National Farm Machinery Show

Another title for this event might be "Little Boy Heaven." Nicholas sure enjoyed himself for the 2 days we were there. He had so much fun climbing on and off things and exploring what the cabs were like.

Here is the first thing he found to sit on.
A few of his favorite things were skid steers, the huge riding lawn mowers, sprayers and combines. I think his favorite of the whole show was probably the Claas Combine which for some reason I don't have a picture of. Probably because the thing is a monster and I was always helping him in/out of the thing. Also, there was always a lot of people wanting in, so I had to keep his visits to this quite short!

Anyway, here are some pictures of the other favorites I mentioned.

I think he sat in this thing for over 5 minutes...maybe close to 10. Finally another little boy came along wanting a turn and we moved on!

Ben had been looking forward to seeing the new Claas Chopper as he heard there were some improvements made to it. So, he got there and the cab was locked. He went and asked one of the salesman about it and was told that the chopper was sold to someone and they promised to leave it locked and they didn't even know where the keys were. Ben was not happy about this. After all, we are at a farm machinery show. What is the point if you can't look at the machinery? Ben felt the need to vent to someone, so he pulled out his iPhone and shot off an e-mail to his Claas dealer up here and told them what was going on. They were not happy with this either (as of course, being a happy owner of a machine Ben is always a potential buyer). Within 2 hours Ben got a call from the Claas booth at the show telling him they found the keys and could stop by and take a look when he wanted to. Hmm....interesting how the keys showed up, huh? So, here is a pic of the two boys in that chopper.

We had one other bad experience at the show. Nicholas and I were at the Miller booth and he wanted to go up in the sprayer. He became good at checking the cabs before going up to see if someone was in there. He saw there was a man in there and waited at the end of the ladder for the guy to come down. Then he started up the ladder. The salesman there stopped him and told him he couldn't go up and needed to get down. Then the man went up the ladder and locked the cab. Nicholas was getting tired and this sent him over the edge. He threw himself on the floor and started crying. The salesman walked away chuckling...not saying a word to me. This, of course, made me angry. I was trying to console Nicholas when Ben came to see what had happened. I explained to him what went on and Ben headed over to have a chat with that salesman. He was "hiding" under another sprayer. Yes, he went under another machine and just stood there like a coward. Ben confronted him and demanded an explanation, and was given a long story about how they are worried about liability and that he did not see any adults around, despite me standing right there. Ben assured the guy that with so many kids at the show, if he intended to keep them out of the sprayers the guy had the toughest job in the world for the next four days. The guy did let Ben and Nicholas go up in the machine. While the boys were up there I took the opportunity to let the salesman know that I wasn't happy he made my child cry, walked away laughing and didn't even acknowledge me or say anything to me. He of course told me he didn't laugh and continued on about liabilities and lawsuits. I hope at the least he thinks twice before acting this way again.

Eli was along, too. He wore his tractor shirt and everything. He enjoyed the show from the stroller...and even looked like this a few times:

Overall, Nicholas had a good time and I think Ben enjoyed himself, too. Ben is just hoping that locked machinery doesn't start to be a trend at this kind of show.