The tractor and the swamp
On the fifteenth of April, 2023, I brought home a brand-new tractor. An RK37, clean off the lot, and I felt like a genuine landowner for the drive back with it strapped to the trailer. I had big plans and a shiny machine to carry them out. This lasted about four weeks.
By the thirteenth of May, that same tractor was buried to the axles in the swamp, going nowhere, with me standing next to it doing the particular math you do when you have clearly overestimated both the ground and yourself. River-bottom land in spring is not the firm, forgiving surface a new tractor owner imagines. It looks solid. It is not. It will take your confidence and your back tires in the same afternoon.
The photo above tells the whole story better than I can, and the story is simple: I got it good and stuck, and I had to call a friend to come out and help me get it free. There is no dignified version of that phone call. You just make it.
What I took away, once the tractor was back on dry ground, is the lesson this whole place keeps teaching in different costumes: the river was here first, the ground does what it wants, and you do not get to be in a hurry. Respect the wet season, read the ground before you trust it, and keep a friend on speed dial. I have needed all three since.
- A brand-new RK37 tractor arrived in April and sat buried to the axles in the swamp by mid-May.
Getting serious about what the ground could actually hold.
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