Spring day on the farm.
It's evening on the first day of 80 degree weather in 2010. Our forsythia is blooming. Everyone's forsythia is blooming, so this seems silly to mention, but ours almost never blooms so I'm enjoying it.
I cut up ten pounds of seed potatoes, five of Kennebec and five of Yukon Gold. I bought three bunches of onion plants and spinach, beet, snap pea, and carrot seeds.
The henbit has taken over my raised beds which is a blessing and a curse. It is a curse because until I get it out of there it will keep the beds too wet to work with. It is a blessing because I really need a lot of green material to mix with the pile of straw that is waiting to be composted. The henbit will be perfect. Chuck sharpened the two field hoes for me tonight so tomorrow I can easily scrape the henbit off the top of the beds and carry it over to compost. The beds will dry out and be ready for other growing things soon.
There are five beds I got turned under in the fall that are already ready to plant. One will get peas, spinach, beets, broccoli and onions. Three will be saved for corn, because they had beans in them last year and I want to see how corn does with all that nitrogen that the beans leave in the soil. The last one will get potatoes.
Chuck bought a manure spreader yesterday. It is a flail type, which makes me laugh every time I say it. This reveals my baser self. How does a flail type manure spreader work? There is a rotating drive which runs down the center of the spreader. Attached to that drive are short chains that have paddles attached to the ends. When the spreader is full, you pull it to the field and turn on the drive and the chains with paddles beat the **** out of the spreader.
Anyway, he needed to try it out immediately upon getting it home. It didn't work. Frustration ensued, followed by a call to the seller. There was a discussion of what could help. Today Chuck tried some of those remedies, and now this is (in his opinion) a much better spreader than any he has used before. It spreads the manure much more evenly over the field.
From so much spreading, combined with a gentle southeast wind, there is definitely a 'farm' smell around here this evening.
In other farm news, we have a recalcitrant sow. Last night we got a call that she was out on Woodlawn, the road that runs along the west edge of our property. Chuck and Wes brought her home. She got out again. And again.
Chuck boarded her into her house for the night, thinking she would calm down and be able to stay home in the morning.
This morning the back was pushed out of that house and the sow is nowhere to be found. We farrow the sows in A-houses because they seem to like a little privacy. This sow wants a lot of privacy. I was worried that she would not come back and we would be introducing a feral herd to our neighborhood. Chuck isn't concerned. She'll come home when she has farrowed and she gets hungry. He will then follow her to her litter, take a trailer over there, and feed her on the trailer a couple of times. After that he will be able to collect her pigs and move the little family back to an A-house. In the meantime, she better stay away from my garden!
The boys had church tonight so we worked late outside. At about 7:30 I was hungry and radioed Chuck to see if he wanted some leftover pizza with me. We thought we'd eat quickly and then go back to work. It was nice to sit together in a quiet house. And then we decided to sit on the porch for a while. And then to look at the garden. And then to walk out to the road and watch the last color disappear from the sky. The coyotes began their yipping and the birds finished their evening calls. There is a lot here to be thankful for.
I cut up ten pounds of seed potatoes, five of Kennebec and five of Yukon Gold. I bought three bunches of onion plants and spinach, beet, snap pea, and carrot seeds.
The henbit has taken over my raised beds which is a blessing and a curse. It is a curse because until I get it out of there it will keep the beds too wet to work with. It is a blessing because I really need a lot of green material to mix with the pile of straw that is waiting to be composted. The henbit will be perfect. Chuck sharpened the two field hoes for me tonight so tomorrow I can easily scrape the henbit off the top of the beds and carry it over to compost. The beds will dry out and be ready for other growing things soon.
There are five beds I got turned under in the fall that are already ready to plant. One will get peas, spinach, beets, broccoli and onions. Three will be saved for corn, because they had beans in them last year and I want to see how corn does with all that nitrogen that the beans leave in the soil. The last one will get potatoes.
Chuck bought a manure spreader yesterday. It is a flail type, which makes me laugh every time I say it. This reveals my baser self. How does a flail type manure spreader work? There is a rotating drive which runs down the center of the spreader. Attached to that drive are short chains that have paddles attached to the ends. When the spreader is full, you pull it to the field and turn on the drive and the chains with paddles beat the **** out of the spreader.
Anyway, he needed to try it out immediately upon getting it home. It didn't work. Frustration ensued, followed by a call to the seller. There was a discussion of what could help. Today Chuck tried some of those remedies, and now this is (in his opinion) a much better spreader than any he has used before. It spreads the manure much more evenly over the field.
From so much spreading, combined with a gentle southeast wind, there is definitely a 'farm' smell around here this evening.
In other farm news, we have a recalcitrant sow. Last night we got a call that she was out on Woodlawn, the road that runs along the west edge of our property. Chuck and Wes brought her home. She got out again. And again.
Chuck boarded her into her house for the night, thinking she would calm down and be able to stay home in the morning.
This morning the back was pushed out of that house and the sow is nowhere to be found. We farrow the sows in A-houses because they seem to like a little privacy. This sow wants a lot of privacy. I was worried that she would not come back and we would be introducing a feral herd to our neighborhood. Chuck isn't concerned. She'll come home when she has farrowed and she gets hungry. He will then follow her to her litter, take a trailer over there, and feed her on the trailer a couple of times. After that he will be able to collect her pigs and move the little family back to an A-house. In the meantime, she better stay away from my garden!
The boys had church tonight so we worked late outside. At about 7:30 I was hungry and radioed Chuck to see if he wanted some leftover pizza with me. We thought we'd eat quickly and then go back to work. It was nice to sit together in a quiet house. And then we decided to sit on the porch for a while. And then to look at the garden. And then to walk out to the road and watch the last color disappear from the sky. The coyotes began their yipping and the birds finished their evening calls. There is a lot here to be thankful for.
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