Mid-morning, Phil went to get the broadcaster for the minerals. The full moon comes, apparently, at 2am on Sunday morning, but I wasn’t sure how long it would take to spread 10 tons of minerals, so we opted for a bit of an early start. And if Friday and Saturday aren’t enough, we can finish on Monday before Phil flies out of town Tuesday morning.
It took a long time for Phil to rent the broadcaster, but he finally pulled in after about 2 ½ hours. It has a large hopper (holds 5000 pounds, I believe) with a conveyor belt on the bottom that conveys minerals to two spinning discs that fling the minerals out. Butch had figured that it could take two or three hours to do our land, but that was with the minerals pre-loaded at the rental place.
Well, it turned out that the shop doesn’t usually rent out the broadcaster unless you use their minerals. But they had not been willing to have me ship minerals to them, so Phil struck a deal: he’d rent the machine for a reasonable set price, and pay for anything that broke. (Apparently what we’re doing, with the lab we chose and the place we ordered our minerals, is all very off the beaten path.)
Phil got started shoveling minerals into the bucket of Butch’s tractor. When full, he’d maneuver the tractor over to dump into the hopper. When he’d shoveled enough, he could use the tractor bucket to lift about the last ¼ of the 3000 pound tote into the hopper (a little break from shoveling—glory!). It took some time.
I spent the time gathering all the pulled stumps with roots from the top acre or so. Butch had graciously pulled some on a day when he “had a free hour,” and they were littered across the land, making a drive a bumpy experience.
I think the first tote was spread after about 2 hours of hard, constant labor. It was 3:45pm, but we had high hopes that, now that we’d worked out the kinks in the system, we’d be faster and more able in the future. We started the second tote.
The shoveling seemed to go a bit better. Phil tried three times to lift the tote into the hopper; twice it was yet too heavy. That was a lot of knot tying and untying. When all 3000 pounds were loaded, he started to broadcast our lower fields. On the first pass, disaster struck.
Our 1-ton dually, the monster truck, the manly truck, the truck that we get complimented on every time we go to buy gas and even get on-the-spot offers to purchase … this amazing machine got stuck. Our clayey soil and steep hill did not offer enough purchase, and the wheels spun out. Phil backed up, but the 2800 pounds in the hopper were not helping. He backed as far as he could without running into a tree. It seemed hopeless.
I suggested putting some cut saplings under the tires (I think you’re supposed to do something like that in a blizzard, but I could be wrong). That didn’t work.
Phil unhooked the broadcaster from the truck, hoping that a different angle would help the truck escape first, and then tow the hopper out at a different angle. Anything to avoid having to shovel out 2800 pounds from the broadcaster. Anything! The truck did indeed get out, but when Phil backed up from a different angle, the truck hitch was now about 12” too high for the hopper’s connector. Argh!
I think Phil was born to be a farmer, though. He said, “I have an idea!” and went and got a sling (a thick piece of webbing, like what window washers might sit in when washing a skyscraper) and a carabiner. They each can pull about 12,000 pounds or more. So he connected the two large machines with the sling and carabiner, and drove right up the slope. But decided he was done trying to broadcast our treacherous lowest slope.
He drove a careful loop around the upper fields until the broadcaster was empty. Now it was after 7pm, and we were done for the day.
Two totes done. Five to go. But we might not do all of them, because I bought for five acres. Now that we have the driveway and the trailers and the garden and a large brush pile, we probably only have about 3.5 acres of cleared and accessible land, so maybe 4 ½ totes will be enough. We will see.
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