The crickets chirped their familiar, though not terribly harmonious, greetings to the break of day, and Old Red slowly woke up his wheels, gears, and motor. Tractors needed their sleep, but daytime was work time.

Old Red had always been a good worker, and the reddish strip of sky on the horizon accompanied by the crickets’ singing made him want to get up and get going. Life was basically good, and he couldn’t wait to see what this new day would bring.

His wheels were a little worn and stiff, hadn’t been greased lately, and the various parts of the motor felt sluggish. Lately, whenever Old Red started moving, no matter how slightly, a loud clanking noise arose from various vehicle components. No big surprise, since Old Red was close to fifty years old. Everything still functioned, just not immediately or smoothly.

Still, more and more often, Old Red and the other vehicles on the farm were beginning to reflect on the fact that they were growing older.

A soft, warm breeze blew through the machine shed, open to one side, over the tractor’s sun-bleached, red chassis. Unfortunately, it also wafted the pungent essence of hog manure from the hog barn up the hill to the machine shed.

Naturally, during the past fifty years Old Red had constantly endured the odors emanating from the body functions of the farm animals. They were part of his workplace environment. However, Old Red now found them increasingly annoying. Actually, the accompanying grunting and squealing also got on his nerves.

However, as was his habit every morning, Old Red first let his mind wander so that he could indulge in some undirected meditation. His headlights took in the towering, greenish-brown, swaying cornstalks and the yellowish-green soybean sprouts that had broken through the rolling hills, a scene that always comforted him.

The sight of cultivated fields just made him feel good. A tractor liked to view the results of his hard work.

His metal parts registered the warming, humid air of August and calculated the chances of thunderstorms. Letting his mind wander was necessary in order to prepare for the actions of the human being who resided on the farm.

A savvy tractor didn’t leave anything to chance and reacted promptly and effectively to events as every day wore on.

His current owner, the third-generation farmer here, must have gotten up as soon as the sun began to rise. Jeffrey, almost as tall as Old Red, marched purposefully to the machine shed, a fairly decrepit yet sturdy construction consisting of a roof and three walls, all constructed with corroding aluminum slabs.

Old Red stood proudly next to the plow, combine, manure spreader, corn picker, harvester, and hay baler, all somewhat younger than Old Red, but obviously no longer new. While they were perhaps old-fashioned by contemporary human standards, Old Red knew that they were still quite functional and enjoyed doing their jobs.

The pieces of farm equipment and Old Red maintained a discrete telepathic connection among themselves, also always listening to the human creatures’ chaotic communications so that they could execute influence when necessary.

The hot, heavy, humid air caressed Old Red’s metal frame and oozed its way into the motor, one of the sensual pleasures of summer that Old Red appreciated. A tractor might be mostly made of metal, but it had feelings just like any metallic or non-metallic creature.

Jeffrey’s grandfather had purchased Old Red, back when they both were young, and they had learned the farming business together, gradually making enough money for a comfortable living. Those had been good times.

Jeffrey’s father had continued to farm the same way but used his increasing prosperity to invest in more cattle and hogs, silos, grain-dryers, and larger barns. This worked out well, until it didn’t.

As time went by, small Iowa family farms couldn’t compete with the huge factory farms that absorbed them one by one. Eventually, Jeffrey’s father sold all the cattle, retired, and left the farm, now reduced to grain fields and hogs, to Jeffrey.

Old Red belched loudly and contentedly when Jeffrey pressed his impatient, boney thumb into the soft, faded, gray button on Old Red’s dashboard to start the ignition. Not wanting to upset the young man, Old Red then obediently let his motor roar, coughing just enough at irregular intervals to remind Jeffrey that old Farmall tractors were sturdy and reliable but needed time to get started in the morning.

Jeffrey’s grandfather had never expected his farm equipment to get to work right after sunrise. Neither had Jeffrey’s father. The current generation was too impatient.

Young farmers always had a lot to learn, and wise, old tractors tried not to expect too much from flimsy, fragile, non-metallic life forms. The trick was to manipulate them gently and discretely, so that they believed that they made all their decisions on their own.

This morning Jeffrey drove Old Red out of the machine shed and then backed him up to hitch onto the manure spreader. Then he turned Old Red around again and drove to connect the shovel attachment to the front of the tractor. Unfortunately this wasn’t the way Old Red hoped to begin the working day.

