Fresh Food

Hot weather has arrived and every tractor in the parish was out & about. Even I got my now 54-year-old John Deere-Lanz to do a small bit of "lawn mowing" & to move some huge & very heavy pallets of roofing tiles.

We still haven't got our normal garden tractor lawn mower problem sorted. Think I had reported the manufacturer and dealer had agreed to give us a new one at half price. It would be sent to the dealer asap.  About 10 days they called with the good news that it had arrived and they had put it all together. The bad news, when tested, smoke poured out from various bits and it would have to be sent back. Husqvarna who build the machines are known to have very poor logistics/repairs/service in Germany - we only found that out after the purchase.

So all our grass areas (I doubt any German grass could be deemed to be a lawn in the UK sense) are now a metre high. It is nice to see lots of flowers in the spring but now it is simply tall grass. One would need to sow wildflowers and then over the years make them into proper flower sanctuaries.

The roof tile pallets have been sitting in the way since 2017 waiting for all the amazing projects to be done that I planned. They remain planned! With my old tractor, it's very difficult to manoeuvre the pallets. I can only lift them 2 or 3 cm off the ground.

Need to do some more on this tomorrow as Angie demanded the hand pallet truck that is also part of the operation. I didn't know why but late evening as I was about to sit down for dinner, MDM with son turned up on a tractor to deliver 5 round hay bales. The family just got back from 12 days holiday on the coast near Venice & during that time, Angie had been looking after the half dozen or so horses now on their farm. She even managed to find MrDM's father's mobile phone which he had lost last year during the haymaking somewhere out on the fields. Glass broken but we put it on a charger and sure enough it fired up despite all the various processes of preparing & baling hay!

Also, need to do a bee inspection. I think it was purely the heat but at midday, they were congregating on the outside of the hive & for real amateurs like me, a worrying sign they may want to swarm. I don't think so but a check will reveal any true signs. This evening weather forecast was talking about many parts of Germany scratching at the 40°C records.

Tractor Tuesday tomorrow - hope I might find something, worst case it will have to be my oldie.