Harrowing, part 1

A month ago I started harrowing my hayfield and pastures.  I had to harrow the NE pasture before I put up the temporary corral panels to make the extended corral as the panels would then block my harrow from reaching the north pasture and beyond.

I then harrowed the hayfield.

After I harrowed the hayfield April 19.

The hayfield on May 12.  The grass is growing.  It is even taller today.

Last November, the first week, we had that wet snow which broke many evergreen tree branches, mostly on the north side of a number of trees.  I had cleaned most the north pasture branches last November before more snow came and put a stop to the cleaning.  This Spring I finished the cleaning in the north pasture.  Then I was able to harrow the north pasture.

Then on to the middle pasture.  I had a lot of branches to clean up.  I ended up with eight pickup loads of branches to dump in lows areas where I don't harrow.

Then I ended up with two pickup loads of branches I will cut up for firewood.   I hadn't gotten my new chainsaw chain yet, so you can see how I had to haul these branches off to pile them in the NE pasture for later cutting.

A number of branches were long.  I measured one branch at being 20 feet long.

You can see where some branches came from.  These branches remained on this tree.  Branches above these branches had broken off.

Once the branches were cleaned up in the middle pasture, I had to move the metal cattle feeder in the middle pasture to a spot among the trees I don't harrow.  I had the bucket on the tractor and not the bale spear, so it was harder to tip the feeder up so I could roll it to a spot in the trees.  The rain didn't help.

I had the bucket on the tractor because I wanted to move some dirt to fill in some low spots in the pasture.  Eight or so.  These low spots were spots where I had removed tree stumps the past years.  Between the soil settling when I re-filled the dirt back in the hole after removing the stumps, and the cattle using the loose dirt to rub in and throw on their backs, the spots were now an annoying drop - like a bad pothole - when driving the tractor in the field.

These dirt circles were where I had the metal feeder to feed the cattle last Fall/Winter when the ground was wet and not frozen.  The cattle's hooves disturb the wet ground around the feeder as they eat.  That is why you don't see disturbed ground every location I had a feeder.

When I harrowed the north pasture two geese would walk around and away as I harrowed before getting tired of doing so and flying off.   In the middle pasture only the male goose waked around and around before flying off.  The female goose was sitting on the nest next to the river.

Between cleaning up the branches, and then a few days of harrowing, it took a while before I was done with the middle pasture.