At the Farm GateRaised on Flags, Fields & Freedom
The patriotic-wrapped tractor combined two of our son’s favorite things: The Magnum-model CaseIH tractor and the U.S. flag.
America’s 250th anniversary gave me one of those Mom moments where delight comes from anticipating your child’s joy. I snapped photos and videos of our son solo and with Grandpa by the showstopper at the 2026 National Farm Machinery Show in Kentucky. Afterword, I worked obsessively from my phone to order the replica flag-wrapped toy, which had sold out the previous day.
Our son’s admiration for the American flag first became evident when he picked out t-shirts with the symbol as a child. Then, it was hats with flags. Patriotic swim trunks. American flag decorations for his room, and a flag image on his first credit card. For a 4-H project, he made wooden U.S. flags out of 13, 1-by-2-inch strips of wood, a butane torch and red- and blue-colored wood stain.
The flag stood as something bigger than the cloth (and wood) itself even if he didn’t yet fully understand the feeling of home, pride, identity, safety, belonging and history. I can only credit rural patriotism, as rural Americans proudly display flags on front porches, fire stations, county fairgrounds and farm bins. We associate the feeling it delivers with church potlucks, sweet corn stands, small-town Friday night football and a slice of pie filled with homegrown cherries.
I gifted my husband a flagpole in the front landscaping for his 40th birthday. Our daughter was “stationed by the flag” as the FFA state reporter, so we put her jacket in a shadow box with a flag retired from the state capitol and folded by local veterans. As much as we love the flag, we also know loving America means acknowledging we haven’t got everything right. In the end, America is something we steward, like farmland itself and our freedom to improve it.
At the farm, we own a roll of patriotic net wrap for making flag-wrapped round hay bales for decoration at our community ag festival. The bales, flipped on end with flag poles in them, emulate the festival’s feeling of Americana – home, tradition, pride and simple joys like homemade pie, tractors, apple peeling and free family fun.
As a birthday surprise six weeks after the farm show, our son received a three-pack of flag-wrapped toy tractors – a second of which also appeared at the show: a 1976 Case 1570 from America’s 200th anniversary. I hope he can tell his grandkids he witnessed a full century of history when the 300th anniversary edition makes its debut.
About the author: Joanie Stiers farms with her parents and brother in west-central Illinois, where they grow corn, soybeans and hay, raise beef cattle and operate side businesses related to the family operation.