Dr Bulldog

Sun returned today and with it felt much better but can tell there are still stones blocking or partly blocking the works.

Back in early May, I ordered a bee hive from the joinery in Ronsberg. Apart from their normal joinery work, the family have had bees for generations, out of which a side business in hive making and running a beekeepers supply shop developed. While the shop is only open on Fridays, in the summer they also open for a fewhours on Tuesday and Saturday. As it is the only bee keeping supply business in the area and beekeeping becoming more popular by the day, it is surprising (to me) that they don't expand a little.

However they have more experience than I do. For me frustrating that in the height of the season, the hives were not available. Yesterday finally got the message that they had made my hive on Saturday.

So today set off to Ronsberg but as they don't open until 4:00pm went for a walk with the dogs in Ottobeuren and thought I would try out the "back roads". This meant driving past the golf course and shortly afterwards had a tractor in front of me and quickly realised it could only be .... Dr Bulldog ("Bulldog" is a common word in Bavaria for tractor, originating from a 1921 Lanz tractor).

The tractor he was commuting home on, is his 1951 "Allgeier". I forgot to ask the model number and googling was confusing as it seems there are some wrongly posted photos. I am pretty sure it is model typ R22. Angelique can ask SonofThunder, but her "Beast", a Porsche, is related to this tractor!

I thought "Allgeier" came from our area of Bavaria - "The Allgaeu". However it comes from the name of the engineer who designed and built it. His company based near Stuttgart, later went in to cooperation with Porsche to develop tractors and eventually sold this very succesful side of the business to them in 1955. The company, Allgeier, exists today with 1700 employees worldwide, mainly involved in making automotive products. They count many of the top car makers to their customers including of course Porsche. So Angelique's Beast and Jürgen's Allgeier are related and both ideal for a spin on a sunny day.

Jürgen's tractor looks to be in super condition (as one has come to expect from him) and I suspect worth a bit. I saw a similar one for sale costing over 15,000 Euros although I'm sure his isn't for sale. I find his approach to these old tractors very refreshing. He maintains them wonderfully but they also have to be used and not just museum pieces.

So after a quick chat (he had to stop where it's not allowed), I headed off again and spent ages getting to and from the beekeeping shop thanks to the road there being closed for raodworks. Jürgen would have been quicker using farm tracks.

Got most of my hive, they forgot to make a floor, but I luckily had built one myself last year. A warm sunny day today and due to get hot after we have got through tomorrow's forecast rain.

Addendum: It's an A22 which is technically more or less the same as R22 but should have a bonnet. When Jürgen got the machine, the bonnet was missing and he has not replaced it.