Making progress on the farm checklistMaking progress on the farm checklist

Wow, another week has flown by! There was more ‘bonus’ time for fieldwork this week as several farmers headed back to the fields.

Monday involved some office work before prepping the manure spreader to go out and get dirty. We spread chicken litter the rest of the week. Spreading manure is nobody’s favorite job, but it was time to get at it. We were coming up on our 90-day deadline so our goal was to get manure that had been ‘stockpiled’ at the edge of a field spread. Despite a minor breakdown requiring a sprocket to be overnighted, we got the job done. If it stays fit we will begin running product out of the storage buildings. Due to commercial fertilizer prices, demand for chicken litter has been high this year. We didn’t get as much as we would have liked.

Tuesday, while dad was spreading, I worked to repair a ravine that has slowly been eroding across one of our fields. I hauled in topsoil and filled in areas that were getting deep. I tried to leave ‘speed bumps’ to slow the water down as it runs across the field. I was also able to find a nearby tile and install a riser in the washout to take some of the surface water. Hopefully the dirt stays in place this winter and we can get some grass growing in the spring and make it a permanent waterway.

We also took another swipe at some tillage work. We finished up a field that where we were interrupted earlier, worked a field where we did drainage work, then we chased the manure spreader. I think we are all done with tillage (again)!

Lastly, the co-op was able to get started on spreading some of our lime. All the lime guys have been running hard. It seems 1 out of every 4 or 5 years we get a fall with extended run time. The stockpile at the local quarry has been depleted, so everything is being hauled in from at least 60 miles away. We stopped hauling grain for a couple of days to get some lime. Underground formations around us are mostly sand and river rock, not limestone, thus the trek for lime.