Activities for Sunday’s final day of the annual Hammer-In and Plow Days in East Huntingdon were scaled back as sporadic rainstorms moved through the area.
Tractors and other machinery gathered for the event by the Fort Allen Antique Farm Equipment Association mostly remained silent after plowing and parading the previous day.
Visitors who braved the soggy conditions still had plenty to hold their attention, including dozens of model tractors and implements displayed by David Ludvik and Daryl Weaver, former farmers and neighbors in Unity.
Ludvik has amassed more than 800 model tractors designed as replicas of those sold by various manufacturers. But green John Deere tractors are his favorites, both full-size operating ones and one-16th scale static versions.
“I just like driving the John Deere tractors,” he said. “I always felt they were a good, comfortable tractor.”
Though Ludvik has turned from farming to a paving enterprise, collecting the tractor models allows him to stay connected to his agricultural heritage.
“I always enjoyed farming,” he said. “It’s in your blood.”
One of his newest acquisitions is a model of a large articulated tractor that runs on tracks instead of tires — a throwback to the earliest tractors but with high-tech controls.
“It’s mostly for a smoother ride and less compaction of the ground,” Ludvik said of the tractor, noting he’s content to own the miniature version. “I couldn’t run the real thing if I did have it,” he said. “It’s all computer-run.”
Weaver collects models of the orange Allis-Chalmers tractors his family favored, four of which remain on the farm. Among his more interesting models is a pre-1939 tractor with bare steel wheels rather than tires.
Though the company has been swallowed up through mergers, toy companies still make Allis-Chalmers replicas “for people who had them back in the day and would like to have a model,” Weaver said.
Collecting model tractors is a lot less expensive than owning and operating the real thing, Weaver said, but “they can get pretty pricey.”
He’d like to add some tractor implements, such as a sprayer and baler, to his collection.
“They’re selling between $200 and $300 apiece,” he said. “I’ll wait until they put them on sale.”
Other miniatures on display at the event included a model train layout donated by Danny Grimm of East Huntingdon as a permanent feature at the association grounds.
Five trains of various scales circle and weave through tunnels and over wooden trestles he handcrafted. The layout began as a simple track around his family Christmas tree but has expanded to include such personalized touches as a log cabin modeled in part on Grimm’s home.
“I did it for my kids and grandkids, as a little hobby for them,” Grimm said. “I kept adding to it, and it kind of outgrew my porch. I put it up every year and then I would tear it down.”
Though he’ll take the train engines and cars back home over the winter, the layout will remain and may gain future expansions.
“It will be nice to just leave it here,” he said.
The wet conditions outside didn’t hinder activity inside the large blacksmith shop on the association grounds. Members of a blacksmith group that meets there weekly were on hand to hammer out small decorative items including a metal hook with an end shaped like a heart.
With help from members, visitors were able to twist strands of baling twine donated by the Greensburg Agway store into lengths of rope available for purchase.
As the rain slowed, one intrepid operator jumped into a Farmall tractor to finish plowing a hillside field on the grounds that will be planted by an area farmer.
