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The Magazine for the Ford Tractor Enthusiast

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Back Issues

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The N-News offers back issues of the magazine going back to our very first issue.

Please print our back issues order form [pdf] and send it with your payment. back-issues

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Pre-order your 2021 Calendar!


2021 N-News Calendar cover

Pre-order your vintage Ford tractor calendar for 2021. Our calendar receives wonderful reviews for its duotone printed images that look great in your kitchen or the barn or wherever you want to remember vintage Ford machines. Our calendar measures 12”x18” with glossy photos throughout. Order yours now and save when you buy two. Hang one in the shop and one in the house!

Social Distancing Versus Distant Socializing

It was a very strange start to 2020. On the second day of the new year, my Uncle Gerard, the man that started this magazine and who showed me my first camera and helped create a passion in me for art and photography, passed away.

Shortly after that, the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in China. A few weeks passed and it was here. Suddenly, our lives are all about handwashing and social distancing to try and slow the spread of the disease.

At first blush, this wasn’t a big challenge for me. I have a home office that is full of computers, books, manuals, and all of the things that are sold through the magazine. Though I used to have people helping me here (first Sarah, then Jill, Becky, finally Rowan), that is no longer the case. A few years ago, when Rowan needed to move on to a full-time job, I didn’t replace her.

Taking over fulfillment of orders and updating the database leaves me very little free time, especially when I am putting an issue together. I spend every weekday, pretty much by myself, with an occasional neighbor stopping by for eggs or to borrow a tool. I go to the post office once a day, sometimes twice. Beyond that, I am home.

Given all this, I have been experiencing the opposite of social distancing. My wife (who is a social worker at our local VA hospital) starting working from home in April. My older daughter’s college stopped having in-person classes as did my younger daughter’s high school. What was once a quiet workspace during the week has become a small office with everyone doing their own thing and fighting for bandwidth.

Social Distancing Versus Distant Socializing imageThis got me thinking about how tractors naturally work to socially distance us. Generally speaking, when you are out mowing the field, plowing the garden or moving snow, you are alone on the tractor. (And for me, it is a meditative state at times.) Even when working on repairing or maintaining a tractor, there aren’t a bunch of people around, you are probably working alone.

At the same time, the N-News Magazine has, for the past 35 years, offered a type of distant socializing where subscribers get to look into someone else’s shop or hear about someone else’s memories from the printed page. It has acted as a form of cohesion in a world that seems to be tearing itself apart.

So, for the little bit of time that you sit reading this issue, think about all the ways this hobby and our collective memories have helped hold us all together.

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N-News Briefs

CHN autonomous tractor in the fieldAmong the more newsworthy announcements at the 2016 Farm Progress Show in Boone, IA, was the introduction of the ‘autonomous tractor.’ This ‘driverless tractor’ (so-described in the popular media) affirms what most every farmer already knows: productivity-enhancing technologies like GPS and telematics (and soon artificial intelligence) is transforming production for all but the niche segment. Now the autonomous control is baked-in! CNH Industrial, parent of Case and New Holland, will offer two versions: one with a traditional cab and one that dispenses with it completely – the latter a not-too-subtle reminder that human labor has been continually displaced by technology in agriculture production for most of the last century. Much more in the CNH media kit!

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We’ve seen industry after industry ‘disrupted’ by the introduction of new technologies, with automation in particular making great inroads. Farm yields, of course, have long benefited from the substitution of machine for human labor. But did we expect to see machines driving tractors so soon? With actual ‘farmers’ out of the mix, will farming one day be reduced only to administration and management tasks?

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Digital Millennium Copyright Act sealIn days past, when Fords were entirely mechanical. A rough-running tractor was felt in the seat of the pants. It invited a climb-down to check the usual suspects: carb adjustments, timing, dirty plugs. We diagnosed and repaired mostly by ear. Today life is much more complicated for owners of modern tractors. More…

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N-News back issues thumbnailSubscribers have made the print version of the N-News a success for the past quarter-century. If you're not currently a subscriber to the magazine, please drop by the subscription information page.

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9N-2N-8N-NAA NEWSLETTER (ISSN 0896-5641) is published quarterly in January, April, July, and October, by N–News, LLC, PO Box 275 East Corinth, VT 05040-0275. (802) 685-1299. Periodical Rate Postage Paid at East Corinth,Vermont USA and additional offices. Need to change your subscription address? Drop us a note via our contact webform.
  • Rob Rinaldi, Publisher, Editor
  • Jill Morton, Associate editor
  • Rowan Sherwood, Mailroom agent
  • Becky Kinerson, Proofreader
  • Mark Elliot, webmaster & West Coast HQ honcho
  • Gerard W. Rinaldi, Pub. Emeritus

N-News is not associated with, nor does it receive financial support from, Ford, FNH, or CNH. They have been, and may continue to be, helpful to requests for information. © 2019 N-News LLC. All Rights Reserved.


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