Brian moved it out of the shed so he could clear out the hay loft (which had an active wasp nest in it). It starts okay, but has no brakes. It is a Massey Ferguson 35 from 1960. A lot of them are still in use on small farms and you can still get all the parts. Although pretty much every seal leaks and it probably hasn't had any maintenance for over 20 years it seems to be fundamentally sound so we may keep it. This is what it should look like.
0 Comments
Tune in next week for even more straw (I suspect it will take at least that long!).
We had all (or at least most) of our scrap metal removed during the week, by a chap in a huge lorry with a big grab on the back. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo as he couldn't get the lorry into our drive so Brian and I had to drag most of it to the gateway and were absolutely exhausted by the end of it (the bigger stuff was dragged by the grab using a chain). Its a shame as it was quite a sight, Freya went and got her binoculars so she could watch better. One highlight was Brian ripping a Stanley range apart with his bare hands a la incredible hulk. The only farming machinery left now is the tractor, which we received the key and the documents for this morning when the former owner stopped by to officially hand it over. We are assured it has run within the last two months... Not much progress yesterday as we spent most of the morning in Castlebar sorting the import tax exemption for our cars. The "man from the Revenue" was very helpful but there is a lot of paperwork involved. So this morning we cracked on with the garden and got it cleared enough to put the tent up, which feels like a milestone as we should be moving out of the hostel at the end of the week. The afternoon was quite exciting as Brian got the 9'' angle grinder out and cut up the rusted front loader of a tractor from the back of the house, and then we dragged the two pieces up to the front of the house with my car. They are now sitting next to the rusted topper, hay turner etc that we already have lined up ready to go.
We spent today doing a bit of gardening... we've done some major shopping over the last couple of days, including a petrol brushcutter which Brian put to good use on the "garden" today. We can now see the edges and it is a decent size. At the end of the day Brian had a quick look under the concrete render at some of the stonework, including uncovering what we had hoped to find - a proper stone fireplace under the silver painted rendered one. Before and after pictures below.
|
This Is..
Laura Nash and Brian Brett's blog about our move to Ireland. Archives
December 2020
Categories
All
|