Christmastime Again

[Brian]

2013 has been a year of “Trial by Water” in this part of the world. We got back from Australia just over a year ago after a fantastic time with The Fordson Club of Australia and Barry and Dawn to a cold and wet England. The change was marked when we left the underground and started the train journey home, shivering and then the bus journey from Norwich to Dereham in a damp misty bus was a total shock after the heat we had been used to for two months. Hard to imagine that only a few days before, in Gisbourn, the temperature inside the car had been nearly 50C according to the thermometer.

Spring 2013 started damply rather than wet and, on our land, the ploughing and the sowing went well. I did some “contract” ploughing in the village on some of the heaviest land we have in this part of Norfolk, clay with flints which can play havoc with tyres but a few days on the hills around Scarning, on warm sunny days, soon dispelled the memory of a cold wet January and February, the only down side being when I ran out of diesel in Nuffy on the last headland furrow and had to walk two miles home.

“Trial By Water” started in March when all the crops were getting underway and growing. The rains stopped! Parsnips planted in early March did not germinate until May although weeds never seemed to stop. The Larkspur we were growing for a local garden centre had got away well over the winter months and the dry weather helped to ensure we had a good crop but the dry spell continued and by late July the potatoes were starting to look a bit sick. We got some rain in late July and August but it was not enough to save the red variety we grow, “Romano”, which would have turned out to be a fantastic crop if the rain had come at the right time. As it was we got a fair crop of small tubers which our customers reject. The good side is that we like them and now have a freezer full of mashed potato with various flavoured mixes added and a number of packs of roasted ones.

The dry weather however did allow us to have a very good time at the Norfolk Show Ground with Blue Force. It was very cold but dry and sunny and the range of tractor and vintage cars on display was rather special with ones on display that are normally only seen in pictures in vintage magazines. It was a real pity that attendance was down on the previous year but the organisers are going to repeat the show next year and hopefully they will get more support.

The pumpkin crop was also hit by the weather and by rabbits, deer and anything else that can nibble off the young plants. It is very strange how the pests vary their diet year by year, some years they take the young plants, others they wait until the pumpkins and squashes are ripe , then hit. But I suppose that is nature. The dry weather helped produce pumpkins free of mould and disease and these have lasted right through until now allowing Ann to make large amounts of my favourite pumpkin bread.

August was the month when the real “Trial By Water” really started. Our neighbour came around and asked if we knew that our fish pond was leaking. This came as a bit of a shock as we do not have a fish pond but there was a stream of water from under our fence, flowing down the pavement. We rang the water company and a man came out to inspect the flow, yes, it was water, and it was coming from our pipe that links us to the main. Strange, I told him, as our connecting pipe is here, showing him the spot where they had installed the water meter. That caused a bit of head scratching but he decided after talking to his boss, that we were still wrong and he would go and get equipment to prove to me that the leak was our responsibility not theirs.
He returned a couple of days later with electronic listening gear and a special piece of equipment that fitted on our outside tap and created a pulse in the water supply that could be picked up by his gizmo. Unfortunately even with all this equipment he was still left scratching his head he could not find where the pipe from our house connected to the main under the road where he had been told the water main was. As I kept telling him, the main was not under the road but was under our garden and proved it to him with a couple of bent welding rods. This did not prevent him from marking the pavement and when the digger came in, they spent an afternoon looking for the connection. I pointed out to the digger men where the pipe was and where it connected to our feed pipe. They moved the digger, found the main and then saw that the leak was the main itself not our connecting pipe. They had to dig up our garden and demolish the fence to get to the pipe. I have to say that, after two days messing around looking for the problem, once they found it they worked all night to divert the main around the leaking portion. All that ia left is for me to reinstate the garden in the Spring.

September saw all the potatoes harvested and the crop came out dry and clean, the biggest problem was dust blowing from the harvester, something we have not seen for a year or two. Then it was time to load up Dotty and the Delco engine for Meddo trip. This time we stayed with Emiel and his family as well as “taking over” their stand on the showground. We missed 2012 due to travelling to Australia but, once more were struck by our hosts generosity and the warmth of people on the showground. The Delco engine proved a bit of a “crowd puller” every time we fired her up and the language of “Tractor” was put to great use when describing her operation.

October saw more water problems! Water started to run down the wall in our hallway. Luckily we have stone floors and the leak was over the “dirty” hall where I come in and out from the workshop. No ceiling problems as the water was tracking down the hot water pipes from the boiler to the hot water tank. On investigation we found that the bottom had rotted out in the copper hot water cylinder so it was a case of lots of buckets under the drips and a trip to the plumbers merchant for a new tank. Wouldn’t you know it!! Ours is a special with two heating coils!! Of course this added cost and delivery time so we spent two weeks emptying buckets every time we switched the hot water on. Still the new tank is in place now and with no leaks. (Touch wood).

