Chicken track tires, I’ve been obsessed with them. They’re nothing that’d get anyone excited, but to me, they make the tractor that much closer to 1949. It’s like a trip back in time–the dust is flying, covering me as my Moline works through the field pulling the wheat binder or the one-way. The tracks Y-ing out like a giant chicken carefully stepping to line up her tracks toe-to-toe.

Coming around at the end of the field, I leave tracks in the stubble gliding through an “e” turn and following the tracks laid down by all the farmers before me, even those with horse, mule or oxen. Those chicken track tires connect me and my Moline to the perseverance and sweat stretching from sun-up to sun-down of those who saw the future in this golden crop and dry land.