His wife had died eleven years earlier.
The house had become quieter since then.
Leonard still occasionally reached for two coffee cups before catching himself.
The kitchen table, once a place for school papers and Sunday meals, had gradually become his planning desk.
He opened the first ledger.
Then 2021.
Current year.
Receipts came next.
Service invoices.
Parts orders.
Written estimates.
Handwritten notes from phone calls.
Leonard began building a table.
DATE.
MACHINE.
SERVICE EVENT.
PROMISED TURNAROUND.
ACTUAL TURNAROUND.
SHOP RATE.
PARTS COST.
TOTAL COST.
FIELD DOWNTIME.
He started at 7:00 that evening.
At 11:30, he was still working.
The next night, he continued.
By the second evening, isolated frustrations had become a measurable trend.
In 2020, routine shop scheduling often required approximately two weeks outside peak periods.
By the current year, comparable work sometimes required more than four weeks.
During planting and harvest, certain repair windows had expanded toward six weeks.
The posted labor rate had risen from roughly $98 per hour to $118 per hour.
Price increases themselves did not offend Leonard.
Mechanics deserved wages.
Dealerships faced costs.
Inflation was real.
But twice, the final invoices reflected higher rates than the original written estimates without clear advance notice.
Leonard circled those entries.
He found minor sensor delays.
Small parts that required repeated calls.
A utility tractor that sat six days waiting for a component supposedly located two states away.
A loader repair delayed because the technician trained on that particular system had been reassigned.
None had been disastrous individually.
Together, they showed service capacity failing to keep pace with Leonard’s operational dependence.
The green machines themselves were not necessarily the core problem.
Some had been excellent.
One utility tractor had more than 6,000 hours with remarkably little trouble.
The issue was the system supporting them.
Frank’s three purchases.
The machine.
The mechanic.
The shelf.
Leonard’s machines still worked.
The mechanics were competent.
The shelf had become increasingly distant.
And the schedule behind the mechanic had become dangerously crowded.
Leonard reviewed the table twice.
Then calculated four-year downtime.
He looked at the result.
His loyalty had been costing more each season.
Not always in invoices.
Sometimes in lost time.
Leonard leaned back.
For seventeen years, he had never seriously considered converting the whole fleet.
Changing brands was not like changing pickup trucks.
Farm equipment ecosystems mattered.
Controls.
Hydraulics.
Guidance platforms.
Attachments.
Dealer relationships.
Technician familiarity.
Parts stocks in the shop.
Operator habits.
Resale values.
Training.
A whole farm could accumulate invisible knowledge around one brand.
Walking away meant giving some of that up.
But staying had a cost too.
Leonard opened a fresh page.
STAY
SWITCH
Under STAY he wrote:
KNOWN MACHINES
KNOWN CONTROLS
ESTABLISHED DEALER HISTORY
EXISTING PARTS KNOWLEDGE
Then:
EXPANDING SERVICE QUEUES
PART DEPENDENCE
DOCUMENTED 34-DAY FAILURE
RISING LABOR COST
NO FIELD-DOWNTIME GUARANTEE
Under SWITCH:
TRAINING COST
UNKNOWN LONG-TERM SERVICE EXPERIENCE
HIGH CAPITAL COMMITMENT
RESALE RISK
Then:
POSSIBLE PARTS ADVANTAGE
NEWER TECHNOLOGY
POTENTIAL FUEL SAVINGS
POSSIBLE SERVICE AGREEMENT
Leonard stared.
He had no answer yet.