Dirt

Now that Thanksgiving is over and my fence is almost strung, my mind keeps escaping off to other places. Oddly enough, today I keep thinking about dirt. I have bad dirt. My most recent hay man told me that because it has just laid fallow for so long, around twenty years, nothing has happened to enrich the soil. It has not been grazed, so it has not been enriched by manure. Because it was in CRP program, it was seeded to the governments recommendations. That was a specific seed mixture and most of it has died out, except the brome. Brome grass apparently is a heavy feeder. So the nutrients have been consumed and the soil never enriched. You can dig down and not even find an earth worm over the majority of the property. After three years of mowing we are just now finding worms in our yard area.

I need manure! I need it now! I need an effective way to to haul it and spread it. Then I need to find a good way to haul my burn barrel ash out to the pasture. Then I need to find a way to come up with the money for seed.... something other then brome. My choice is orchard grass and clover. I have been told by a number of farmers what todays conventional thinking is about forages. Well, conventional thinking has about killed my dirt so I'm just going to do what's best for my place. Besides... I'd rather live with my own mistakes, then someone else's

That is what my brain is up to now. On one side I am knee deep in manure, dirt and grass seed and on the other, I am thinking that it would be nice to get some christmas decorations up. Maybe go ahead and get up the tree. I have some christmas presents I need to be making. A little wrapping. I'd like to do some baking.....

But, boy oh boy, I'd like to get my hands on some manure!