Harrowing and fertilizer

Again, it is that time of year.  Time to harrow the hayfield and pastures to break up the cattle manure.  I first was trying to cut up the downed trees in the middle pasture to clean things up and make less to drive around.  But my chainsaw chain gave out.  Sharping the chain anymore was pointless as the chain stretched and was loose on the chainsaw blade.  So I ordered a new chain.

While I waited for the chain to arrive I started the harrow work.  My harrow is in six sections.  Last year when I took the harrow sections apart I fixed the broken sections.   I thought I had fixed all the broken and bent pieces but I missed a few and had to fix it now.   I chain the sections together.  I have the chains stored, so assembling the harrow should take a little under an hour I thought.   Wrong.  I use bolts to attach the chains and where were the bolts?  Why didn't I keep them with the chain pieces?   Because the time spent on fixing the broken harrow pieces, and finding nuts and bolts, it took me three hours to assemble the harrow.

Late Friday afternoon I finally started to harrow.   Because it is getting close to the time I make the extended corral to keep the cattle from the new green grass, and this extended corral blocks my easy access to the NE pasture, I harrowed the NE pasture first.  Then the area in the north pasture where I set up the extended corral, then parts of the corral itself.

Of course last Saturday's snowfall slowed my start of harrowing the hayfield.  By the end of Saturday I had much the hayfield harrowed.   Sunday I finished the hayfield (a little over an hours worth of work) and then started to harrow the south pasture.  By the end of Sunday I had 90% of the south pasture harrowed.

Now today, Monday, the time was right for fertilizing the hayfield.  I wanted the hayfield harrowed before I fertilized it.  If it is raining when or after one fertilizes, it is good.  That is because, apparently, when the fertilizer dissolves less fertilizer evaporates in the air and more goes into the ground.  As long as the rain is not heavy and washes the fertilizer away.  Today it rained lightly off and on.

Donna also wanted part of her field fertilized.  And later this month Donna is going out of town to house-and-horse sit for her daughter while she is on vacation.  I wanted to fertilize Donna's and my field the same day.

The weather forecast today was for very strong winds along with the rain.   The winds were not supposed to be strong until this afternoon.  So I started the fertilizer process after 8 am when the CHS store opened.   I got Donna's fertilizer first as our fields and fertilizers are different.   I finished Donna's field by 10 am.  Then I got my fertilizer.    My field and fertilizer amounts were larger and the fertilizer completely filled the cart.  When CHS filled the fertilizer cart for me some of the fertilizer spilled over the cart's side.  Fertilizer is very expensive now, especially after the Russian invasion into Ukraine, so the CHS employee used a shovel to pick up the fertilizer and toss it back into the cart.

I finished my fertilizer spreading at noon.  Which is good since by 2 pm the strong winds arrived.

Later in the afternoon I saw the cattle near a tree.  I went to look and found a large tree branch broke off in the strong winds and fell on the hayfield fence.  The cattle were checking the branch out.

I was concerned the strong winds would tip another tree over and it wound fall on some cattle.  Andy at CHS said his family lost a cow one year when a tree fell over on the cow and killed it.  I watched off-and-on during the afternoon and considered putting the cattle into the corral and away from the trees.  But by evening the wind died down, so I left the cattle out in the middle pasture.

Over the next few days I will get all the pasture harrowed.  Lots of harrow work in the middle pasture as I had the cattle in it over Winter and there is lots of manure in that pasture.