Next was a new class called Livestock Systems. We got put into groups to work on a project planning out a farm with animals of our choice that is due at the end of the semester. We have to take into account soil conditions and management strategies, pasture plant species, fence and watering choices, grazing plan, infastructure (summer and winter housing), and compost and manure handling. It will be challenging. A good resource we looked at is http//websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/WebSoilSurvey.aspx. It lets you look up almost any piece of land in the US and get an assessment of it's agricultural uses and other resources.
In the afternoon I drove to Willie's in Greensboro to pick up a straw hat (remedy the sun burning) and some work gloves (remedy the sliced up hands from thorny brush clearing). After that I went back to Mark Dunbar's farm for an individual tractor lab. His farm has been in his family since the late 1700's and has morphed from producing grain to beef cattle to chickens pigs and corn and now has been a dairy farm for the past few decades. He has about 100 dairy cows, mostly Jerseys. The plan was to hook up a seldom used hay tedder to the old Ferguson and test her out. Lesson 1 is that things don't always go as planned. The drive shaft that connects from the tedder to the tractor was bent and would not couple. We drove up the road to handy Tim the mechanic to give her a look. First he tried straightening it with a 20 ton jack press. That failed when it slipped out. Next he stuck it in a vice, hit it with a torch, and bent it straight using a smaller pipe that he put inside. Good as new! We got back and hooked it up (causing me to notice that a tedder is something I never want to get in the way of) only to realize we had two flat tires on the tedder. We were able to fill up one but the other wouldn't hold air (dry rot). Done for the day we were.
Buttercup field on East Craftsbury Road
No comments:
Post a Comment