Friday 14 February 2014

A Very Wet Vegetable Plot And Our Vintage Tractor Shows Off Her New Coat.

Brr..  It's been another wet week on our smallholding here in Southern Ireland.  The gales and relentless rain gods have put up their classic English cricket signs:

"Rain Stopped Play."

Number one son cranked the digger up and shoveled me a big pile of last years fym over the fence into the vegetable plot.  This saved me having to take wheelbarrows and tractor transport boxes around to the plot.  We have to fence it to stop the cattle having a disco on the vegetables.  Any road.  I can't spread the fym about until it finally decides to dry up and normal vegetable garden service can resume.  All you can do is read your gardening books, seed catalogues and plan what you are going to (attempt) grow this year.

FYM piled by digger from our boreen (cow lane) to the vegetable plot.
Apparently Brian Boru (  "Bo means cow and Ru means tax) is a direct relation to her majesty the queen.  Brian Boru introduced a cow tax.  People paid taxes according to how many cattle they owned.  I bet the dairy farmers wouldn't have liked him.  We had power cuts yesterday and a lot of dairy farmers could not milk their cattle.  If only they still had their diesel powered Lister milking machines?  I had to get buckets of water from old baths and a stream to give our cattle water.  Drinking trough feeders are no good when the electric pump doesn't work in the well.  We are far too reliant on electricity, aren't we?

The Fordson Super Dexta tractor restoration is almost complete.  We replaced and stripped the old mudguards ourselves.  But we did pay for the nose cone to be professionally restored along with some sandblasting and the final spray finish.  Some jobs you can do your self and some you leave to the professionals.  The tractor was my fiftieth birthday present.  She's exactly the same age too - born in 1963.  I don't know if she was built in Dagenham or Cork.   I think it was Cork.  Any way.  She's beautiful and she's an heir loom to be passed down for future generations.
Number one son aboard our 1963 Fordson Super Dexta.  All she needs is her front grills to be attached.  Isn't she beautiful?  Do you have any smallholding machinery that you wouldn't part with?  Are you restoring any tractors?  Will it ever stop raining?  Are you starting to get webbed feet?  Roll on Spring time.





4 comments:

  1. Tractor is looking good!
    The wet never seems to end, I've got things to plant but just not going to bother for afew more weeks. I also need to get some more muck on my plot but at the moment anything would sink in my fields - including me. The chickens are wishing they were ducks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. "...another wet week on our smallholding here in Southern Ireland."
    I wonder if you would kindly explain to me and your fellow readers where exactly Southern Ireland is ?
    I do know the exact location of the political area known as Northern Ireland and the counties of which it comprises but where the hell is your southern ireland?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Kev. The Fordson Dexta is a beauty. A few people have asked me to sell her to them for very good money. But it's like money in the bank and you shouldn't sell birthday presents. Don't think I will do much work with this tractor. May be a bit of log splitting.

    The weather's been appalling. I think we have got to start looking at the causes: Chernobyl, greenhouse gases, 33 million cars in the UK, the industrial Revolution, 2 world wars? Nature is beautiful but also very cruel. Think there's a lot to be said for hard surfaces like paving and raised vegetable beds. I would like another polytunnel . Our last one got wrecked. Maybe a greenhouse/shed? Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Heron, I live in West Cork. Cork is the southern most county of Ireland. When we lived in England. We used to say we were going on our holidays to Southern Ireland. We lived in North West England. The BBC have a North of England Correspondent. RTE have a Southern Ireland Editor for their news.

    ReplyDelete

Onion Set Planting.

I still managed to plant up two of the new planters/raised beds with onion sets in the rain yesterday. Notice the white root sock in the com...