The second annual tractor parade should be double the fun over last year’s much-loved event, with more than 30 tractors taking to the streets of Virgil Thursday.
Organizers Erwin Wiens and Dorothy Soo-Wiens are expecting tractors “of all shapes and sizes,” including four grape harvesters — they’re pretty impressive when they are on the move any time, and even more so when decorated with colourful lights for holiday season.
There are also a couple of 4X4 trucks that will be dressed to the nines, and tractors “of all different sorts,” says Soo-Wiens.
A Niagara-on-the-Lake fire department ladder truck will be in the lead, with Town Crier Tom Pekar in the first tractor.
This year's Christmas Tractor Processional is this Thursday, Dec. 15, starting at 6 p.m. from the Virgil Sports Park on Four Mile Creek Road,
The opportunity to entertain the seniors who live at Pleasant Manor is one of the joys of organizing the parade, says Soo-Wiens, and as last year, the route will go from the sports park to Four Mile Creek Road, through the intersection at Niagara Stone Road to Pleasant Lane and past the Pleasant Manor buildings with balconies full of spectators, before turning onto Eldon Street, to Line 1, left on Niagara Stone Road to Concession 4, then right on Line 2 to return to Four Mile Creek Road and back into the Virgil Sports Park.
Soo-Wiens says she expects once she and Erwin have finished their marshalling job and the procession of tractors is on its way, they will run out to Creek Road to see the full impact of the parade.
They are both really looking forward to the event, which was great fun to do for the community the first time round and brought them as much joy as as it did for those who participated, and for the spectators, she says.
Last year, “it really made our hearts so full,” and the enthusiasm from the farming community and those who are looking forward to viewing the parade again this year is already doing the same.