Childhood Memories

In 2002 my husband, Dale, traveled back to Watrous, Saskatchewan to move my mother and father-in-law to Calgary so my FIL could spend his last days with family close by. The family spent the entire weekend packing up the house, donating many items to charity, taking many loads to the nuisance ground (or the dump as we call it) and packing the rest into a U-haul for the trip to Calgary.
Deep in the back of the shed he stumbled upon one of his old childhood toys, an old Case pedal tractor and wagon. It was in rough shape; peeling paint, rusted, broken rear axles, broken drive shaft, bent front wheels and shredded rubber on the tires. Needless to say, it looked like it should also have been dropped off at the nuisance ground. But..... he packed it all up and put all the pieces into a box, brought it home to Calgary where it sat in our basement for 11 years.
A few years ago Dale took the time to research the toy and purchase original replacement parts for it only to have that box sit in the basement for another 6 years. His dream was always to restore the tractor to its original condition by himself but just this past year he came to the realization that he needed professional help in order to get it done properly, so after about 6 months of searching, he found someone who builds pedal tractors just three hours from us who had restored several pedal tractors to their original condition.  his name is Alan and he owns the Pedal Tractor Farm where he builds and rents pedal tractors for various children's events in Alberta.  If you are interested in renting them for a child's birthday party, check out his website and get in touch with him.

The end result almost made me cry. The before and after photos are like night and day.
Enjoy the ride!

Sadly we did not take any before photos of the wagon!  But here is the refinished product.  Isn't it a beauty?  Dale wanted to have some part in restoring his old toy so he purchased the original Case decals and applied them himself, after spending his younger years in the car business, he had plenty of practice!

We have since learned that my FIL received the tractor on a promo through his own Case tractor dealership in Saskatchewan and gave it to Dale when he was 3 years old and he and his brother played with it almost every day so it was well used.  It will now remain in our home to be played with by future grandchildren.