the way isn't always clear!

Pause to Reflect

     The last couple of days have given me some reason to sit back and ask what all of this is for. Why should I try and devote all my resources to pursue what? Not asking for sympathy or even an understanding on your part as I hardly understand myself. Instead I take one obstacle after the next, and fight one fire after another, and just plug along like an old horse on a dusty trail to nowhere. The trail does lead somewhere, its end isn’t exactly clear but it is up ahead where I truly want to be, and where destiny will finally show me the way to.

     To begin with it all started a month or so ago with all this rain on the cycle it was on where, I couldn’t tie more two days of sunshine together to be able to dry it enough to make hay. This was ok I guess, as I always have other things to do and was able to keep busy. But even before that I had waterline problems and that set me back for the year with a lot of projects I had planned for the summer season, but the hay was rotting in the field waiting for the rain to stop. . This wasn’t all bad as in the end this gave rise to a new solution to my compost problem and actually eased the amount of work I have to do to get the compost I need.

      One rainy day I was watching a video of a hill girl in her bare feet pushing hay along the ground and gathering it to throw on a wagon , and realized I could do the same with the rake and windrow the hay and then take the bucket of the tractor and pile it up in loose piles , while all the time I was wondering why I was baling it, habit I guess . Loose big piles will allow the water to be absorbed as it lies in the field hastening the rotting process allowing it to compost much quicker than it ever will in a bale. In fact I have to tear all these old bales apart to increase their rotting as I am going to need lots of compost. Can use it on bare spots on the farm and it grows things big.

     My next project is to move the raspberries I had planted beside my house and transplant them into a regular row in a field where I can mow on both sides and between two wires to hold the canes up. Hopefully within a couple of years I will be able to start a pick your own of raspberries , red and black, black berries , and dew berries, which all grow here on the farm and are readily available for transplant. I was able to grow raspberries of the black variety up to a quarter size in compost, as well I have had the same happen from the red raspberries but lately they are overcrowded an need to be reset and composted again. This is all good, as I have compost on the hill and an area alongside the lane that will work for my initial start of the grow your own berries.

 

      3 months ago the tractor had a problem with dying out as I drove it around and I finally determined that it was the fuel pump and replaced it. Yesterday after raking hay that had been rained on, I brought the tractor to the house, and let it sit overnight, and when I climbed on it yesterday and tried to start it, it wouldn’t turn over, it had a hole in the fuel pump and drained the fuel tank into the crank case and the pistons had no place to go because they couldn’t push against the oil and fuel oil in the crankcase. I pulled the dipstick and oil shot out of the dipstick hole. We drained the crankcase and pulled the fuel pump and could visibly see the hole in the diaphragm of the pump. Anyhow we were able to turn the tractor over, the diesel shouldn’t hurt the crankcase and at most may cause a little oil use as it will clean the seals a little too well.

     Before that last week, it was tires as I had front tire blow as they are getting old. The tractor is ten years old but I only have 1600 hrs. on it, which isn’t that much, but instead just broke in good. The tires still had a lot of tread but because I had accidentally drove over some obstacles that required me to put boots over the holes in the tires weakening them. Eventually they required tubes and then the tires weakened to the point I was going to have a major blowout as I did, so I decided to replace the front tires and bought 2 new ones as part of a renewal process. Hoping the rear tires go one at a time as they are 600 apiece. Front tires were 200 apiece. Not bad if you are loaded with money. Not really the case for me. Now then another 68 dollars for a fuel pump and 30 dollars for oil just to keep the tractor going.

     On top of that I have had a coon problem and it managed to take 3 of my chickens right out of the chicken house forcing me to tighten up their security and for extra effort I left Babe out all night, as I don’t only have chickens but baby ducks as well and we started out with 8 and are down to 7 on one duck. The other duck beside my house hasn’t finished setting on her nest and from the smell of things, I think her nest may be rotten but she still sits on them. One egg I saw in the nest looked like it was developing so who knows maybe she will still produce some babies. Hope it is soon, really 

stinks.

       So no hay or plenty of hay as is actually the case and no way of picking it up or doping anything with it for a few days. Good thing I was going to let it rot anyhow, because that is what it is doing. My chickens are dwindling just when they are about laying size, ducks are doing ok and the sun is now baking everything in the greenhouse making me watch the water more carefully. There are times when you want to give up, but then what would I do. Sit around and obsess about small stuff, and slowly work myself into early Alzheimer’s. If keeping the mind active to avoid Alzheimer’s and early onset senility is any way to do it then surely farming is the way for me. But then again I have to be crazy to worry about all this when others are sitting around watching TV in their underwear, doing nothing.