Tractor Tuesday - Deutz Agrostar 8.31

Diary note: Heard the first cuckoo today)

Another sunny day and getting warmer or rather the easterly light breeze yesterday has more or less gone. After doing the horses, set off for Ottobeuren and a dog walk on the Schickling route. As always met a few other dogs and owners and as always the odd chat.

I had nor expected to encounter any tractors. It's all grassland around here and the dandelions are just about to explode in to a carpet of yellow. My bees are flying back loaded with pollen and covered in the stuff. Even worse when you see them in the fields - you have to look twice to work out if they are bees. Will try to capture the dandelions on my bee journal.

Quick stop off at the supermarket and then headed off to a agricultural machinery outfit just 1km out of Ottobeuren called "Frick & Aurbacher",THE place to go for all things Deutz tractors but they aren't Deutz dealers. Website still under construction so little to see. Their yard must have 30+ used Deutz tractors  and the equivalent of an aircraft hanger packed to the ceiling with spare parts, from a splint to at least 10 complete tractor cabins stacked on top at 1o meters height! I suspect they can supply from stock 99% of all parts for used Deutz tractors. However they can get you anything - a John Deere tractor, any farming equipment. I have seen the most massive new slurry wagons being prepared for delivery to customers, so big they hardly fitted in the new purpose built workshops,

I got to use them avout 13 years ago when they were squeezed in to part of the Ottobeuren basilicas's outbuildings in the middle of the town. The two owners were always extremely helpful despite my troubles and woes such as a 10 Euro hydraulic connector. Over the years they have served me very well and always been very sympathetic despite me causing more work than was ever worthwhile for them.

Despite moving to new purpose built premises and having a booming business they still greet me with a smile and a chat AND always send a Christmas card! And so it was today. I come in to the office and proclaim I need a Blip! Straight away I am led to the yard and in the back corner am presented with todays offering.

A Deutz Agrostar 8.31 of which only 37 were built. Most Deutz fans would say it isn't a Deutz as this model was built between 1993 and 1995 by the Ohio based company White Farm Equipment. The only Deutz connection was the motor and for the very few examples sent to Europe the tractors were fitted with 4WD, in the USA they seemingly only needed rear wheel drive. Deutz had taken this step after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1990 and needing a 200+HP machine to compete in the former East Block markets where the fields were massive compared to the quilt patch German market. As one can see from the number built, this model was not a great success!

MrTBay (and MrA of County Tractors if he wasn't currently up to his eyeballs moving house) will know more than I do but the Massey Ferguson 9240 of the same era and in the confusing world of big business , also built by White but with a Cummins motor, sold more.

Despite this, was very interesting and here some details:
Deutz 6 cylinder, air cooled, 230 HP, 9572 cm³ motor. Weight 8510 kg.

To all non tractor Blipers - 10 liter motor and can only hit 40km/h. MrsA if she had some spare time from the woes of moving house manages to get probably 250+km/h from her about 3 liter motor.

Thanks to Messers Frick & Aurbacher for the as ever friendly reception and the very interesting and probably unique Blip.

Back home was disturbed by MrB and a friend (who just happens to also work from time to time at the Steyr/Case dealers nearby and also specialise in MrB's Eicher tractors) were in the next door field working on a joint project MrB and I are doing. They were directly next to the horses on the rented field and claim our 30 year old Arab, Asyr,  with knobbly knees, who 5 years ago tore a tendon (80%), jumped over the fence and was heading home after being terrorised by bored Sultan. MrB claims they caught him and put him back in the field. Believe that and you believe in Father Christmas. When Angie arrived sometime later, they repeated their fairytale. Any way I tried to help where I could but the boys had the job under control.

Meanwhile Angie rode out with the dogs and tried to get some of Sultan's excess energy out of the system. MrB was no doubt right in that Asyr did flee but he simply went through the 3 wire electric fence which wasn't switched on. In his young years, Asyr kept well clear of electric fences but over the years he learnt from one of our horses how to walk through such a fence even when switched on. He hasn't ever done it before but it doesn't surprise me - Sultan can be a real pain in the backside when he is bored.

Cuckoo - last week heard that researchers had equipped 11 cuckoos, last year in Germany,with transmitters and that 7 were now recorded as heading back this way and were in the Adriatic/Balkans area.