Jeffrey drove Old Red down the hill to the hog barn, a long, flat, white metal structure surrounded by a muddy yard. After moving the vehicles into position, Jeffrey unhitched the manure spreader, chased the hogs into the barn, and drove Old Red into the yard, where Old Red spent the next two hours scooping up hog manure and dumping it into the manure spreader.

This was more unpleasant than usual. The hot, humid air around Old Red was a sauna of hog manure. Suddenly he had had enough.

Without really considering the possible consequences, Old Red used all his energy and sent Jeffrey’s consciousness a massive, emotional thought that the hogs were more trouble than they were worth.

To Old Red’s genuine surprise, Jeffrey slammed on the tractor brake, turned off the motor, and pulled out his phone. He called the local slaughterhouse and told them to come and pick up the hogs, that he was done being a hog farmer, that there was no money in it, just back-breaking work.

Old Red couldn’t believe his good fortune; no more hogs, no more hog manure! This would turn the farm into a paradise for him.

"Was that really a good idea?" the manure spreader sent Old Red a quick telepathic question.

A valid question. Old Red hadn’t given his colleague the manure spreader any thought. "Hey," Old Red answered him telepathically. "You can’t enjoy this stink any more than I do."

"No," the manure spreader admitted. "But spreading manure over the fields is my life’s work, the only thing I know how to do."

"There has to be something better for you to do," Old Red continued. "We’ll give it some thought."

Old Red didn’t have enough time for that right away.

He still had to finish scooping hog manure out of the yard. But when Jeffrey drove him out to the cornfield to spread the manure, Old Red rejoiced at the thought that this was the last time for such odorous work. The manure spreader agreed that he would also prefer a more pleasant job.

The next day a huge pig transport truck drove up to the hog barn and collected all the hogs. Old Red and the other farm equipment listened joyfully as Jeffrey talked to the driver.

"What if Jeffrey changes his mind at the last minute?" the plow sent his colleagues a worried thought. "We know that human creatures are unpredictable."

However, Jeffrey told the driver that he was going to spend some hours at his computer to figure out how he could make enough money on his acreage by only raising crops. The driver said Jeffrey would probably have to invest in new farm equipment so that he could cultivate every last square foot of his farm.

This, of course, was nonsense, as Old Red and the other pieces of farm equipment chuckled to themselves. Without the distraction of the hogs, Jeffrey could easily plant and harvest all the fields with the reliable, old equipment he already had. Jeffrey had to know this.

However, since their telepathic powers only worked outdoors ─ for some reason, their machine telepathy got blocked by wooden structures ─ they didn’t know what Jeffrey was up to precisely whenever he disappeared into the shabby, two-story, gray, clapboard farmhouse that his grandfather had built as cheaply as possible back before the farm made any money.

Two days after the hogs were gone, Jeffrey came to the machine shed before it was even light out and hitched Old Red up to the other vehicles, one after the other. Then Jeffrey had Old Red pull the equipment out of the machine shed and onto the now somewhat cleaner yard around the old hog barn.

This seemed odd, since it had never happened before, but they saw Jeffrey jumping around like a hyperactive fiend, clearing all the accumulated trash out of the machine shed. Old Red and his colleagues decided that Jeffrey was finally taking the time to improve their dwelling, or at least clean it up.

This theory seemed quite plausible when Jeffrey hitched Old Red up to the cement mixer and poured a cement floor onto the dirt in the machine shed. This was great news, even though the farm equipment in the hog barnyard remained at the mercy of the wind and thunderstorms that came by the next two nights.

Jeffrey didn’t bother to cover any of the vehicles in the barnyard with tarps, even though Old Red knew that there were several of them in the old cattle barn that Jeffrey’s grandfather had used to cover the feed troughs with when it rained.

Three days later a huge transport vehicle arrived and four men unloaded a behemoth of a green and yellow tractor along with an equally giant planter and harvester.

The men from the transport vehicle then spent hours showing Jeffrey all the controls and telling him what he needed to do in order to use his new equipment. The new farm machines were controlled by their own computers, which were always connected to the company’s server in southern Illinois.

The men also explained every item on the bill they handed Jeffrey.

Altogether, the new equipment cost more than the farm’s gross earnings for the past five years.

Old Red and his friends were appalled, even more so when they heard Jeffrey tell the men from the new tractor company that he planned to get rid of all his old farm equipment as soon as he had time to get them transported to the closest junkyard.

