"Maggie" our new Ford 4000 lifting a silage bale. Number one son is driving her . She's getting a coat of blue paint tonight and her wheels white. I'm looking on telling him to take it easy.
"Sid" the Silage bale. They weigh about 500 kgs and are far too big for my little tractor: "Anna Ford.
"Yours Truly" operating our "Log Splitter". Number one son made her. He's only 16 and thinks he's the Smallholding answer to Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He's got fantastic manual dexterity, unlike me.
Me again operating the log splitter. My beloved small tractor "Anna Ford" is providing the power. She's about 41 years old and I love her to bits. Do tractors go through the menopause? I hope not because she's a pal and always helps out around the smallholding.
It's been a fantastic day today and me and my son got tons done. We cleaned out the old straw and FYM (full morning) with "Maggie our new Ford 4000 tractor and then we split logs this afternoon with "Anna Ford" my beloved little Ford 3000. It's always nice after a storm. Don't tell everybody but it's not raining.
My tractors are both named after females. So here's a track dedicated to them by Barclay James Harvest: 'The Lady Loves'. Anybody like them? I think they are one of the best bands (rock) to come from the Manchester area. Yeah 10CC weren't bad either, we know.
Gosh it's been wet and wild here in Southern Ireland. Normally we get the Atlantic gales from November to around Christmas. But this year it's going all the way through to March. March usually comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion.
Any road. Normally we get some great days when the cattle are taken to the pasture for the day. I can then give their stall a thorough cleaning out and they have a 'cows disco'. They dance and jump and run up and down hill and dale and generally act rather silly. It's my favourite sight of the year: The "cows disco."
Still can't get on the old vegetable plot and I honestly think we are going through climate change. A lot of the older country folk I talk to say exactly the same. The seasons have changed for the worse. Some say it's down to pollution from all the cars, households and industry. I dunno, but I wish it would book up. I have lots of jobs that I want to do. I bet you have? Perhaps we should grow some rice in the saturated fields?
David ("call me Dave") Cameron made his Churchill/Shakespeare speech on Britain's future in the EEC yesterday. I loved the poetic imagery of draining the English Channel and the Mavis Riley (Coronation Street) :
"Well I don't really know",
Dithering of:
"IF we win the next general election, we will let the people decide whether they still want to be in Europe."
It was a bit like a kid saying:
"It's my ball and I don't want to play any more.
Come on "Dave" it was Ted Heath (Conservative Party) who took Britain into the Common Market in the first place. Why not disband Parliament and have a referendum on every subject, every week? It really annoys me how Britain wants to be in Europe, but won't join the Euro. What a statement that makes, that the fifth biggest economy in the world doesn't have the confidence to stick their big toe in the European water and say:
"OK we are in".
The best thing about the EEC is that it's stopped France fighting Germany for the last forty odd years since the Common Market was formed. Farmers have received a 'Farmers Dole' single farm payment and other subsidies. There has also been investment in Infrastructure like roads. The downside has been the wine lakes, beef mountains, mass emigration (depends if you see it that way) and faceless bureaucrats making laws and statutes that can never be changed. It can never be changed Dave.
I personally think C.A.P (Common Agriculture) is unfair and it always seems to reward the big farmers and cares little about the smallholder. What about allotment holders. Why shouldn't they get a payment?
So in the words of that brilliant TV chat-show host: Mrs Merton:
That's an old horse harrow that me and 'number one' son rescued yesterday. I painted it up about 12 years ago and used it for a garden ornament. The old lever was ceased and the spades, blades (what they called?) wouldn't turn. Number one soon got it working. He's now in the process of welding a three point linkage to fit on 'Anna Ford' my Ford 3000. You can see her back wheel in the picture complete with spike. I adore my little tractor but the silage bales are getting far too big for her to manage. So we have been looking for something bigger for a while. Last Saturday morning we went 'tractor searching'. Below is our new arrival on the farm.
