The Little Red Tractor

Sometimes there are unintended consequences to actions.

That sounds overly dramatic, so let me explain the situation 'although I am circumventing' a number of weeks here...

So, beside our property running along the border between us and an orchard there's a ditch through which rain water (from roofs in the village and things like that) drains.  It was blocked so some of the water soaked into the ground and pooled elsewhere.

We got a man with a digger to clear some of the ditch but the main obstacle was a large tree root so the man with the digger took some of the root out which subsequently caused the tree to lean over (towards one of our gites) and also block a path up to the swimming pool.

It had to go (the tree that is, not the swimming pool!)

Our good friend Gordon volunteered to help and Monday was the chosen day.

About 9.30 we heard a 'toot toot' outside the house.  Gordon had rocked up on his Little Red Tractor.  To be more precise the tractor is a 1956 Mc Cormick International Farmall two cylinder tractor which Gordon found in his barn when he bought his house five or so years ago.

You can imagine his surprise when he was exploring his new barn when he pulled the tarpaulin off the beast which was in perfect condition after a full nuts a bolts rebuild just a couple of years before.

He was so surprised that he called the Notaire (the local lawyer) who said that the couple they bought their property from didn't want it and it was his!

He uses the tractor pretty much every day and it certainly helped on Monday when Gordon and Richard took the tree down.

To avoid the tree falling into the Farmhouse they had strops around the main trunk, attached to the tractor which put some tension on the tree.  Richard cut with a chainsaw and the tree crashed down to the ground a whole six inches from the building!

'Planned for and got', was Richard's reaction.

'You lucky so and so', was mine.  (Or words to that effect.)

A really good shift later and the tree was chopped into segments and stacked under our terrasse.

And that's the second unintended consequence - we now have plenty of wood for winter - although we have to dry the logs out for two years, so that will be winter 2025!