"Look at what you’ve done," the corn picker blasted a thought at Old Red. "You decide you don’t like the stench of hog manure and now we’ll all get abandoned in the junkyard where clumsy humans will cannibalize us for our innards."

"You shouldn’t put all the blame on Old Red," the combine interjected. "None of us could have predicted this development."

"More importantly," the harvester added. "What can we do to prevent our destruction?"

"That’s on me," Old Red agreed. "I got us into this mess, and now I have to get us out."

There was no dissent, and the farm machinery continued to eavesdrop on Jeffrey’s conversation.

When the men asked why he didn’t auction his equipment off, Jeffrey said no one would want that old junk. Hearing that, Old Red felt like propelling himself through the fence and running over all three men. His colleagues dissuaded him, reminding him that spontaneous decisions often resulted in unfortunate consequences.

Old Red calmed down and agreed that the best alternative was to mull over the situation while Jeffrey was busy trying to learn how to use his new tractor. The necessary procedures sounded complicated.

While Jeffrey read his handbooks, Old Red and his vehicle colleagues tried to communicate with the new tractor telepathically. They were not successful. The giant metal construction was only able or maybe only willing to communicate with its computer server back in Illinois.

So Old Red and his friends decided they needed to brainstorm. They sent out cries for help to the farm equipment on the neighboring farms. The neighbors sympathized with their situation but explained that the new tractors were basically computers sheltered in a tank.

These monsters were taking over farming everywhere. Farm equipment on neighboring farms didn’t think anyone or anything could stop them. However, they did report on all the weaknesses they had observed.

To begin with, the broadband network connection for the area around Jeffrey’s farm was unreliable, and the new tractors demanded a constant online connection to the company’s servers. Otherwise they simply stopped functioning.

The tractor’s individual parts were overly prone to malfunction, as they depended on communication with sensors scattered throughout the vehicle. Every time a sensor blew, the tractor stopped dead.

Farmers couldn’t do any of their own repair work without being able to work with the tractor’s software, which often required help from the tractor company in Illinois.

Even the most minor repair necessary often meant that a technician had to drive from Illinois to the farm, where said technician would often determine that he had to order a special part which would take at least a week to arrive.

This information gave Old Red the information he needed to manipulate Jeffrey.

When the new equipment didn’t work right, a farmer could only watch his crops deteriorate or spoil. Old Red started sending Jeffrey depressing, emotional predictions of losing the entire year’s crops.

Not being particularly computer savvy, Jeffrey had nothing but trouble with his new equipment. He never got to the point of accessing useful data about what to plant where. He couldn’t get the tractor to do any useful work. Old Red’s telepathic messages made Jeffrey feel even more frustrated and worried.

Old Red then asked his colleagues to send Jeffrey gentle but frequent, telepathic messages, telling him to ignore the confusing handbook and do whatever he felt like with the tractor.

Jeffrey’s resulting activities resulted in time-consuming, expensive repairs, and the tractor still didn’t work right.

In desperation, Jeffrey hitched Old Red to the old hay baler and combine to get the hay, oats, and soybeans harvested. All three vehicles operated at top efficiency. By October, Jeffrey had to use Old Red and the old corn picker to harvest the corn, a task they completed in record time.

At the beginning of November, the old equipment was relieved to see the huge transport vehicle come to pick up the new tractor, planter, and harvester. Jeffrey even drove Old Red and the other vehicles back into the machine shed.

Old Red and his colleagues allowed themselves sighs of relief. "Success and problem solved," Old Red messaged his friends telepathically. "Life is good again. There is no way Jeffrey can afford to buy new equipment. We’ve won."

However, Jeffrey seemed to be spending more and more time in the old farmhouse instead of inspecting the fields or checking on the silos and grain dryers.

One of the few times when he was walking outside, Old Red heard him talking into his phone and saying something about wind and a farm.

"That doesn’t make any sense," Old Red thought to the others. "Of course there is wind on the farm. It’s probably nothing to worry about."

This, as it turned out, was an incorrect conclusion. In March, a convoy of trucks drove down the gravel lane, unloaded huge slabs of white metal, and began assembling windmills on the hills surrounding the farmhouse. Since the farm consisted mostly of hills, this impacted all the fields.

"How is Jeffrey going to be able to plant his crops?" the corn picker asked. "I have a very bad feeling about this."