November started wet, cold and very windy and it was on a day when rain was very heavy, the wind was blowing and the water was pooling on the roads, that is when the next part of the water torture began. I went into Dereham with a load of parcels for our customers and coming home, ran Wolfgang the Range Rover through a puddle on the carriage way. Why you ask do we call that iconic British vehicle Wolfgang, well at the time he was built Land Rover had been sold by Ford to the German company BMW, so he has a BMW straight 6 Turbo and Intercooled diesel fitted. After running into the puddle which was not very deep, only around ½”, Wolfgang started to run like a petrol car with water on the plug leads! Then the tapping noise started!! I managed to get him home and got the bonnet up to find the air cleaner lid loose and the air filter full of water!! Enough water had splashed up, under the lid and straight into the engine! My local garage had fitted me new glow plugs after my trip to Meddo when we experienced poor hot starting and they had inadvertently left the lid unlatched. So then the Internet search started for another engine and, would you believe it, Wolfgang has one of the later engines with a plastic manifold, all the ones listed had aluminium ones which require a different cylinder head. Eventually we found one that had done 100,000 miles less than the one we had so it was quickly bought and is now installed! Much livelier than the original and that was pretty good when towing Dotty along the Dutch motorways.

It was nice, after all the bad things you hear about things on the Internet, to meet an honest seller, like Emmotts of Colne who supplied the “new” engine. It was exactly as advertised and started up without any trouble once installed.

December, so far, has been more “Trials by Water” for the coast of Norfolk rather than us personally. The pictures of the devastation around Hemsby and Walcott have gone worldwide on the Internet with pictures of the lost homes and tales of courage of the coastguards and others as the flood tide and winds took more of our county back to the sea. We visited Salthouse yesterday as we were in the area and witnessed what so many people had predicted. The protecting sea bank had been breached a few years ago and the “experts” had said that it should not be repaired as we were now going to control the sea by “managed retreat” so saving lots of money. The result is the sea came in through the gap, widening it and flooding the fresh water marsh and the village itself. The protecting bank has nearly all gone for many miles along the coast now opening villages and small towns to the fury of the sea. So much for not repairing the bank and maintaining it along its length, we now have the expense of reinstating it and the cost of the clearing up. We lost a few priceless pictures that were stored in the bottom of our tank cupboard when that leak developed but that pales into insignificance after seeing what the sea can do to people’s homes and possessions.

It seems a bit more personal to me too. Earlier this year I joined “Ancestory.com” and started to find out about my family history. I discovered ancestors that lived all along the North Norfolk coast from Kings Lynn to Cromer. Some went to Australia, others to Canada but the roots of the family are firmly in most of the villages along the coastline.

So, in a few days we shall be in 2014, I am involved in a talk for Norfolk Farm Machinery Club on the 8th of January, about J.J.Wright and Sons Ltd. In April it will be another Vintage Tractors on the Norfolk Show Ground event then in June the Blue Force event on the Newark Showground. Fordson Tractor Pages have a stand there and we have been asked to do a display of Petrol Dexta Tractors. I have asked that this be expanded to all spark ignition New Fordson Tractors and any Ford tractors out there so here’s hoping that you can help me find some people who are prepared to exhibit. Do not want to be left with just Dotty on the stand after agreeing to set it up.

In October it is back to Australia for a Fordson Club gathering in Robinvale, this is being organised by my friends Leigh and Bev Donovan and will feature more petrol Dextas, I am sure.

All that remains is to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and New Year from Ann and me and all the management team of Fordson Tractor Pages.

[JC]

I always enjoy reading your Christmas time updates, Brian. It sounds like you had quite a year. I'm glad that you have it all sorted now!
Merry Christmas to you and yours and to everyone here.

[Dandy Dave]

Merry Christmas to all our Fordson friends all over the world. And may the New Year find everyone well. Dandy Dave!

[henk]

Merry Christmas to all the Ford-sons friends.

[The Swanndri Guy]

Yes another year has gone past, again but Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to everyone on the forum, from The Swanndri Guy.

[super6954]

Hi Guys
I would like to thank Brian, Oscar , and all the other guys, that took their free time to keep the forum running,for yet another fantastic year of the forums . There would be a lot of lost Ford/ Fordson owners in the world with out it .
Last of all I would like to wish everybody here involved with the forums, A Happy Christmas and hopefully a Happy New Year .
Regards from Robert

[Pavel]

Happy Christmas to all. May your Fordson steed give you prolonged pleasure in 2014.

Pavel

[chriss]

merry Christmas everyone and a happy new year and would like to say thanks for everyones help over the past year this site is an absolute godsend

[ford5000y]

Yeah, sometimes bad things happen as Christmas gets near, for instance we (yes, me, my family , everyone) were shaken by an earthquake back in the night of December 18!!!!

And, Brian, speaking of your running out of fuel in the tractor, here in the Philippines, since all the original gauges on the tractor dashboard were all gone and no one knew that there were new replacements for such, what we do to look at the fuel level was to insert a clean stick inside the tank to measure how much more was left . It was the method employed by my father, my grandfather, my uncles,... and everyone in our area that owns a tractor.