Friday evening, we hitched the plow up to the tractor for the first time to besure we had all the right hardware to make it work (we did). The plan was to use the plow to break up the soil so that we could use the box blade to level teh site for the first greenhouse. We were planning on this taking all day on Saturday and likely some time on Sunday.Once the plow was attached, we couldn't resist trying it out, so Jeremy drove over to the staked out site of the greenhouse and started plowing. We quickly discovered that we had the plow set too dep when the tractor started bucking like a bronco - funny to those watching, not so funny to the guy riding the tractor. Once that was fixed the plow worked like a dream. The earth turned over in 2 neat rows behind the tractor; loose, dark and rich.
We plowed the first layer to be moved before proceeding to the RV to make camp for the night. When we got to the RV, we had an unfortunate surprise. Either we forgot to unhook the battery before we left or someone hooked it up while we were gone resulting in the battery being completely drained. This meant that not only was the battery ruined, but we couldn't open the slide out on the RV. Big frowny face here.
Nevertheless, we made camp, had some dinner and passed out for the evening. It was a great night - gentle cool breeze and the sounds of the country.
First thing Saturday morning (and I mean first thing - we were up and around at 6:00), we were back at it. We were hurried along by some very ominous looking storm clouds complete with thunder and lightning. We would celebrate the rain, but we also wanted to get this job done!
The combination of plow and box blade worked fantastically well. It took about 5-6 hours on the tractor to get the stie leveled with several rounds fo swapping between the 2 implements. We learned several key things during this effort including:
- How not to kill the tractor when it bogs down
-That our soil is AWESOME for the top 4-6 inches
- That we need a stronger block to hold up the box blade (see picture)
We had a lot of fun Saturday too. Friends of ours, Jessi Asmussen and Kevin Prather, and their little boy Elliot visited in teh morning and we all took a walk around the farm. It was wonderful to spend time together!
The kids and I got to be weights on the box blade to help it dig in a little deeper which was fun. The kids particularly enjoyed this job.
While Jeremy ran the tractor, I set up a new, larger pen for the goats. We're upgrading them to a 16'x32' pen so that we won't have to move them as often and so that they'll have mor eroom to run around. Setting T posts is a really good shoulder workout, in case you're wondering!
We finished up about 6:00 PM, broke camp and we were home about 7:00. We were all hot, sweaty and glad to have the job done!
Sunday, we went to the pool (in case you're thinking we really do just work all the time). Ahhhhhh.
No comments:
Post a Comment