So did Old Red. This time he didn’t hesitate to engage in frantic brainstorming throughout the neighborhood.

He and the other farm equipment sent off telepathic messages to the surrounding farms asking what the other agricultural vehicles knew about windmills.

What they heard was alarming. There was a company that actively courted farmers to rent farmland to them so that they could install windmills, preferably on hills.

Many farmers earned more money from renting their fields out to this company than they ever could farming. Therefore, they stopped farming altogether, especially since they couldn’t plant enough crops around the windmills.

There didn’t seem to be any downside for the farmers if they gave up farming and lived off the rent the company paid.

"This doesn’t sound good," the corn picker transmitted. "Jeffrey isn’t nearly as ambitious or industrious as his father or grandfather. We have to assume that he will take the money from the windmills and eventually decide to get rid of his old farm equipment since he will have no use for us."

"Even if he doesn’t get rid of us right away," the combine said. "I wouldn’t like to spend the rest of my years falling apart in the machine shed, never doing anything useful, never being repaired."

The others agreed. "So what now?" the harvester asked. "Old Red, this is still something you need to fix."

Old Red had to agree that he was responsible for everything that happened after he manipulated Jeffrey into getting rid of the hogs.

"There’s only one solution," Old Red said. "We need to make Jeffrey return the windmills."

"Easier said than done," the harvester said.

"We have to ask our neighbors for input," Old Red said. "There has to be a downside to having windmills on a farm. We need to find out how to get Jeffrey to make the company remove the windmills."

Old Red’s friends went to work, sending off requests for any theories. All that anyone could tell them, though, was that the windmills were a little loud and that airborne creatures often flew into them and died.

"That’s something," Old Red said. "We need to make Jeffrey hate the noise from the windmills. Then we have to ask our farm equipment colleagues on neighboring farms to turn their farmers against windmills, especially the farmers who don’t have any windmills yet."

So, every time Jeffrey left the farmhouse, Old Red and his friends sent off telepathic messages emphasizing how loud the windmills were. They noticed that Jeffrey started holding his ears when he was outside. Soon, neighboring farmers drove over to Jeffrey’s farm to complain about the windmill noise.

Constant reminders about how loud the windmills were eventually did have the desired effect. Around the beginning of May, trucks drove down the lane and crews dismantled the windmills.

This time the farm equipment didn’t rejoice but instead wondered what disaster could happen next.

"What if Jeffrey decides to get rid of us and leave the farm altogether?" the old plow worried.

"From what we know about Jeffrey’s financial situation and the fact that he doesn’t know how to do anything other than farm, I doubt that he can do that," Old Red suspected. "Still, you’re right. It would be better to keep Jeffrey here, but convinced that he needs his old farm equipment."

"What if Jeffrey sells the farm?" the plow continued. "So far, every decision he has made has blown up in his face."

"Jeffrey might get a lot of money from a factory farm that wants to expand its acreage," the combine added.

"So far his thoughts indicate that he is fond of the farm," Old Red said. "He has a sentimental attachment to the place where he grew up. Everything would depend on who buys the farm, whether it is someone who would value us old farm implements."

"Who would that be?" the manure spreader asked. "Without any animals, no farmer would see any need for a manure spreader."

"Hmm," Old Red mused. "What about that girl Jeffrey occasionally goes out with? Don’t her parents run an organic farm?"

"Organic farms," the hay baler said. "Organic farmers don’t throw their money away on huge computer tractors and harvesters."

"So?" the plow asked.

"So," Old Red continued. "If he married that girl, her parents might consider subsidizing this farm to turn it into an organic farm for their daughter."

"Yes," the manure spreader said enthusiastically. "Organic farms have animals, just not very many. They would need me."

"Is this plan at all realistic?" the harvester asked.

"I believe so," Old Red said. "We all know how malleable Jeffrey is when we plant ideas into his head. And by human standards, he is considered to be good looking."

"We can ask the farm equipment on that girl’s parents’ farm to encourage her amorous feelings for Jeffrey," the combine suggested.

"Then let’s do it," the hay baler said. "What could possibly go wrong this time?"

"Probably everything," Old Red admitted. "But that hasn’t stopped us so far."

It occurred to him that they were more or less back where they started, aging vehicles soon to have the smelly animals back to stink up their workplace. However, all things considered, that was acceptable, if only considering the alternatives they had experienced.