We rode the scooter back to the College of the Ozarks yesterday – I wrote about our visit there last weekend in this post. We wanted to see some things that weren’t open on the weekend.

First, we stopped at the tractor museum. The College of the Ozarks has an agriculture program, so a museum with farm tractors and other implements is fitting. The displays are housed in an air-conditioned building with three rooms. They have farm tractors from the early 1900s up to a tractor that was used by the school in the 1990s.

The first successful farm tractor in the U.S. was built by Charles W. Hart and Charles H. Parr in Charles City, Iowa. I don’t know if the name of the city has anything to do with their given names. In 1903, they built 15 farm tractors with two-cylinder gasoline engines.

The early tractors had steel wheels with cleats for traction. Around 1930, lugged rubber pneumatic tires for tractors were developed and retro-fitted on some tractors. These tires proved to be better – they offered better traction and fuel savings. They didn’t ruin pavement where the steel cleats would punch holes. And they could be used to cultivate around trees without damaging the roots. By 1932, tractors were coming from the factory with rubber tires. Instead of giving a blow-by-blow account of the museum, I’ll post pictures.

After I had enough of the tractor display, we went to the Edwards Mill building. This is a working old-fashioned mill that stone-grinds grains.

The main floor of the Edwards Mill is a store. They sell a variety of stone ground flour, sausage, jerky and jellies made on campus. They also have books and a few other items. Upstairs, they have a weaving room with looms of all sizes.

Our next stop was the Dobyns restaurant at the Keeter Center on campus. We didn’t have reservations and the wait would be 30 minutes or more. We were hungry, so we took a quick look around the beautiful Adirondack-style building and left.

We had lunch at the Brunch Club by the Harter House store on the way home. I ordered their Chinese lunch special – General’s chicken. It was a mistake. Donna enjoyed her catfish, but we were left wishing we would have waited at Dobyns. Donna bought groceries at Harter House, including two bacon-wrapped filet mignons for dinner.

When I was grilling chicken the other night, a cat appeared under our coach. The cat was very skittish and wary. It was also skinny. When I approached, it ran off and hid under our neighbor’s coach. I broke off a couple of chunks of grilled chicken and tossed them in the grass near the cat. It waited until I was back inside our coach before it came out to eat the chicken.

Last night, as I was grilling the filets, the cat appeared again. This time I knelt down and clicked my tongue softly. The cat approached me and let me pet it. I came inside and had Donna open a can of tuna. She put about half the can of tuna on a paper plate. I went back outside and the cat approached me again. I put the plate down and the cat scarfed the tuna quickly.

While I grilled the filets, Donna gave the cat a little milk for dessert. The filets came out great. I also grilled fresh corn on the cob to go with the steak. I like to soak the corn in the husk for about 20 minutes before I put it on the grill. Some people say this isn’t necessary, but I do it to keep the husk from burning and it also steams the corn inside the husk. The bacon-wrapped filets and fresh corn on the cob were outstanding.

While we ate, our new feline friend hung around. She rubbed up against our legs as we dined and then laid next to the table to take a snooze.

We’ll head back over to the College of the Ozarks for the farmers’ market this morning. Hopefully we’ll beat the rain in the forecast. Thunderstorms are a certainty by this afternoon according to the weather guessers.