Today three of us did battle with the new Mistral Italian flail mower attachment. The three point linkage behind our old tractor has obviously not had care and attention lavished on it in the last 40 odd years and the linkages were seized tight with rust. Also the weight of the attachment had caused the front tyres to lift so far that you could not steer it.
With help from the tractor garage next door we were able to attach a heavy metal bucket to the front bumper and place an old tractor flywheel in the bucket which brought the front down to earth again. The linkages at the rear were attacked with WD40 and brought back to life with the exception of one stabiliser chain which sheared off rather than submit to our will. Finally, we fired up the tractor, engaged the power take off drive and the flails whizzed round at a rate of knots. Amazingly powerful sound. The grass won’t know what hit it.
Out in the field, we continued to plant out the larger trees and bushes into our planned forest garden. This time it was 6 plums and 6 raspberries. Every little helps!