Monday: We Use Our Manure Spreader

We are so loving our life with our friends these days, I've suspected for some time that dairying is not really the wave of the future for us. As if Phil (or I) wants to leave our friends' house to go home and milk our unproductive cows.

Happily, Phil came to that today, too. If he milks every 36 hours, that's probably okay. It makes our variable life reasonable. We only need a gallon or so of milk anyway.

Ironically, if we switch our herd to primarily beef, the cow that moves from the bottom of the list to the top: Fern. She has beautiful conformation and she gives birth annually without difficulty. If we don't have to deal with trying to milk, she's a fine cow.

Poor Phil. Keep the cow that's a pill.

In the afternoon, he brought down our new manure spreader and started to build a compost pile. He uses the tractor bucket to scoop us the matted hay and manure, puts it in the manure spreader, then drives the manure spreader over to the side of the field and spins it out. The material comes out uniformly light and airy.

He got through several loads before dark.

We were overjoyed by how easily it transformed our deeply matted compost into fluffy, airy material.