Follow your Dreams, Believeit, Don't procrastinate, Just Do It

I feel like I have just arrived at the South Pole.  Actually someone I know just did.  On a tractor, a Massey Ferguson to be exact.  Fantastic!

A few years ago, after I had been accepted as editor of Ferguson Furrows magazine for Ferguson Enthusiasts of North America (FENA,) I was riding in my car, listening to NPR.  I like NPR as they cover interesting things and this day they were having an interview with a young Dutch woman who was traveling around in Africa on a tractor, on her way to the South Pole. For REAL!

Wow I thought, how neat this could be to put in the magazine.  But I didn't catch what kind of tractor she was riding on.  A few days later I remembered the interview and tried to find something online, but nothing seemed to come up, and after a time I forgot about it.

A couple of years later during one of my "I can't sleep, so I'll search the internet" times, I again tried finding something on her and there she way.  Tractor Girl, Manon Ossevoort.  Back in Holland, and trying to find sponsors to complete her trip to the South Pole.

It seemed that after traveling alone (with her dog) through Africa for 4 years, on her way to the Cape, where she thought she had arranged for a boat to take her on to the South Pole, she arrived only to find the ship had sailed, North on a new assignment.  So she left the tractor there for a time and went back to Holland.

The trip alone, around Africa for 4 years seemed adventure enough, and indeed she has written a book about it, in Dutch, that remarkably has also been picked up and published by a publisher in Korea.  God love em, at least someone recognizes a good story.

So I checked out her website and her Facebook page, found an email address and wrote her, telling her how impressed I was and how I wished she were doing all this on a Massey Ferguson tractor so I could write about her.  While I hoped, I really didn't expect to hear anything back, and contented myself with following her webpage and Facebook page.

One morning I was rewarded to find an announcement on her Facebook page saying she had signed with Massey Ferguson to take a MF tractor to the South Pole.  You can bet I was excited and immediately sent her an email, congratulating her and asking for an article.  Her response was she would like to talk to me by phone, and so began our friendship.  Thanks to Skype.

Today she and her team and her MF tractor arrived at the South Pole.  Now they must travel back out and hope to make it home for Christmas.  Waiting for her at home is a beautiful little 10 month old girl named Hannah, her daughter, born this past January.

Preparation

It's raining off and on.  Yesterday got a lot of rain, but today, so far it's only now and then, as the clouds rumble by on their way to.... well somewhere else.

In 5 days we will begin our tractor pull and antique machine show.  It will be nice seeing old friends again.  Friends we have made through this hobby.  old tractors and old iron.  A week from now we will begin to put it all away, but today we are in the midst of preparation.

I hope it will be well attended by the locals as well as those coming from far away.