A lazy morning, with me getting up lateish, and getting down for breakfast at 10:00am. I had a couple of weetabix, a glass of milk, and a banana and strawberry smoothie. I skyped Ma Yan, and at 10:55am Dad went off to take Gina and Danny to Birmingham Airport for their week long break to Tunisia.
Dad came back, and after a bit of sorting out, we made our way to the field. Mum and Dad bought some land a few years ago, and have steadily been developing it. There are 4 areas:-
1st is an area just inside the gate. This is basically meadowland. They do not do anything with this apart from allow a neighbour to cut the grass and bale it for feed.
Shed with the pond
2nd is a pond where they have the caravan and a small shed with the toilet at the back of it. This is where they tend to have BBQs and badminton / croquet etc.
3rd is the orchard with many fruit / nut bearing trees. I am not 100% certain on what trees exactley are there.
Ruby and the Garage
4th is the largest part, and it is the woodland. This has many, many trees in it. Again, I am not sure what trees they have planted there, but I know that there are some oak trees, (Dad said so today).
Me on the Gutbrod
Anyway, once we were there, we had a picnic under the gazebo. It was very pleasant, especially the Cheese and Onion Walker’s Crisps. Dad then went off to get the Gutbrod. This is Hugh’s tractor, and is a tractor that was designed for use in gardens rather than fields. It is small enough to go through trees in an orchard, and so is ideal for towing a trailer around Mum and Dad’s land. It was suggested that I have a go on it, and as it has a hand throttle, I could drive it around. I drove around slowly, and Dad filled the back with cuttings, and I then moved that to elsewhere, and Dad emptied it again.
Dad and I at the Field
After that, I drove the Gutbrod back to the caravan, and Mum and Dad cleared things away. Look at my fantastic crutches in the picture! We then got back into the car, and Dad drove us round the woodland so I could see how things were going. I have not been there for 4 or 5 months, so when I last saw it, it was mid-winter and there were no leaves on the trees, and it looked quite different.
We made our way back to Mum and Dad’s, and sat outside and had a drink (Guiness again!). All of us were still full from the picnic food, so we shall not have very much later. Maybe a bone friendly Cheese and Biscuit session.
NB: no photo of the real worker who cut the long grass that needed to be shifted.Method of cutting….Tracmaster a hand/walking machine with 36″ cutter bar.