Wednesday - May 24, 2006
City Slicker Does Farming...
We went up to Echo Ridge today and did it all...okay, not all. But we started my little grassy area next to the driveway. We rototilled, leveled, limed, fertilized, did pest control and planted grass in my soil.
Pa let me do the tilling. With a tiller. A gas powered tiller. With big teeth. Tilling is hard work. First off, that tiller leans to the right due to its engine being on that side. I'm left-handed. That means my right arm has to do the work. Also, to get the tiller to back up you are supposed to lift it. I'm not tall enough to lift it more than an inch or so off the ground. Pa even set the handles at the lowest setting. This meant that backing up was nearly an exercise in futility. The tiller also requires strength. It's teeth are bent and it digs in the dirt - nothing stops it. Except little old me. The tiller weighs almost as much as me. In a contest of wills, that engine just keeps going and going and going. I had visions of it it taking off across my property dragging me screeching and kicking behind it unable to let go. By the time I'm done doing all the tilling required I'm gonna have pecs like the Governor of California, The Honorable Arnold Schwatzenegger (former bodybuilder). I'd challenge him to a tiller duel, but I wouldn't want to humiliate him.
Here I am tilling.
I'm supposed to be tilling this down to take the high spot out so water will drain downhill. I didn't do too well.
After I finished tilling Pa took the tractor and the box blade and started leveling.
Mom hauls the brush and root snags we chopped up over to the brush burn pile.
Mom uses the tractor to dump her brush load.
Pa decided I needed to learn to level with the tractor and box blade. I got the hang of the shifting okay, but controlling the box blade was a little harder. You have to know the soil well. See the high spots and low spots. Scrape off the high spots and put the dirt in the low spots. Some high spots were left alone as they sloped away from the shed and were naturally occurring watersheds.
Mom and I are using a handheld seed spreader to distribute lime granules and fertilizer to my newly tilled soil.
Mom has a blister from doing all the brush clearing with rake and shovel.
The finished product. This is the view towards the driveway.
This is the view towards the road. The shed is just out of the picture to the left.
YES! The well driller and his rig arrived this evening around 6 pm.
The well will go right here, to the left of the shed.
The purpose of hydraulic lifts on the rig is to raise the bucket to do some low-limb cutting of the trees that may be in the way when the drill starts...and to prevent someone from sneaking in at night and stealing the rig! The well driller told us that someone has to really know what they are doing to set the rig on the ground and drive it away.
Echo is supremely uninterested in the goings on of the crazy humans who dig in the dirt and don't even bury decent bones or food.
Flint takes a nap.
On our way to check out the baby bald eagles nesting in the sycamore tree, this little rabbit was playing in the road. He zipped into the brush before I could take a picture. On the way back home, there he was AGAIN! This time I caught that little bunny with my camera!
This is a rare photo of two bald eagle parents taking a break. Over the years when I visited Mom and Pa before moving here, I'd see Papa Bald Eagle out on this snag by the lake keeping watch over the territory. The sycamore tree where the nest resides is about 1/2 a mile away. FYI, eagles pretty much mate for a season and may return to the same partner for their entire lives. This pair has been nesting here the full 6 years Mom and Pa have been here. Rarely, very rarely do Mama and Papa Bald Eagle leave the nest and scope the territory on the snag TOGETHER. In other years the only time they did this was when the Baby Bald Eagles were ready to leave the nest. Yep, there are two babies. And they will probably be tossed out of the nest in the coming week. We were witness to Mama teaching the babies to fly one year. She literally pushed them out and they had to fly or die. One baby was skimming the earth before he frantically flapped and then sailed on a current and rose into the air. It was absolutely amazing!
City Slicker Does Farming...
We went up to Echo Ridge today and did it all...okay, not all. But we started my little grassy area next to the driveway. We rototilled, leveled, limed, fertilized, did pest control and planted grass in my soil.
Pa let me do the tilling. With a tiller. A gas powered tiller. With big teeth. Tilling is hard work. First off, that tiller leans to the right due to its engine being on that side. I'm left-handed. That means my right arm has to do the work. Also, to get the tiller to back up you are supposed to lift it. I'm not tall enough to lift it more than an inch or so off the ground. Pa even set the handles at the lowest setting. This meant that backing up was nearly an exercise in futility. The tiller also requires strength. It's teeth are bent and it digs in the dirt - nothing stops it. Except little old me. The tiller weighs almost as much as me. In a contest of wills, that engine just keeps going and going and going. I had visions of it it taking off across my property dragging me screeching and kicking behind it unable to let go. By the time I'm done doing all the tilling required I'm gonna have pecs like the Governor of California, The Honorable Arnold Schwatzenegger (former bodybuilder). I'd challenge him to a tiller duel, but I wouldn't want to humiliate him.
Here I am tilling.
I'm supposed to be tilling this down to take the high spot out so water will drain downhill. I didn't do too well.
After I finished tilling Pa took the tractor and the box blade and started leveling.
Mom hauls the brush and root snags we chopped up over to the brush burn pile.
Mom uses the tractor to dump her brush load.
Pa decided I needed to learn to level with the tractor and box blade. I got the hang of the shifting okay, but controlling the box blade was a little harder. You have to know the soil well. See the high spots and low spots. Scrape off the high spots and put the dirt in the low spots. Some high spots were left alone as they sloped away from the shed and were naturally occurring watersheds.
Mom and I are using a handheld seed spreader to distribute lime granules and fertilizer to my newly tilled soil.
Mom has a blister from doing all the brush clearing with rake and shovel.
The finished product. This is the view towards the driveway.
This is the view towards the road. The shed is just out of the picture to the left.
YES! The well driller and his rig arrived this evening around 6 pm.
The well will go right here, to the left of the shed.
The purpose of hydraulic lifts on the rig is to raise the bucket to do some low-limb cutting of the trees that may be in the way when the drill starts...and to prevent someone from sneaking in at night and stealing the rig! The well driller told us that someone has to really know what they are doing to set the rig on the ground and drive it away.
Echo is supremely uninterested in the goings on of the crazy humans who dig in the dirt and don't even bury decent bones or food.
Flint takes a nap.
On our way to check out the baby bald eagles nesting in the sycamore tree, this little rabbit was playing in the road. He zipped into the brush before I could take a picture. On the way back home, there he was AGAIN! This time I caught that little bunny with my camera!
This is a rare photo of two bald eagle parents taking a break. Over the years when I visited Mom and Pa before moving here, I'd see Papa Bald Eagle out on this snag by the lake keeping watch over the territory. The sycamore tree where the nest resides is about 1/2 a mile away. FYI, eagles pretty much mate for a season and may return to the same partner for their entire lives. This pair has been nesting here the full 6 years Mom and Pa have been here. Rarely, very rarely do Mama and Papa Bald Eagle leave the nest and scope the territory on the snag TOGETHER. In other years the only time they did this was when the Baby Bald Eagles were ready to leave the nest. Yep, there are two babies. And they will probably be tossed out of the nest in the coming week. We were witness to Mama teaching the babies to fly one year. She literally pushed them out and they had to fly or die. One baby was skimming the earth before he frantically flapped and then sailed on a current and rose into the air. It was absolutely amazing!
posted by Merry | 3:07 PM
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