This has been quite a summer full of motorized fun for us. Demolition derbies and a mud bog in Michigan, now a classic tractor show in Tanneberg near Mittweida. I never saw myself attending events like these, but, well, this is where I live now and I guess I'd better take it as it comes. Anyway, I was given a clipping with information about this event on Friday after someone overheard me talking about tractors at a school-related function on Tuesday, or better said, I was cursing about the purchase of a THIRD and FOURTH tractor that took place this week and were being hauled back to my house at that very moment. I guess I shouldn't be worried, we still have a little space left, and if we cut a few more trees and build onto the shed, we'll have space to add to our fleet. It doesn't matter anyway, because I am outnumbered 3:1 by people in my house who are pretty excitable when it comes to anything with wheels, let alone wheels AND motors, and maybe even hydraulics. So I guess it's hopeless. In the interest of those I love, I suggested this as a possible weekend activity, which wasn't even necessary, because without my knowing it, it seemed to have been added to our weekend plans already. So we convinced our Dresden visitors to tag along, piled into the cars and drove out to Tanneberg, beyond the borders of Mittweida near Erlau. Tanneberg seems to be an intersection with a couple of houses, so after turning onto the road with the "Tanneberg this way" sign, we immediately saw a field with lots of cars and knew we had to be in the right place.
We trudged across the wet field and through the rain, paid our €2.50 per adult and went into the inner yard of a farm. There were row after row of old, lovingly painted tractors, some even decorated with flowers and flags! This made my heart jump with glee. Our tractors are rusty, jerry-rigged, misused, abused workhorses, these were well cared for, polished, slickly painted pieces of history. Some were even kind of pretty. They looked cheerful. Ours look sad. As crazy as it sounds, these tractors made me smile on this gray wet day. Have a look for yourself:
If I had a field, I'd want to drive the Aktivist in the rain...
...and the red, very aesthetic Porsche in the sun!
Note the flowers and East German pride!
Even pennants were present.
And...a rubber head? But why? When I asked this question, the answer I got was "Well, just because."
On a side note, I really got a kick out of this bag. We are such a short distance from the city, and yet we are worlds away. The bag is advertising Ratron mouse poison-"Innovations for agriculture." I'd kind of love to have one of these and carry it into that other world where the least it would get would be stares, but maybe even some remarks, which could be entertaining. Not that I'm a big fan of poison and killing stuff; and mice are cute with their round brown eyes and big precious ears, yes. But they are also destructive little beasts who will come into your home and garden and take everyhing as if you'd asked them to! They'll proceed to leave behind their droppings and parasites. They ate holes in my outside blankets, pooed all over the kids' shed, not to mention that they carry fleas and all kinds nasty stuff that you don't want. They tear up the garden and eat the vegetables. They're probably chewing through the brake cables on my bike as I type this. I am waging war on them with my own little Ratron, Reinhold the tomcat, which seems to be the most natural way to deal with the situation. We were completely overrun with mice before Reinhold came on the scene, but he seems to be running the show now.
Like I said, I never saw myself attending anything like this back in that other world where we used to live, not in my wildest dreams. I have to admit, though, it was actually kind of fun. And I didn't even get to drive a tractor like the kids did.
