Greetings from Dyersville.

I can’t believe we’re in the middle of April already. Once the weather starts warming up I’m ready to get outside and start working on the yard. A while ago I found an old picture of my dad and his team of horses. My dad loved these horses, along with all the horses he owned over the years. Since we’re talking about horses, here’s an interesting story.

My dad’s name was Gerald Walters, but everyone called him by his nickname, which was “Bill”. When my dad was young he was always out with the animals and his favorite horse just happened to be called “Bill”. Any time they would look for him, they found him with “Bill”. Pretty soon that name stuck with him. When I was born, I was named William Walters, but called “Billy” or “Bill”. I guess you could say I was named after a horse. I don’t know much about Bill the horse, but I hope I was named after the front half!!

Moving on to more important matters, we are now shipping two new John Deere forestry items. Stock # 45608 is a 3156G Processor. It features a “Waratah” head, opening panels, diecast tracks, detailed cab and the detail you expect in our 1:50 models. We also have the Live Heel Log Loader version as stock # 45609.

Keeping with this theme, we’ve also announced a 1:16 Big Farm John Deere 310SL Backhoe. Stock # 46725 includes a lot of fun details that kids will enjoy including a steerable front axle, movable bucket, rear backhoe and rear stabilizer arms. Powered by a 4.5 liter engine, the real 310SL has over 100 horsepower and weighs close to 16,000 pounds. Ours weighs much less, and costs far less as well.




We also had a little celebration on Wednesday, March 20 to celebrate National Ag Day!! We owe so much to our farmers and everyone involved in agriculture. We worked with our local John Deere dealership (Bodensteiner's Dyersville Equipment) to bring a 6120M out to our office for a photo with some of our employees. What a team!!