Today's blog is brought to you by the letters T and E, and the number 20

The timber for the roof of the cottage arrived today, and very nice it is too!!  Good ol' aussie Stringybark hardwood.  The truck delivering it had a lot of trouble getting through our front gate due mostly to a tree just along the track, which limited how much he could straighten up through the gate.  This tree was earmarked to 'go' anyway, so today became the day it went.  I'm always reluctant to knock down trees, and it's also a lot of work!  Anyway, after chopping out whatever roots I could find, it was still rock-solid, with a huge taproot.  Which brings me to the title of this blog, the ever-faithful Fergie- our Ferguson TED 20 tractor.  A chain wrapped around the tree stump, and the other end to Fergie's drawbar, and the stump was out like a shot!!  Too easy!!  Not bad for a nearly 60 year old piece of machinery!!

Fergie has never been restored as such, although he had a repaint after catching fire when owned by his previous owner.  It constantly amazes me just how useful and reliable this tractor is, considering it's age, and the hard life it's had.

I bought a new power take-off cover for Fergie on eBay recently, and fitted it today. (It's the reddish thing)  This is both for safety, and to keep dirt out of the PTO bearing.  It also amazes me that it is still so easy to buy parts for Ferguson tractors.

This is our front gate area, looking out to our road.  It's only 10' wide at present, and needs to be widened to 20' before Whistlestop opens, so there'll be a few modifications here.  We're getting there, though, with thanks to Fergie!!