Ickesburg Fall Fest Garden Tractor Plow Day - Ickesburg, PA 4/22/23

Shoutout to Zack and his family, along with the Ickesburg Fall Harvest Fest team for hosting us! Also great to see Darrell, Mike, Jesse, Kyle, Dave, and the rest of the crew.

Two years after the inaugural event, and one week after PA Plow Day, I ventured up to Ickesburg, PA for the second "annual" Ickesburg Plow Day, hosted by the Urich family in conjunction with the local Fall Harvest Fest committee. These folks put together a small plow day two years ago to bring a few local friends and garden tractor collectors together, which turned out to be a success with a turnout of probably 20-25 garden tractors (and a ton of spectators). The field we plowed that year was a little small for the size of the crowd, and unfortunately the event was rained out in spring 2022, but they secured a larger 16-acre field for 2023 that brought out a bigger crowd - mostly garden tractors, plus an Allis Chalmers G (which was neat to watch with a single-bottom mid-mounted plow).

This field proved to be a good challenge for our small tractors, with a mix of sandy loam, heavy clay, and hard pan in certain spots. It also had a decent slope at the west end of the field which made keeping our furrows straight a bit of a problem (and proved difficult for the guys with gravity-fed fuel systems). Over the course of 4 hours (and a lunch break at the general store across the field), we managed to knock out about half of the field - and then a thunderstorm rolled in and immediately put an end to the event. I'm not sure how many inches of rain came through in that short amount of time (I even stayed out in the field to make a few more rounds in the rain before the lighting started), but it didn't take long for the headlands to flood out. All in all, a nice event hosted by a great group of people (and once again, no breakdowns)! Looking forward to next year and I hope to see this event continue to grow!