that he was, drives our trusty Massey Ferguson...Big Red!  I use this tractor to mow the fields each summer and even managed to knock the wooden tractor shed that holds it cattywompus last year.  It was the first time I had hit something with a tractor in my entire life, and I burst in to tears when Mr. Tide came to see why the shed was leaning!  But a few days later my brother was able to set it back straight so that it no longer looked like a Dr. Seuss shed!

While Mr. Tide tried unsuccessfully to get the tractor out to clear the driveway at the farm.  I wandered around taking pictures.  Like this one of the icicles on the big magnolia tree.

The best part about an old farm is that you can always find something interesting to take a picture of, like this old trailer and the pile of lumber.

Finally, since the sun was setting, and we couldn't get the tractor with chains on it out of the barn due to the drifts, we just headed home to relax and watch the Super Bowl.

And to make our neighbor some of these...

Because when you have friends with tractors, it's good to keep them happy!

Today I'm linking up with Chari at Happy To Design for Sunday Favorites