Sweet revenge

We've been packing and leveling and composting and chiseling the former peanut field in preparation for planting rye. And naturally, Big John needed coddling in the form of a new hydraulic line.

So we put a Case-International red-colored hydraulic line in just because we could. And it felt good.

Now if I could only find my husband . . .

O happy day

Starbucks found.

The carry-all

With the field officially deep broken, we moved our attention to collecting several pieces of recently acquired farm implements. Now we love Craigslist but transporting newly-purchased farm equipment is a wee bit more complicated than a few simple clicks on the Fedex website.

Hence the need for a carry-all. We've also heard it called a camel back. No doubt there are countless other terms for this rather large contraption Nathan introduced me to yesterday.

The carry-all--the red piece of equipment below--hooks to the back of a truck and can pick up wide pieces of machinery, toting them sideways down the highway.

With the carry-all hooked to a truck, you back it over the piece of equipment you want to haul. In this case we were picking up another mole board plow (the green thing), manually hoisting it up so it hangs securely . . . ish . . . for the ride home.

What never ceases to amaze me is (1) that Nathan knows about such things like carry-alls, including how to use them safely and efficiently, and (2) how stinkin long it takes to accomplish what appears to be a simple task.

After one disintegrated tire, two cans of fix-a-flat and an entire day of driving 45 mph back and forth on a foggy highway, we arrived home with the plow.

One implement down, three more to collect. Too bad there aren't any Starbucks out here.

Our winter wonderland today

 

Snow day

I've been getting some (well deserved) flack recently about not posting frequently enough. Thought I'd give a sneak peak as to why. 

Behold the beauty of uploading photos from our small town.

Pretty, isn't it.

The verbal recap for the past few days is that we've received enough snow and below-freezing temperatures to put a halt to much of anything. It will finally climb above freezing today so work resumes.

The cabin-be-fevered among us are so darn thankful. Perhaps the photo uploading gods will be kinder tomorrow.

Deep breaking

Since the completion of harvest, Nathan has been largely focused on deep breaking what was the peanut field. We're using a 49" Towner disc. Yes, you read that correctly--just the discs are 49" in diameter. The contraption as a whole is taller than I am. 

The purpose of deep breaking is threefold: (1) to bring up the clay buried beneath the sand, (2) to loosen the soil and (3) to chop up the roots lingering beneath the surface.

Using Big John to pull the plow, we're getting a depth anywhere between 20 and 24 inches.

It is a slow process and one full of surprises. Take, for example, what the Towner accidently hit as it was plowing away: an old rusted sand fighter (shown below). It seems it was left in the field, forgotten for decades and covered by sand dunes. Until now. Took three guys to dig it out.

Apparently we need to invest in a good metal detector before further plowing.

Happy Thanksgiving from Santa Fe