Fertilizing the hayfield

Today's work was to fertilize the hayfield.  I usually do this every three years.  This time it was four years apart.   The hayfield's yield has been going down a little each year.  Time to fertilize.  I waited four years this time as I still had extra hay last year.

I made an appointment to fertilize today.  That is because I also need to rent their smaller trailer to haul the fertilizer.   No sense owning a trailer when I only need it every three or four years.

I showed up this morning and they said the appointment was for tomorrow.  No....  we talked about this on Friday when I made the appointment in person for Wednesday morning.  Oh yeh, you're right. We put the wrong date in.  But we already committed the trailer to another person. They will pick it up at 3 pm.  It was 9:30 am now and I told them that I will be done fertilizing before 3 pm.  It only takes me two to three hours to drive around spreading the fertilizer.  So they rented the trailer to me.

I got the trailer loaded and out of there before 10 am.  I got the trailer back to them around noon.

When I fertilized two times ago the trailer had a second lever moved to another position.   It fertilized twice as fast and I only got half the hayfield fertilized.  They found the problem, fixed it and gave me enough fertilizer for me to finish the field.  Now every time I rent the trailer I have them double check the levers to make sure everything is correct as I rarely use the trailer and am no expert.  We saw the second lever was tied in the correct spot and no one can move that lever.  He adjusted the main lever to the correct spot for my field.

So around and around I went.  I order one acre more of fertilizer in case my spacing is off.  The trailer throws the fertilizer 10 feet to each side of the trailer.  I would imagine that is based on how fast one drives.  I still had fertilizer left once I drove around the hayfield.  So I drove some more looking at the wheel tracks in the grass to see if there were wider areas between tracks.  I think the entire field is now fertilized.

This was a good day to fertilize.  Yesterday was a beautiful day.  Dry, 70 degrees, little wind.  Today was cold with a high temperature in the mid-40s.  Cloudy with sprinkles.  Later a few snowflakes.  Moisture is good.   Since my hayfield is alfalfa and grass I had four varieties of fertilizer mixed together.  I was told for one of the fertilizers, moisture as soon as possible was ideal.  Without moisture up to 40% of that fertilizer would evaporate and disappear in days.  So that also was why I wanted to fertilize today.  The day of the week we would most likely get some moisture.

The wind picked up once I was done.  A strong cold front moved through today bringing high winds.  As I had gotten up from bed early for me, and it was now cold with strong winds, I went back to bed in the afternoon.  Rascal was happy as he had someone to lay against most of the afternoon.

Loading the fertilizer.  We completely filled the small trailer.

Next time I need to remember to flip over the hitch attachment on the pickup to make it higher.  With the trailer full the trailer's hitch was just above ground level.  Some of the roads are unlevel and at times I could hear the trailer's pin strike the ground.  An empty trailer - things were fine.

Fertilizer up close.  This was when I checked how much was left after I went around the hayfield one time.

As I said earlier the wind picked up strong once I was done spreading the fertilizer.   This view was during the drive back to the fertilizer place.

Now to see how much extra hay I get this year.