It's Done !!!

Can't believe the last steps were completed yesterday so now we have a seeded, rolled, raked, de-stoned, de-rooted pasture ready for rain.

This is a shot just before I went around to pick up some of the hundreds of rocks upturned from the rototilling.

Before Rick raked and rolled for the second time.

That's my load (rocks plus roots) and you can see Rick's previous bounty in the background.
Boy, have we got a rock pile now!

Now that the pasture is done I can think about planting.  Donkeys stay away!  (they ate my dianthus last year so I'm replacing them with these red beauties)
A "Keep Out" sign will have to go up.

Sweet Luigi

The boy is starting to shed his fuzzy winter face, a little bit at a time.

Readers, Please Comment

Readers,
Sending you a "please, please, oh please" message.

A new feature through the blog allows me to see how many folks are visiting the donkey site.  Yes, lots :)))) (at least to my standards).
But I'm not receiving comments  :((((
Help turn my frown into a smile, by leaving a little response.

It brightens my day.

Work Continues

Steps 3 and 3 1/2 of previous post are done!  Right on schedule, for a change.  Last weekend was spent moving manure from the "pile" to the pasture.

Yup, four hours of shoveling *#$! into the bucket of the tractor where it got dumped onto the pasture.  At about hour 3 I actually didn't care that my (yuckie and old) tennis shoes were covered with the brown stuff.  

Later in the week Rick spent quite a bit of time spreading it.  He had to change his technique in the middle of things -- particularly true when you're jury-rigging implements.  No, we're not going out to buy the proper equipment for this one-time project.



You can see from the picture what a good job we did of killing the weeds -- gone!

Rototilling guy is supposed to come Monday -- please, don't let the weather screw things up again!

Pasture Project Hits Snags

We've got some catching up to do with the pasture overhaul.  Weather conditions have caused major delays and I'm getting very anxious.  We have 7 steps and we've only completed 2.  Woe is me!

Step 1:  remove dead/unneeded shrubs
Step 2:  remove weeds (which in our case means most of the pasture)
Step 3:  spread manure
Step 3 1/2:  fertilize
Step 4:  till
Step 5:  compact soil
Step 6:  sow seed
Step 7:  rake

Holy crikies we've got a lot left to do.

Who would have thought it would be so hard to find a local farmer to till.  I think I've spoken with everyone in our community and beyond.   Would you believe the only person we've found (and you betcha we booked him) is about an hour away.  Everyone else I called either 1) didn't call back, 2) said our pasture is too small for their equipment or 3) just said we don't do that.

We won't make it by mid-May as had been recommended by MSU Extension Service.  By the way, I highly recommend taking advantage of their services.  The "pasture guy", Phil, has been as nice as a guy can be, spelled out the process for me, and reassured me when I called back with more questions and anxiety oozing through the phone.

We're due to complete steps 3 and 3 1/2 before farmer comes on May 14 and then we have to hustle our bustles to finish 5-7.

Wish us luck, gang!