Frost-fighting has commenced……the alarm went off at 9:30pm last night!! 
I managed to get one hours sleep but that was better than no sleep at all 
As Sam frost-fights an Orchard just a few kilometres up the road, he was up and gone at the same time whilst I began patrolling our Orchard, watching the temperature bounce up and down for the next few hours until 12:15am when we cranked up, the very first time for the Season 
My companion for the night was ‘Willie’ one of my gorgeous cats 
Even when Matilda is pumping, I am still up and about listening for the quiet smooth hum of Matilda.
“Little Toot” our pump tractor has retired 
She was feeling her age and is content to be useful somewhere else on the Orchard these days.
“Love you Little Toot and thank-you for your service” The new pump is a diesel motor connected to a pump which does the same job as Little Toot – it draws water from our dam and pumps it through our overhead sprinkler system.
And by the way, we decided on ‘Matilda’ as the name for her.
Sam ran out of time to paint her much to her horror A girl has got to look her best! 
A girl has got to look her best! Many years ago, the tractor before Little Toot, conked out.
Mum had only just arrived back from checking sprinklers so it was all go – a replacement tractor was topped up with diesel and put in place up at the dam in the nick of time
As there is only a brief window of opportunity – around 30 minutes – to get up and running again when breakdowns occur, time is of the essence, as the fruit is in danger of being ruined 
We shut the pump down a while ago at 9:45am when the temperature reached 2 degrees 
Sam took these photos an hour ago 
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