Tractor Tuesday

After the morning horse muck out, realised we had run out of sugar beet pulp for the horses (well the two Arabs - the Quarter Horse gets special British sugar free, sugar beet pulp!). Exactly 5 months ago, we bought 230kg which means we have fed about 0.8kg per horse per day. Our horses weighing around 450kg should be fed around 9kg of (dry weight) feed a day (2% of weight). When I did an online equine nutrition course from the University of Edinburgh, they reckoned sugar beet pulp was an excellent feed and could replace up to 50% of the hay/grass ie up to 4.5kg. So now we know for sure that our overweight horses are getting too much hay & grass. I bought an electonic weighing gadget last week and am determined to try and get more disciplined next winter. In the grazing season there is no chance of controlling it!

So off to the agricultural merchants but first a dog walk in Erkheim. Cool,  sunny and a light easterly breeze but one can feel spring is around the corner. No tractors about, I guess the ground is still much too wet to do anything on the arable fields and all the preparation on grassland was done a few weeks ago, just now need warmth to get the grass growing.

So used the agricultural merchants parking lot again. A Fahr D130A, one of 1244 built between 1957-9. 17 HP, 2 cylinder, 1300m³, air cooled Güldner motor. Tractor weighed 1140 kg.

In the background a new, New Holland T7-220, 218 HP, 6 cylinder, 6.7 liter, common rail diesel. Weight 7000 kg. Attached to it three JF Stoll mowers giving it nearly 9 meters of cutting width. These mowers are made in the same Danish city as Emmy Hazyland lives in, Sorø. All you UK Blipers wanting a lawn mower can visit the UK Grassland Demo on 7th May at Shepton Mallet and then contact Emmy to see if she can get a discount. I suspect the shown mowers cost more than most of our cars. I hate to think what the tractor costs.

Fond memories of the Royal Bath & West Showground which has been at Shepton since 1965. At the time, I was at school down the road at Cranmore and remember being marched up to the main road in the village to wave at the Queen driving past. The show was also a highlight of the summer term for many years as my senior school was also just up the road near Radstock. 

I suppose two tractors on one day makes up a bit for my missed Blips in the last few weeks.

Back home waited for the forestry workers to cut us clear. I had been hoping to start trying to fix Angie's wretched Renault Megane. The electrics are plagued and last night I ordered new switches for the windows which have been playing up for years. They are from the UK, several companies offering replacements for this chronic European wide sickness. Yesterday Angie went to drive it in the garage when the passenger window, which hasn't worked at all for months, suddenly opened itself and refused to close. Makes the car unuseable! Last night she phoned a fellow train commuter who drives past us and arranged a 5:30 am ride. Tomorrow I have to do it :-((

Picked Angie up in the evening and she took Luna to her Physio who at her session last Thursday mentioned he had dogs and could take a look at her, as Angie fears she has spinal/hip problems. Had to be done out of hours which suited us. He says her spine/hips are fine but both her front and rear leg ligaments/muscles are shortened. He pulled and pushed, Luna was not amused but afterwards lay there and started to groan with pleasure. She then licked him in the face which she would normally never do. Angie then took Luna & Flash for an evening walk.