Life in the slow furrow
BEHIND the Ferguson TE-20, the plough spills two red furrows. You can tell the seasons by the way sun shines on clay—winter’s rays are thin milk. Up and down the field I go, cutting open the earth, ploughing. Putta-putta-putta.
My Ferguson diesel tractor is now 65 years old. Is it retiring? Is it hell. Fergusons go on and on. The Ferguson, made at the Standard Motor Company plant in Coventry between 1946 and 1956, is one of farming’s true icons. Small, yet butch. When Sir Edmund Hillary decided to cross the Antarctic, he chose a caravanserai of ‘little grey Fergies’ for the job. Putta-putta-putta.
Admittedly, a vintage or classic
