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 You see, the Chinese tractor does work!

Eh? Down the field and up. How's that for reliability?

Although it's hard to believe at the moment, the sun did shine earlier in the year. Can't remember exactly which day it was but I captured it on film. The Crofter and his Dad mowing the grass to feed to the cooows;

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 Awaiting

Mr Heath

Meet Mr Heath. AKA Teddy. The new ram actually may not be named Teddy but since The Crofter told me about him before i went on holiday I've clean forgotten. And if you think I'm popping off down the road to ask him again in this weather, you have got to be joking!

Teddy - or whoever he is, was on The Croft last year too meeting the lovely Hebridean girls and producing some right odd looking mongrels. The sheeps are bigger than before though - which may please The Crofter and the abattoir but less so their mums.

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 The Crofter is OK.

 Lucy is looking good [on one side]

CJ has been re-packed

Yes, yes, I haven't posted for a few days. Don't panic; The Crofter is doing just fine creating the usual havoc down on the Croft, moving piles of sh*te from here to there, building more hutches for the animals whilst all the time keeping the money coming by making teeth. Someone has to do it; I did it once for 20 years and that's enough for anyone!

Well, I've been on holiday, frying myself in Italy in the absurdly hot sun after a brief unwellness. That's my excuse for getting behind. I shall do my best to catch up soon. 

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They've been busy. Busy doing this and that - making more chicken runs and everything. Before the bad weather apparently. Well, they are too late. It's horrible weather at the moment - even if I did catch a moment of sun as Dad Crofter lurched around passing bits of wood to the Crofter who was planning the next phase of hen-based housing.

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Midges Eh? Who invented them? Someone who is an arthropodologist [probably] and a nasty one at that. The little beasts are prone to make life a misery and The Crofter family are no exception. Here we see Dad Crofter [most likely] modelling the latest anti-midge fashion item.


On a related note, I asked a  chum who used to be in the SAS [some sort of Army based boy scouts] about whether they really did use Avon Skin so soft as reported in various places. "No" he said firmly, I used and still use ********* . So there you are! 


The Crofter smears a little cow muck behind his ears - possibly!

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 The Crofter.

The Crofter has had a lot on his mind lately what with this and that although, not much of the other. Committee things have been busy but the animals don't seem to care.

 The 1961 mechanically sound Massey

Murdo's Massey Ferguson still lays where it broke down waiting for a 'bit' to make it work again.

 The Cucumber

The Crofter's veg crop is doing just fine at the moment although I'm not sure it will pass EU regs ! Yes, it is a cucumber.

 The Crofter's machine

The Crofter's tractor is working and it was doing fine service mowing the grass in the next doors croft while his coows shouted at us next door. I broke a rule and mucked in to give the beasts some cut grass in the hope that the coows would shut up and not bring on the tinnitus. They did. For a little while anyway.

 The Crofter's [exiled] Shetland Coows wondering why the tractor is actually working

The Crofter and the village weighing thing

The young sheeps are getting bigger every day so The Crofter borrowed the village weighing stocks to see if the sheeps were big enough to send to market. I whispered in the sheeps ears to stop eating so much to save their little lives. It will come to no good..

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The Crofter is keeping busy. Whilst the weather has gone a tad damp and the nights are drawing in, at least The Crofter has the silage all sorted and Murdo [no, the other one] has got his 'mechanically sound' 1961 Massy Ferguson Tractor going again after it stopped not to go again for a while after Murdo told me how good and reliable it was. Apparently it was the water pump - or something.

 The Crofter looking to see if the Land-rover still has an engine.

 Donald four tractors mowing the 'lawn' on the next croft.

Donald-Four-Tractors has been featuring from time to time and I found him mowing the croft next door for some reason. He's a happy chappie and helped me bring our peats home - and Roy of the Moors' peats too.

 Donald Four Tractors

Dad Crofter and a quandary

Whilst Donald has four tractors [ or perhaps more currently ] and Murdo [no, the other one] has two, The Crofter has only the one - rather like Hector. Only the Crofter's machine is a tad temperamental and Dad has had to do the bad cop, good cop ruse on it to get it going. But I can now inform you that, at the time of writing it is going - yay!