The Taming of the Fod.

This is why we do it.

Saturday 11th August 2012
No comment necessary

The Fod
Today was a very, very good day. And not just because Mo Farah won the 5000m gold medal.
I have mentioned previously my innate fear of machines. Well, in some of my pictures you will have noticed an old blue and white tractor. It's a Fod. I think it was once a Ford.
You may also have noticed that it is always in the same place. Well not any more.

With Don's help we sorted out the battery and started up the engine. That was Plan A.
Plan B involved Sue and Don taking the ignition unit, complete with snapped off old key still inside, to a local agricultural merchants to fix / replace!
Eventually, Sue managed to do a twenty-four point turn to face the tractor the other way. She finds the steering rather heavy!

Today it was my turn to learn to drive the Fod. I was not worried by its size, the awkwardness of the steering or even the noise. No, for me the major worry was that it has too many pedals, one of them being a clutch pedal. In my limited experience of driving a manual gearbox car, my left and right feet have totally refused to work together. Being tall, I think they are too far away from my brain. The signals get confused and my brain blanks. Invariably the car stalls and people behind me start getting impatient!

But today a very helpful friend came round to teach me to tame the Fod. I was immediately pleased to find out that two of the pedals are both brakes and that the accelerator is a lever by the steering column. This was fantastic news, since it meant that my two feet would not need to communicate with each other!

In no time at all I had it mastered. Well, at least backwards, forwards, start and stop.

I now have plans to purchase various attachments and to build Fod a shelter, but that's a job for autumn or winter.

For now, Fod and I shall be transforming the meadow and I will no longer be quite so reliant on other people.
I would do it tomorrow, since early next week looks like rain, but I have an even  more exciting enterprise to attend to - remember I mentioned Cayuga ducks?