Samir Shukla
By Samir Shukla
It’s a particular smell. That of diesel fuel and the fumes of a machine that burns it for its functioning. There’s usually a bit of black smoke or exhaust fumes that spew when you turn a diesel fueled engine on.
The aroma is, um, distinct. If you’ve ever passed through the thin black stream of smoke emanating from an 18-wheeler truck when on the road, then you know what I mean.
In our case the diesel gulper is a farm tractor that we bought last year to help manage the several acres of land that we now call home. This time of year, mid-October, the fall breezes of the American South are sweet, and they help quickly dissipate the diesel fumes, cleansing the air.
During fall in the South, or I suppose much of the country, the cool breezes and colors on the leaves meet plantings – bulbs, flowers, or bushes and trees, dug and stuffed into the ground for bloom in the spring. Winter crops also make their way into the ground in the surrounding farmlands near our homestead in this corner of North Carolina.
No part of the country can best a Southern spring, and now the fall is no less joyous. Both arrive slowly and linger longer than in other parts of the country. I feel the South in its air, whether it is warming spring breeze or cooling fall breeze.
Until we bought the tractor, I had never thought of diesel fuel. Never had the need for it.
Now, here I am, someone who for much of the first quarter of this century didn’t even own a lawn mower, reaching for my phone to call our lawn guy when needed, now sitting atop this tractor, scanning the perimeter and marking the next area it will be used for clearing and cutting. The brush cutter attached to the back chews up tall grasses, weeds and unwanted privets, while the loader hooked in the front can assist with hauling away fallen or cut logs, big pieces of rocks, mulch, or whatever else that needs to be moved around.
We even moved a piece of furniture from another nearby house in the loader.
I had imagined riding around on a motorcycle in my semi-retirement days. I now engage in tractor talk. The whiff of diesel fumes now familiar every time I crank the engine. Owning a substantial piece of land, we spend a lot of time cutting, pruning, cleaning, raking, and planting. All the while making use of this motorized equipment so essential on rural farms and large tracts of land.
The view is thronelike on top of a farm tractor, which is at once a giant lawn mower and a mini open-air tank, able to subdue the land it has set its mind on working. The mind, the worker, me, driving the beast.
Ever watch National Geographic specials where the sound of a howl in the jungle or other animal calls attracts fellow hunters while making prey scurry? The sound of farm tractors can attract fellow local tractor owners. In our case a friendly long-retired neighbor who shows up with his own tractor when he hears mine at work in the field, to lend a hand. We never had a neighbor come over and help mow the lawn when we lived in the burbs within Charlotte city limits. Rural folks are friendlier that way.
On this mid-weekday I’m cutting the northern quarter of the property. The weather is perfect, it’s an almost unrealistically gorgeous day, completely comfy temperatures where the sun behaves like a long-lost friend, some hazy clouds speckle the blue sky, a yellow carpet of golden rods cover parts of the field, even a couple of butterflies flutter nearby.
The diesel aroma is now routine as the tractor chops away the tall grass. A cool block of wind swooshes by.
Hey, I haven’t given up on riding a motorcycle on winding rural roads, one day. Riding an iron beast like a tractor just maybe a predecessor to riding an iron horse. This thought occurred to me at the precise moment while I was near the edge of the property, cutting near the road, when a rumbling Harley cruised by. I smiled and waved a victory sign to the rider. I don’t think he saw me, but I was content at that moment riding on a different iron beast on the bumpy fields, on a bright fall day.
It’s that time of year in the rural South. Romance season, one might say, for diesel fumes and fall breezes.
Samir Shukla is the Editor of Saathee Magazine
Contact: samir@saathee.com
Twitter/X: @ShuklaWrites
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