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Downthread there's a lot of talk about rust. I grew up on an extremely small scale farm on the west coast of Norway, lots of rain and 100m from the sea, 12 or

Downthread there's a lot of talk about rust. I grew up on an extremely small scale farm on the west coast of Norway, lots of rain and 100m from the sea, 12 or so km from the open ocean (you see the Atlantic if you drive a boat 500m out to the middle of the fjord.) Rust didn't stop any of our tractors, not a single stroke of paint even for the 40-50 years old machines. But here's another thing, picked up from a friend of me after I asked him why he bought a brand new Valtra at some point instead of buying a slightly used one that was available on the market. His answer has stuck with me since: if you enjoy getting up and going to work in the morning that count for something too. I still happily use old equipment - if it works - but I factor in the value of not wasting my (or my customers, when I work as sysadmin) patience on slow computers. Edits: spelling, redundancies

JamisonM 6y ago
Haha, love this: > lots of rain and 100m from the sea, 12 or so km from the open ocean If you are that close to salt water and don't have a problem it sure does seem to make the rust thing a red herring! Agreed, it is of the utmost importance that the old machines start and go when it is time to work, that's the primary thing! But I own a rather new sprayer, worth more than my entire combine fleet combined. Why? After a lot of honest consideration of the choices we were making we concluded that the experience of spraying with our old one was so miserable that we were failing to do things that needed to be done when they needed to be done. There is no substitute for getting the job done properly, on any reasonably large farm that is the biggest profitability factor. If any farmer needs a quiet cab and heated leather seat to motivate them to go out and finish seeding in a timely manner then it is a good investment, no matter how frivolous it might seem!
- eitland 6y ago
  Thanks for the answer! Also I really appreciate seeing so many active farmers here on HN, having grown up on a farm, studied farming and worked a bit in farms it makes me happy for HN as a community that we manage to keep farmers coming back :-)

JamisonM 6y ago

Haha, love this: > lots of rain and 100m from the sea, 12 or so km from the open ocean If you are that close to salt water and don't have a problem it sure does seem to make the rust thing a red herring! Agreed, it is of the utmost importance that the old machines start and go when it is time to work, that's the primary thing! But I own a rather new sprayer, worth more than my entire combine fleet combined. Why? After a lot of honest consideration of the choices we were making we concluded that the experience of spraying with our old one was so miserable that we were failing to do things that needed to be done when they needed to be done. There is no substitute for getting the job done properly, on any reasonably large farm that is the biggest profitability factor. If any farmer needs a quiet cab and heated leather seat to motivate them to go out and finish seeding in a timely manner then it is a good investment, no matter how frivolous it might seem!

eitland 6y ago
Thanks for the answer! Also I really appreciate seeing so many active farmers here on HN, having grown up on a farm, studied farming and worked a bit in farms it makes me happy for HN as a community that we manage to keep farmers coming back :-)