Not sure what it is, not sure what I’d do with it if I had one…. But I seriously WANT one.

Allow me to explain.
I was dropping off my rototiller at Bryant Tractor & Mower in Renton this afternoon. This being the beginning of the sixth season I’ve used it, I figured that having someone do a basic tune up wouldn’t be a bad idea.
I left the tiller at the service desk, having made arrangements to have it serviced. I went back out to my car, I pulled around to get back to the street through their somewhat narrow, equipment lined drive way and there it was.

About the size of a riding lawn mower, it runs on tracks with a riding platform in back allowing the operator to ride with the doohickey as it trundles along. Hand instruments for go forward/go backward/left track/right track and a set of joysticks for lift the bucket up/dump the bucket/put the bucket back down. On the front, a wee little excavator bucket probably twice the volume of a regular wheelbarrow or, perhaps, about the same size as the bucket on a Bobcat.

It (a mini front end loader? a power shovel?) was just so damn CUTE. Absolutely thoroughly impractical for a suburban gardener, but when did practicality have anything to do with infatuation? Now I want a little organic farm so I’ll have a practical use for this whatsis and can justify its purchase and abundant use.

Honestly I’m not sure where this odd passion of mine for machinery and equipment came from. God knows I’ve no talent for anything mechanical. Witness me taking my tiller to a shop to have it serviced. But tractors, rototillers, riding mowers…I spent several hours in the depths of a paddlewheel steam boat on the Illinois river one time just watching the engine run. All the way up to airplanes and rockets. I just want to sit back and make bbbbbbbbBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRMMMMMMM noises. Probably comes from having grown up a Boeing baby.