Tractor heritage, news and features

The Joys of tractor travel

1 March 2012.

Some of you may know that not so long ago I wrote a book about my travels around Wales on my Massey Ferguson 35. Recently a photographer from the ‘Wales on Sunday’ newspaper came to photograph me with the tractor, as they are writing an item about my book. Now for me, pretty much every day is a bad hair day, but today was even worse than normal, as I hadn’t slept well and it was blowing a gale outside, so the old home trimmed barnet was well and truly out of control, and I didn’t stand a chance of looking even vaguely human in the pictures.

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Health and safety

18 December 2011.

Last weekend I spent an amusing half hour towing my two children around the field with my tractor. One child was on a pedal go-cart, and the other, towed behind that was on a toddler’s pedal tractor. They absolutely loved it, and I made sure that the field was flat enough that they couldn’t run forward into the back of the tractor (which had a box load of muck on the back!) However, when I saw some walkers watching from the gate I started to wonder if I really should be using a tractor to drag kids around a field with. Who knows what those passers-by thought – did they think ‘what a funny little family scene’, or did they think I was crazy and irresponsible?

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Logsplitting

24 November 2011.

I like to burn firewood – it’s more of a sustainable product than coal (especially now that coal tends to be imported from overseas) plus it is cleaner to burn. However so much handling is required with firewood that it has ended up being costly stuff to buy, and very time consuming if you cut, dry and split your own. Up until fairly recently we used to be able to buy fallen timber for a small fee from nearby government owned forests. However due to some bureaucratic nonsense or other, this is no longer allowed.

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Creepy Crawlies

13 September 2011.

Due to the warm wet weather that we had in the summer of 2011 the grass grew well and the horses grew too fat. I had to bring them in off the grass for a spell each day in order to limit their intake.

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Mucking around

14 July 2011.

The grass is growing like crazy here in the damp Welsh hills. This is partly thanks to the rain, and partly thanks to the cow manure that went on the field during that nice dry spell we had in April (otherwise known as summer). In a wet climate like we have here in Snowdonia muckspreading happens pretty much whenever it is dry enough to get a tractor into the fields, which isn’t often.

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Hedging your bets

7 June 2011.

Before March was out, and while the fields were unseasonably dry, we managed to get the hedges trimmed. This meant that it was time our trusty old Teagle Hedge-cutter made its annual appearance.

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The beauty of working horses

7 March 2011.

The sight of working horses in action, whether that be pulling a cart or ploughing a field, often evokes emotions of nostalgia and awe in the spectator, writes Jo Roberts in her latest blog.

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Waste not, want not...

11 January 2011.

I have just read Clarissa Dickson Wright’s life story – ‘Spilling the Beans’. For those who don’t know her she was one half of the Two Fat Ladies. What an absolute treasure she is.

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A cunning plan

1 October 2010.

In her latest blog, Jo Roberts comes up with a short cut to repair the damage to her field by horses – and ends up with another task on her hands!

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