Fall Farm Chores – II

We finally got to put the tractor to work Sunday.

After working the sheep – trimming hooves, checking eyes for worm load, getting bit by Ralph – and having a beer to calm down, I asked Peg if she wanted to attach the rotary cutter (aka brush hog) to the tractor.

I’ve been letting a section of the lawn next to the top of the driveway go “wild” this season. The grass grew up to almost three feet, went to seed, and lots of other bushes and wildflowers grew.  We had white, yellow, red and orange flowers in there – it was really quite pretty.  Saturday afternoon, I went into the patch and pulled out most of the bigger bushes that had grown in, all except for one thistle which was too prickly to pull out even with gloves on.

Before heading up to the tractor, Peg wheeled the cart out to the driveway, we gathered all the bushes I had pulled up the day before and put them in the cart. Peg cut the thistle at its base and I sprayed the base with Round Up.

I gave Peg the tractor key and she backed it up to the brush hog.  It took us about 15 minutes to figure out how to attach it to the back of the tractor – the hardest part was getting the PTO (power take off) hooked up. I’m still not sure how we finally did it.

We took turns mowing down the field. Nothing really exciting about that, other than the small ridge the brush hog encountered, which is now a two or three square yard patch of dirt.

With the field now mowed it was time for the real work to get done.  We detached the brush hog, and Peg pretty quickly got the bucket attached to the front end. She drove into the barnyard and attacked the manure pile. Her first load wasn’t very big, but she took it out to the newly mowed field and dumped it. We plan to put the garden there next spring and the manure will be a great starter.  Here are some video clips:

We took turns on the manure pile, and slowly figured out how to maximize each load – go into the pile with the bucket almost scraping the ground and tip up the bucket as it enters the mound. We did about twelve loads before our friends Jim, Imy, and Carolyn arrived for a nice visit.

Todd