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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Sunday October 7, 2018

The pup (Deuce) is doing well, and Hooey hasn’t torn his face off yet. 😉

I spent most of the day yesterday doing final prep work and then seeding the 1.8 acre ‘park’ with about 150 pounds of lime, 100 pounds of clover seed, and 50 pounds of Austrian winter peas. Winter cover crop that will add nitrogen to the soil, AND feed the local deer. Win/Win.

After I got the seed spread, my tractor wouldn’t start. I find the positive battery lug completely corroded through. Hmmmmm. I wasn’t about to leave all that seed just sitting on the surface to feed all the #$%^ crows, so I hitched up the drag harrow behind my truck, aired down the tires, and got to it. Worked out pretty well. If my truck wasn’t dirty before (it was!), it certainly needs a bath now. Thankfully, rain clouds are forming!

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Sunday 09/09/18

Woke up to overcast skies, ground fog and cool temps. HOT DAMN. Got the animals up, out and on their way, then fired up the tractor and got back to work plowing the field. First plow furrow, half-way down, I hit a 50-60 pound rock and sheared the plow blade off! AAAHHHGG!

Spent the next few hours running around getting parts and a few new tractor implements (e.g. 5 foot landscaping rake, post hole auger).

Took the opportunity to salvage about 10-12 telephone poles from the neighbor’s property, then got back to work plowing the field.

Got about half of the field plowed, one 18 inch wide furrow at a time. Exhausting work, even just riding on the tractor (for that many hours). If I didn’t have hemorrhoids before, I very well might now.

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Saturday 09/08/18

Another long day working outside.

We mowed the ‘park’ next door, then I decided that with Hurricane Florence forecast to dump about 50″ of rain on us later in the week, it might be a good idea to plow the field under to allow it to absorb more water and shed less water into our neighborhood drainage ditches, which tend to flood my neighbor’s property.

Bought Hooey a whole roasted chicken for being such a good ‘helper’ while I was running the tractor. She’s good about chasing the chickens away from in front of the tractor, cuz those dummies are prone to letting the front wheels get about 3 inches away from them before flittering way. I guess you could say they like to ‘play chicken’ with the tractor.

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Monday 09/03/18 (Pasture Tilling)

Welp, took me awhile but I finally got the PTO drive shaft on the new County Line 4′ 3-point tiller cut down (5.5″ reduction for a Mahindra 1526 tractor) and installed. Perhaps, because this was my absolute first experience with a PTO-driven tractor implement, I struggled more than I should have with the PTO shaft configuration and installation. BUT, now I know what I’m doing, and I still have 10 fingers, so wah-HOO!

Got the ‘big pasture’ tilled under today. Probably need to run the drag harrow over it a few times to smooth it out and filter out a bunch of crab grass clumps, rocks, bricks, etc.

We’ll haver ‘er ready for a fall hay seeding!

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Sunday 09/02/2018

After getting all the animals fed, watered, etc., I hitched up the new County Line Middle Buster plow and went out to test it in what we call the big pasture. The test went so well, I just kept on plowing … all day … and got the whole pasture done.

\I got the new PTO-driven, 3-point hitch mounted tiller assembled, but stumbled on the last step, cutting the PTO drive shaft down to the right length. The instructions SUCK. Later in the evening, I found an awesome instructional video from the fine folks at Everything Attachments (NC), so now (Monday, Labor Day) I know what to do.

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Busy Morning … Monkey Meat Slingin’ and Pasture Grass Over-Seeding

Got up, did all the ‘animal chores’  (feed, water, clean) … then fed Hooey a monkey meat & kibble breakfast …

Next, over-seeded the big pasture with about 10 pounds of grass seed (rye, timothy, fescue x 2), covered it with two trailer loads of green mulch from mowing the ‘park’ yesterday, then raked it in with the drag harrow.  Got it done before 11A and before the temp got up to 85F (will be over 90F today).