Life on the Farm: Young toy tractor collector grows collection

At 2 years old, no one could have predicted Tristan Leggett’s love of tractors would grow into the more than 400-piece collection it is today. And he’s just getting started. Now, at 13 years old and a student at St. Paul Lutheran School in Jackson, Tristan has developed a hobby in collecting toy tractors, modeling and customization. While many kids his age are playing sports or video games, he is working on the farm and learning everything he can about tractors.

“Some of my earliest memories were sitting on my Uncle Kevin’s lap, on his tractor, at the farm in Kelso,” Tristan says. “I always sat on someone’s lap, and they let me steer.”

Tristen Legget sits among his collection of toy and model tractors, complete with a model farm in his Cape Girardeau home on Wednesday, June 17, 2020.Aaron Eisenhauer - aeisenhauer@rustmedia.com

When he wasn’t riding on tractors, he was playing with toy versions of them in the dirt. Family members started to give him tractors for his birthday and other special occasions. By eight years old, his collection was growing, and he was learning to operate and drive real tractors around the farm.

A model combine sits at the edge of a field of crops, represented by a square of high-pile carpet in Tristen Legget's model farm on Wednesday, June 17, 2020. The section of carpet was taken from Tristen's bedroom before the family moved to their new home. From a young age, Tristen made tracks in the carpet as he played with his tractors.Aaron Eisenhauer - aeisenhauer@rustmedia.com

“I’ve always grown up with them,” he says. “Tractors are a part of my life.”

A model John Deere tractor pulls a model manure spreader on Tristen Legget's model farm in his Cape Girardeau home on Wednesday, June 17, 2020.Aaron Eisenhauer - aeisenhauer@rustmedia.com

His grandpa, Robert Ford, is also a big part of his life, and their love of tractors — especially John Deere — has helped to encourage a strong bond between them. Together they mow, plant food plots and split firewood. As they work, they discuss tractors, both the ones his grandpa grew up with to the modern equipment of today.

Rows of toy and model tractors line the shelves in Tristen Legget's collection on Wednesday, June 17, 2020.Aaron Eisenhauer - aeisenhauer@rustmedia.com

“It has been a great project for him,” says Ford, who grew up on a farm and still owns land.

Over the past three to four years, he’s been able to pass along some of the work to Tristan, who plans to utilize the skills he learns for the rest of his life. Whether working for a farmer, becoming a mechanic at a dealership or getting a degree in diesel equipment, he knows farming is a way he can continue doing what he loves.

At this moment, what he loves most is designing his 64-square-foot toy farm model and modifying tractors and implements, customizing them as he goes. According to Tristan, he is “mid-level” as far as detail, but he’s learned so much about toy farming since becoming a member of the Toy Tractor Times, an online farm toy community.

While most members of the group are age 40+, the amount of young people interested in toy farming is growing, and Tristan has been able to connect with a wide variety of people around the world that share his same interests. Since finding this community, he regularly journals and participates in weekly check-ins such as Model Farm Monday and Work Bench Wednesday, which allow him to post pictures of his recent projects and engage with other members who are doing the same.

“Being able to ask questions and speak with the big names of the industry [is really cool],” says Tristan, who admits most of his friends and family members don’t share his passion for toy farming.

But what they lack in passion, they make up for in support, and his parents are his biggest fans.

Tristan’s dad, Cameron Leggett, helped him out quite a bit when he was learning to build implements from scratch, teaching him to “solder materials and saving him a few times from super gluing his fingers together,” Cameron laughs. Tristan’s dad even helped him set up his own work area in the garage. Tristan’s mom, Susie Leggett, loves that “he has a creative hobby,” and has enjoyed watching Tristan go from playing with tractors to modeling them.

And good thing they love it, because as they both agree, there’s no way he can take the collection away to college, so they plan on it being in their home for quite some time. Currently, the model farm resides in the basement, between the couch and Tristan’s mom’s treadmill. The toy model farm, complete with barns, tractors, silos, cultivators, cows, dirt made from coffee grinds, toothpick fences and the like, has grown from just a small collection on his bedroom carpet to a moveable, changeable farm that keeps gaining ground.

“I’ve gotten so much enjoyment out of it,” Tristan says. “Sometimes I sit down here for a couple of hours and just mess around with it and organize stuff. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to it.”

But it’s more than just the time or money spent that makes this hobby so valuable to Tristan and his family. With a somewhat photographic memory, he is able to look at his collection and remember details about where he purchased certain tractors or who he received them from. Part of the toy farm model has carpet from the house he grew up in, and other sections contain those he has built from scratch. The entire model is full of memories, so he is able to keep a personal inventory running in his head. It’s an inventory that includes almost an entire childhood, that started with one ride on a tractor and grew into an entire toy farm; a hobby he intends will last a lifetime.