So I finally had some time yesterday to run over to Huntsville before heading back to the house to smoke some ribs and chicken. The folks that had the tractor were very nice. They had the tractor in a storage place on the West Side of Huntsville called Life Storage. You know how when you first meet someone and you almost immediately know they are squared away? Well that's how these people seemed. The guy had a 2015 Nissan Frontier truck that was immaculate.

These folks had a 35 acre farm with goats and sheep, but decided to sell it and move to town to take care of her mother with alzheimer's. The tractor was as nice, clean and (apparently) well maintained as I could imagine any 40 year old tractor could be. They had a whole stack of paperwork and receipts including the owner's manual that Fredrick's apparently prints out for new owners.

I think they've owned it for about 4 years and bought it freshly refurbished from Fredrick's with the new front end loader installed. They bought the Mahindra 4' box blade and the 4' brush hog at the same time from there also. They are also going to include various maintenance items such as a grease gun he used to regularly lube the tractor, he even told me that he regularly checked the torque on all the bolts. Who does that? They are even giving me a 5 gallon fuel can.

I drove it around the parking lot and really liked the tractor. I ran it through all the gears, and worked the bucket. It all seemed to be in order. The shifter is a little sloppy, but of course I'm used to a Miata that has a shifter that is like a little toggle switch and don't really know how a tractor shifter is supposed to feel.

Anyway... Long story short I negotiated them down to $7100 and gave them a cash deposit until I could make arrangements with a buddy who has a larger truck and trailer to go pick it up. So she will be the new tractor at Camp Little Ridge. Mrs. Irish and I will have to give her a name. Maybe we'll have an Aldeer tractor naming contest.