As a farmer with a day job, farming has become a big outlet for stress relief. And since I do my day job when the sun is up, that means if I want to get on my tractor it’s usually at night.Right now I’m using my tractor for weed control. I have this 3,000,000 BTU clean fuel flame thrower that tows behind my tractor. It torches the weeds, they all die back, and everything’s good because then I don’t have to use any chemicals to get rid of the stuff. The neighbors are always surprised, wondering what’s going on... it causes quite a stir when they see 5-foot flames coming out from behind a tractor driving through the vineyards in the middle of the night.And the sound - the sound of doing all this in the vineyard with nothing else going on in the evening - is incredible. Normally, in wine grape farming, the only time you work at night is when you’re spraying. That’s because there’s no wind and the relative humidity’s high; so it’s good for that. But for me, if I’m mowing or plowing or discing or spading or flame-throwing my weeds down in the vineyard rows, all those things can be done at night. In the dark and the silence you almost feel like you are scuba diving.When I’m doing this work I find it’s the only place where I get 100% unplugged. The most plugged in I get is connecting the headset of the iPod I have tucked into my Carhartt jacket. So it’s just me, the vineyard and a little music.
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Vineyard Musings: Why John Deere put Lights on Tractors 
Suzie 
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