Oh, its so nice to have relatively warmer weather. Temperatures are in the 30's and 40's now and I certainly will not complain about that, considering that we had subzero readings only a few weeks ago.
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This morning there were a handful of letters to mail, including a birthday card in a pink envelope to my daughter-in-law, whose birthday is on Valentine's Day. Cool, eh!
Hark, over yonder......what's that sound? And......that smell??
Ah, yes......its Husband taking advantage of still-frozen fields to haul cow manure which has piled up in the barnyard over the winter. If you're a livestock farmer, that's what you're busy at right now.......hurriedly flinging poop before the fields get too soft to drive on.*
Look, Jane, look.
See poop fly!
You have to fill the manure spreader somehow. Pitchforks would take forever and you'd be exhausted long before the job was done. Husband used the Bobcat this morning.
Enjoy this lovely scene.....pleasantly odorless to you blog readers. Its a pile of straw and manure mixed together, steaming and steeping in the morning sunshine. The beauty is that it makes great fertilizer!
*That's what's happening on the farm today, in case you wanted to know. If you didn't want to know, well......too bad......surf away quickly.
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9 comments:
You may not believe this, but I love the smell of manure! To me it smells like plasticine - so it takes me back to happy childhood days, I guess.
Kat
Brown gold!
As the Major famously said,"Ah the smell of Napalm in the morning..." I feel the same way about a pile of the steamy stuff! We miss it here in the "Burbs" mostly, except me and the gardener were out banking the rose bushes in manure just today.
Congrats on Sky Watch as well!
Poetikat,
I believe you. There is manure and then there is MANURE, though. The smell of dairy cow manure is hardly unpleasant....they eat alot of hay and silage. The steers who are fattened on corn produce worse-smelling manure. The very worst, in my opinion, is hog confinement manure.....ugh.....we have two confinements within a mile of us and when the wind is right, the smell is very strong and unpleasant.
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Gail,
That's a great description!
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Reamus,
Well, good for you to be working with manure also on this day. I do not have a green thumb for roses.
Being an old farm woman, I can almost smell this. I'm not fond of the smell of any kind of MANURE!
I like your big Allis tractor! That is one good sized tractor and I am sure it gets a good work out! In the traditional red versus green battle of machinery, I have always liked Allis and New Holland and Case (before they went with IH) and Ford (before they became part of New Holland) and so on. I always felt more connected to those than the Big Two! Heh!
A good friend of mine down the road got rid of his green tractor and went with blue a few years ago. He loves his new blue tractor!
He told me a lot of his friends at the coffee shop gave him a hard time for going blue, but he gets the last laugh when he goes to the bank...!!
Take care.
Oh it brings back memories. With a father being a preacher in farming communities we did not live on a farm but all our friends did. I remember getting on the back of the manure spreader and shovelling those last 'bits' towards the end so they could get caught up and tossed up in the air. Yep. And now, living in the country but working in the city, I purposefully take the country roads into work to bring back those memories...many triggered by the rich smell of farming..thanks for sharing. Great pics!
Wow, free manure. I never thought about that aspect of dairy farming. I've threatened to go get horse manure from local stables for my garden, but Michael freaked out at the idea. So I only use the composted kind. Sigh.
Hi, Gramma Ann,
Oh, but wouldn't it just round out this post if a sample of the smell accompanied it. Like those little perfume samples in magazines....
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Hi, Russell,
I can tell you grew up on a dairy farm by the machinery brands you are partial to. Farmers can get quite color-conscious about their machinery. My husband would probably rather die than buy a green tractor (although we do have an old John Deere). He thinks the Allis tractors fit better with our style of farming and they're more affordable.
I enjoy driving past implement dealerships and seeing the rows of bright-colored machinery.
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Hi, Trish,
You were a VERY kind friend, to help pitch the "bits" out of the manure spreader. Bless your heart! That's nice you can drive country roads to work.
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Hi, Ruth,
For our garden we use the older, compost type manure that collects under the feed bunk where the cows eat. It blends in much better than fresh manure, so you're doing the right thing by using the composted kind.
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