3rd February

Last week at long last we cleaned out the cucumber tunnel.

It’s always one of the jobs that isn’t the best to tackle, but it is better leaving it till all the cucumber plants have really died of.                                                                                                                                                 In the past I have tried to go in just after we have finished harvesting them, but the cucumbers as they grow twist round the string as they grow up, and trying to get them off of the string is really time consuming.

But if we leave them, they dry up and we can pull the string out of the ground and untie it from the crop bars, and  the cucumber plants are really dry and brittle so they fall of the string easily.

One of the reasons I decided to clean out the Cucumber tunnel, is that I needed somewhere to put the new bed weeder that I have been making, It was ready to be tested to see if the engine was working, and if the steering I made would actually work, and I needed it out of where I was building it so I could get the Fergie in and strip of the body work so I could take it down to the big shed and get the old engine out and the new one in.

And I am pleased to say the bed weeder seems to be driving and steering pretty good, I haven’t put up any new photos of it yet, I will after we have painted it and put on a roof and sides.

So now it was the job of stripping the old Fergie’s blown up engine and taking it out and getting the new one in, there are jobs now mounting up and they all need the Fergie.

I was wee bit worried about tackling the job of putting in a new engine and clutch, because I have never done one before, but by Sunday evening (2nd Feb) I had the old engine out and the new one sitting in place, and so far its went pretty good, fingers crossed, by the middle of this week I will hopefully have the Fergie working again.