Goodbye FOD

Something is missing from the landscape of our farm. For FOD has gone, moved to a new home. As much as I liked the idea of having a tractor, FOD was just too big and cumbersome a beast for my needs. He was just sitting forlornly outside, gradually getting rustier.
In fact, he had become something of a liability. On the infrequent occasions when he was moved his battery would always have gone flat. His front arms had sunk to the ground, preventing him moving and his only use for the last year or so was as a shelter for the sheep and as an occasional shelter from the rain if I got caught out in the open.

So when somebody offered to take him off my hands, it solved a bit of a problem. Four blokes turned up with a spare battery and set about getting FOD started up and moving. There's no way I could have done this myself. I was anxious that the bucket, which weighs a ton, went with him too, but this had been taken off and left in the spare veg patch quite some time ago.
I did not have high hopes of anybody managing to drive the tractor across the sodden soil far enough to retrieve the bucket, but it did just about make it. The job of manhandling machine and bucket into the correct position was not an easy one and required muscle, brute force, a lot of levering courtesy of a couple of large wooden posts and a fair bit of luck.
But eventually the pins were in place, which made FOD even more cumbersome to steer and even heavier to sink into the mud.

But eventually he was out and ready to go.

Gerry - look carefully, he's seated in the small bucket on the front - couldn't resist one final ride.
Then FOD was off on his longest journey for quite some time. Good job it was on country roads.

And there goes my dream of taking him out onto a busy road and holding up all the traffic!