Homesteadin': Sterling Day 10

This morning I went to Mark Dunbar's farm again for tractor school. The class is only 4 people, me, Greg, Erika, and Natasha, so we all get plenty of driving time. Mark was busy milking cows so his son John taught the class. Today we towed an angled rake over a recently mowed pasture that is ground-driven (operates off the wheels turning instead of a drive shaft). The Dunbar's 60 dairy cows had more than enough pasture to graze so they decided to mow the extra pasture, run the rake on it to get the sod into rows, and then run the rows with the baler to collect the surplus hay to store for winter when grazing is impossible. Cutting the pasture now also gives it plenty of time to grow back to feeding height so it will be ready later in the summer when the current pasture is grazed down. It's a beautiful day and the farm is surrounded by kickass mountain views so tractor school might be the best class I'm taking, especially since there's exactly zero homework.

An important thing I learned again today is that things don't always go as planned. As we were raking the pasture Mark's son John looked up and noticed there was a herd of his cows leisurely walking down the road towards us. "Oh boy, this is not good." Apparently the cows busted through the single wire electric fence. It had been turned off to save power hoping the placebo effect would work. It did for a while. We spent the next hour rounding up cows and fixing sections of fence which ended up being some good experience in and of itself. At the end of class john brought us down to his house for some raw milk straight from the cows. It basically tastes like melted ice cream. I will be drinking whole milk from now on.

After lunch Tim the director of advancement and Stuart the farm manager asked me to go swimming up the road at a pond that Tim owns. I was going to do some homework so I initially declined but then realized, why not! The homework can wait. So glad I went. When or where else can I just up and decide to take a dip in the middle of nowhere.

I had farm chores in the afternoon. I mucked out 3 more pens of layered hay. I achieved a new definition of dirty and got a great workout in the process. Mucking is some good work.

Erika driving the John Deere with rake implement