'Maggie' our new tractor. She's a Ford 4000 and was built in about 1968. A lot of these tractors are being renovated and shipped to the developing Third World. They want the Ford 5000 more than any other tractor because they are four cylinders and more powerful. It's also relatively simple to make new parts for the Ford and Massey Ferguson tractors. We still can't change the date on the digital camera. Did I tell you the story of when I went to Argos in Killarney and bought the 'digital' camera and I asked the woman on the counter in all seriousness:
"What film does it take?"
Any road. That's number one son taking 'Maggie's' roof off and cab. She's now minus mudguards and inside the shed. Number one son's got his 'renovation' project and I'm minus a lot of beer tokens. I sold two cattle last week and they paid for the new tractor. So at least we have no finance to find every month. Will post more renovation pictures over next few weeks.
Two Ford 4000 Tractors 'resting' in a West Cork scrapyard.
2 Zetor tractors 'waiting' to be placed in containers and shipped to Poland and Eastern Europe.
A little plough. She would just fit on my Ford 3000 tractor. Only eighty Euros. Hmm.... I am very tempted.
We spent Saturday morning looking for a Ford 4000 tractor. I sold my 2 heifers last week and number one son says he wants a 'restoration' project. So we contacted a really amiable tractor mechanic/restorer and he showed us around a scrapyard and took us to a farm to look at some Ford tractors. I have a little Ford 3000 and she is about forty years old. I christened her 'Anna Ford' after the BBC newsreader. The silage bales seem to be getting bigger and bigger. So I decided to get a Ford 4000. The tractor mechanic gave our 'new' tractor the once over and said he would buy her. So I bought her and I'm going to buy some Ford parts from him, when he delivers her tomorrow. We will have to give her and name and find her somewhere to live in. God bless all the little tractors. Anybody got any farm machinery renovation projects on the go? Will post some pictures of her when she arrives. The timer on my digital camera is still displaying the wrong dates. Sorry about that folks.
A picture taken last year of 'Bantry Bay' from our kitchen window.
I think it was 2003. The year we built our little dwelling next to the sea. It was an incredible year for fantastic weather. A farmer roped me in to help him load his small bales of hay on to a tractor and trailer. It was incredible hot and physical work. But the manual work made us all have a laugh and a joke and have a really good talk. You don't get that listening to modern farm machinery all day.
Any road (proper Northern English talk), me and this middle aged farmer are sat on these hay bales drinking bottles of Budweiser, eating sandwiches and he had a smoke or ten. I remarked about there being a lack of infrastructure ("pubs and buses and job, repeat...) in rural Ireland, and I couldn't understand why rural houses are so expensive. The farmer thought for a second and then he said:
"You're right boy. There's Feck all here. Feck, feck all."
I laughed, but he didn't.
Is that why the countryside is so beautiful, because there is nothing there?"
My grandmother used to say to people when they talked about the wonderful view from her farm:
"The view won't feed you."
My late father left Ireland in the 'Black' 1950's. There was no paid labour any where, so he went to England. In the 1980's it happened again and now it's repeating itself. Ten thousand people are emigrating from Ireland every year. There are no apprenticeships for the young. I pray to God my children won't have to emigrate like their grandfather. I'm nearly fifty and I have my cattle and little farm to pass my days. When will the young get a chance and the countryside be full of jobs and communities?
Here's a song by 'The Seekers'. It's one of my earliest memories of my parents records being played in our house in the nineteen sixties.
The brass goat and horse that my dad cherished. Digital camera date is wrong!
The goat and the horse are in our house today. No they are not the real one's. These are brass ornaments that my dad bought in West Cork, many moons a go. He bought them from a pub landlord and brought them back to England in his suitcase, on the bus, trains and boat. Six years a go the goat and horse came back to Ireland. I often said while visiting them, that I would love to own the goat. My dad would often say:
"You can have them (horse and goat) when I'm gone."
Yesterday my brother brought over several bags of clothes, shoes, photographs, papers and the brass horse and goat. I looked at the bin bags of clothes that we are going to take the charity shop. The photographs such happy memories and of people who are no longer with us. I thought to myself:
"It's not much to show, for your time on Earth."
Any way. The goat and the horse, sit proud under the television cabinet. Last night I raised a glass to my parents. I have finally got the goat and the horse, that I always wanted. Wish they weren't mine, and my dad still polished them.
