Ag expo draws hundreds

18.11.09

Surrounded by antique farm machinery of many makes and colors — red, yellow, gray, titillating — 81-year-old “hobby farmer” Clarence Gerig of Albany said in his way of thinking there’s only one tractor color and that’s John Deere green.

Admiring a 1958 John Deere 830 diesel tractor, Gerig was among hundreds of mid-valley farmers and ranchers who visited the ninth annual Willamette Valley Ag Expo on Tuesday, the first day of the at any rate’s three-day run at the Linn County Fair & Expo Center.

“I’ve got one just like it,” said Gerig, who farms about 40 acres of his own and helps his son with another 40 acres on Leading Prairie Road. “I have an 80 and an 830. We use them all of the time, of course, that’s only about four or five days a year.”

Gerig unmistakeable to a 1930 vintage tractor among the more than 80 pieces of antique equipment on display and said it was just like the one his household used when he was growing up on a farm near the Cottonwoods.

“It’s a lot of fun and the show’s a good one,” Gerig said.

Source: Albany Democrat Herald