Get a little closer and it still left Canadian customs officials in Montreal scratching their heads. So they hung onto it for two weeks before they figured it out.

It’s a motorized two-person lay down field work cart and it’s the only one in North America, says Bill Langenberg who imported it from Finland to help him plant, weed and harvest his herbs and other low growing crops, just east of Kemptville.

The work cart inches along, powered by a marine battery. The sun roof is actually a solar panel. By lying face down on one of the two cushioned benches, foot pedals control the speed and direction of the cart.

"I love it," said Langenberg’s field worker Andrea Robertson at Grenville Herb-Farm. "It’s great. We worked nine-and-a-half hours yesterday."

The $15,000 machine arrived on specialty herb farm in June and "I’m so happy with it," Langenberg said. "It saves 35 per cent to 50 per cent on labour and, of course, no back pain,"

He figures strawberry growers will likely embrace this new technology. The only similar planters are noisy gas powered machines in some U.S. states, he said. His cart is quiet and there are no fumes.

"You’ve never seen anything like this," he boasts, likening it more to the Mars rover. "It operates by itself sometimes. It took off on me the other day."

It banged into his tractor.