Nemesis Farewell

Farewell to Tractor Beam, my nemesis of the last twelve years.

Shortly I will offer it on Craig’s List, perhaps as a found art object. (It would be difficult to offer it as an actual useful piece of equipment, except to a devoted and rather masochistic tinkerer.)

The new wee tractor arrived this week. It operates wonderfully. It has an automatic transmission, and it cuts weeds so smoothly and wonderfully that I was transfixed with admiration. Beam wouldn’t so much cut weeds as hack them into slimy gobbets, and while doing so, it would create enormous dust clouds that would cover the landscape, and me with it.

While the new tractor does not operate in a dust-free environment— this is New Mexico, after all— neither I did not finish my chores today looking like an extra from Invasion of the Mud Men.

It operates so smoothly that I’m tempted to call it Tractor Cream.

But in the meantime, farewell Beam! May you rust in pieces.