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Each year, children climb a string of red and green tractors, pretending to wheel their way out of the southern entrance to the fairgrounds.
Every year, Loren and Zethel Gorman make several trips to haul in the seven Farmall tractors he displays.
“That’s the reason we’re out here,” Loren says, pointing to parents taking a picture of a youngster gripping the wheel of one of his machines.
The collection of Farmalls ranges from 1937 – 1955 and he never puts them out without stationing an American flag on each, his wife, Zethel said.
About 1997, right after Loren retired from Empire Electric, she was looking for two things: a hobby for him and a unique Christmas gift.
She found it in “Idared,” a 1937 Farmall F-12 that she would later name after a bluegrass tune. Loren was already pulling tractors, but an antique one would be something new.
That year at the Christmas family gathering, Loren held a heavy box about the size of two bricks. When he tore it open, he found horse dung. Knowing they wouldn’t bother to wrap that without a good purpose Loren dug down and found the note.
“Don’t ever say I never gave you s--- for Christmas,” it read. “The rest of it is red and down at the fire barn and you’re going to have to drive it home.”
The family headed out to the Granby fire station. When the door opened, sirens went off and the firemen surrounded him. They had helped hide and paint his Christmas gift.
“This started it all,” Zethel said, pointing at the red tractor with its nameplate.
The couple now take their collection of seven classic and antique tractors to the county fair, Barnyard Days and area parades.
Loren claims not to have a favorite.
“I love them all,” he said.
Each has a story.
That first tractor had been in bad shape. Loren had to rebuild the motor.
“They had to cut a tree out of it,” Zethel said.
He recently finished restoring a 1955 Farmall 300. The man who owned it used it to bale hay and Loren told the former owner when he got ready to get a new tractor to call. Now he feels lucky to have it. A few weeks after they made the exchange the man’s barn burned down.
His 1955 Farmall 200, Loren says is the “sweetest little tractor I got.” For each there is a search for parts and some have been almost entirely rebuilt.
Each year, children climb a string of red and green tractors, pretending to wheel their way out of the southern entrance to the fairgrounds.
Every year, Loren and Zethel Gorman make several trips to haul in the seven Farmall tractors he displays.
“That’s the reason we’re out here,” Loren says, pointing to parents taking a picture of a youngster gripping the wheel of one of his machines.
The collection of Farmalls ranges from 1937 – 1955 and he never puts them out without stationing an American flag on each, his wife, Zethel said.
About 1997, right after Loren retired from Empire Electric, she was looking for two things: a hobby for him and a unique Christmas gift.
She found it in “Idared,” a 1937 Farmall F-12 that she would later name after a bluegrass tune. Loren was already pulling tractors, but an antique one would be something new.
That year at the Christmas family gathering, Loren held a heavy box about the size of two bricks. When he tore it open, he found horse dung. Knowing they wouldn’t bother to wrap that without a good purpose Loren dug down and found the note.
“Don’t ever say I never gave you s--- for Christmas,” it read. “The rest of it is red and down at the fire barn and you’re going to have to drive it home.”
The family headed out to the Granby fire station. When the door opened, sirens went off and the firemen surrounded him. They had helped hide and paint his Christmas gift.
“This started it all,” Zethel said, pointing at the red tractor with its nameplate.
The couple now take their collection of seven classic and antique tractors to the county fair, Barnyard Days and area parades.
Loren claims not to have a favorite.
“I love them all,” he said.
Each has a story.
That first tractor had been in bad shape. Loren had to rebuild the motor.
“They had to cut a tree out of it,” Zethel said.
He recently finished restoring a 1955 Farmall 300. The man who owned it used it to bale hay and Loren told the former owner when he got ready to get a new tractor to call. Now he feels lucky to have it. A few weeks after they made the exchange the man’s barn burned down.
His 1955 Farmall 200, Loren says is the “sweetest little tractor I got.” For each there is a search for parts and some have been almost entirely rebuilt.
“You buy ‘em sight unseen,” he said. “You buy ‘em figuring on working on them.”
Winter sees him drain all the fuel out, and tinker with the oil, but that’s about all the maintenance they need once restored.
For the past 15 years, the founding member of the Shoal Creek Tractor Club and Wolf Branch Antique Tractor Club has raised cattle, a Gelbvieh-Charlet cross. Feed, water, breeding – Loren says he tries to do the best he can by his cattle. When he gets a chance he takes out one of the tractors and drives out to see how they are doing.
“I’ll drive through the herd and look at the calves and tell myself, ‘I’m doing a pretty good job,’” Loren said.
He developed his love for tractors as a child on a western Kansas wheat farm. At 9, his father set him on a tractor equipped with a 2-bottom 14-inch mower board and pointed to 320 acres of farmland.
“We need you to plough this under this summer,” his father told him.
Out he went, following the endless line of furrows.
“I never got so sick of anything in my life,” Loren said.
The next summer the neighbor came by and asked if they could borrow one of the boys for the summer. Of the dozen children in the family, Loren happened to be standing in the yard.
“You take him home and see if you can make a man of him,” his father said.
That year he broke in a brand new M-Farmall on a couple thousand acres.
“I was in hog heaven all summer long,” Loren said.
That early experience cemented his love for Farmall tractors.
“They’re good, durable tractors,” he said. “It don’t cost an arm and a leg to buy them. It don’t cost an arm and a leg to overhaul them and you can more or less put a 9, 10, 12-year-old kid on it and he can handle it.”
By contrast, if the family’s John Deere died, he had to walk two miles to the house to get help starting it again.
“That might have been what turned me against them,” he laughed.
His collection includes the 1937 Farmall F-12; a 1937 Farmall F-20; 1936 Farmall F-30; 1955 Farmall 100; 1955 Farmall 200; 1955 Farmall 300; and a 1955 Farmall 400. He admits to running a 1978 International Harvester 886 around the home and he owns a John Deere, but won’t say the model or year.
“It’s a good tractor too,” he jokes, “They just painted it the wrong color.”
