Saturday Work

We’ve  begun to slowly chip away at the mess of down trees that this winter’s freak ice storm brought us.  What a job, I’m thinkin’ that we have a lot of things on our to do list for the year that will be carried over to next year because of the unexpected work we were handed.

I find it amazing that the old tractor and wagon still keep on puttin’ out for us here at the Farm.  The wood in the wagon is red alder,  the saw cuts are white when Dirt makes them, see in the photo above just how white, then the cuts quickly oxidize and turn very red.

Dirt ran the chain saw and axe, I hoicked split wood into the wagon and began making burn piles.  I think the bulk of our spring and summer “free time” will be making brush piles and cleaning up debris in the wood lots …and pastures

After lunch Dirt did other things will I sat on the tractor and drug the back pasture or sheep pasture.  Most of the sheep are in the barn with their lambs, there are a few left out here but they are corralled inside the electro-net in the corner, so I was able to do the majority of the pasture, save the edges covered by downed trees.

Dragging the pasture serves two purposes, it spreads the manure and roughs up the turf a little. It doesn’t make for a perfect application of manure (nitrogen and other nutrients for the pasture plants) but it is a fairly good approximation and saves much labor and fuel from the alternative, picking up the manure daily, storing it and then spreading it out of the back of a uni-tasking wagon called a manure spreader.

Roughing up the turf stimulates growth and allows nutrients get down into the root zone.  In the next week or so I will pass over this pasture with a pelletized lime and a mineral salt, Sea90, more on that later.

And for us, on this particular pasture, dragging knocks down mole hills.  Most of the big brown smears in the pictures where the drag has gone over are mole hills not manure. 

What is it that is drug, why a drag of course.  This one is a bit old, missing a few links but it works.  It is wicked heavy in spite of its lacey look.  And the pasture, definitely not as smooth as it looks, its bumpy and lumpy.  Sitting on the back of the tractor isn’t as restful as one might think.

I didn’t expect to be able to get the whole pasture done (all that I could access) but I did, just in time for the working light to leave the sky.  I headed in pleased that one more item off the to do list.