The hilly nature of the farm land requires a tractor with 4WD, we managed to buy the 1390 from a local dealer who explained that it had been used most of it's life on a farm in Wales before being bought and cosmetically restored by a "hobby farmer" like ourselves! Owning it has not been without incident (and cost) - more details in due course.

A side issue of buying a David Brown was that, in searching for assistance on various problems, I came across the David Brown Tractor Club, and its website www.dbtc.co.uk.  To cut a long story short I'm now also responsible for running this website as well.

Bought from another local dealer. We spotted this one day while driving around and went in to look it over; the dealer informed us he'd bought it from a local farm who were selling up - a place called Curney Farm! Apparently the previous owners had had a farm sale the year before we bought the farm - one of our fields is now known as "the sale field" in recognition of this fact.

It's also been involved in one or two "incidents"...

One of the most recent acquisitions, bought from a fellow member of the DBTC. Hay bobs are used turn over ("ted") grass once its cut  to assist it's drying out in the sun. While we don't (yet) have all the other kit required to make hay ( a different type of topper, small bale baler, bale sledge, bale grab!), and all our hay is cut by two neighbouring farmers, the haybob is a very useful  because it allows me to help and ted the hay at the right time rather than wait and hope that they will turn up.

Bought from a neighbour, proved it's worth when digging all the post holes for the menage and elsewhere - some of the ground at the Curney is very rocky.

Used for driving fence posts into the ground. The part to the right fastens to the rear of the tractor and the tractro 3 point hitch is used to lift and lower the "thumper" part - yellow arrow. Just like driving a nail in, only with a lot more force!

You don't want this running over your toes. For added weight it can be filled with water.

Very useful for tidying up the fields after the horses hooves have done their damage. Also keeps the manage tidy.

 Fastens to the front end loader in place of the bucket and used to move round bales of hay. Bought this on Ebay and managed to fit it in the car, but had a very nervous drive home hoping I wouldn't have to brake sharply and risk being speared.

Petrol driven vibrating plate, used for compacting. I use this for repairing the potholes.

A source of amazement to our neighbours that I like to have part of the field in front of the house and the "green" approaching the house cut to lawn - a waste of good hay is  what they probably think.

The ride on makes short work of cutting the grass and Mags has been known to have a spin around.

Serves an equally useful purpose dragging a leveller gate around the menage.

 Our "insurance" against getting snowed in, which does happen once or twice a year. It's 1966 vintage and therefore tax exempt. Had only done just over 50,000 miles when we bought it, and not much more since then - if you've ever driven one you'll know why. The suspension is a little solid and the steering is a bit like navigating a super tanker!