December 29, 2008 – My industrious and effecient Kubota tractor left the farm for good today, on the way to Salem Farm Supply to be put up for sale. With the cows gone, there is no reason to have a tractor. I can hire people with tractors to come and move the manure and hay that builds up over the winter months. I used the tractor to move firewood, clear snow, and move the earth around, but my farm is entirely on a steep slope and there were a lot of places it was a struggle for me to get to.
  I think of the farm in terms of eras. The first era was simple and lonely, me and Rose against a rough winter, a time I learned how to run a farm. The second was exciting – a dramatic expansion, a movie being filmed here, a heady, even obsessive time.
  It was kind of crazy. I got three books out of this period, and got to portray some neat characters – Elvis, the goats. But like the rest of the country, that era ended. I had more animals than I could easily manage, and I am not comfortable living in a place that I can’t mostly run by myself. So I decided to change the farm. The cows went to slaughter (except Luna, who is being bred on a Vermont farm) and the goats went off to another farm.
  That also meant there was no real need for a tractor, so Curt of Salem Farm Supply came to get it this morning and haul it off. He said it wouldn’t be on the lot long. I was sorry to see it go, but also glad, in a way. It isn’t paid off yet, so I won’t make much money off it, especially these days, but it seemed that it was also an opportunity to reflect and mirror the times we live in, which is important to me.
  Living on a farm in a remote place, one can easily become disconnected and I don’t want the farm to be an island, but a place that is connected to the times. So it is. This week, Winston the rooster died, and the Kubota left, so the farm lost two of its most visible symbols.
  I am one of those people who believes that out of this worry and sadness, the country will be simpler and in many ways, healthier, and I hope that is true of me and my farm as well. So so long Kubota. I will miss riding around, the CD playing Aretha, Bruce and Van Morrison. I hope it goes to a good farm.