Thursday, April 23, 2015

Composting

The horses gave up almost any pretenses of eating hay in the pasture about three weeks ago. As it always seems to happen every year, one day they were still eating measurable amounts of hay and then the next day they weren't. Their hay consumption had been gradually declining before it came to an abrupt halt. 

Thus the last round of hay we had put out has been sitting in the hay feeders doing nothing but getting rained on for two to three weeks. Jason spent the last couple of days on the tractor removing the hay feeders and cleaning up around them. Once he removes the hay feeders he uses the bucket of the tractor to push all of the old hay in the feeders, as well as the manure that accumulated around the feeders, into compost piles. We'll leave the piles to compost for several months and then spread them for fertilizer.

Jason left one feeder with a fresh bale of hay in each pasture just in case someone decides they want to eat hay. However he fully expects to be adding that hay to the compost piles in a couple of weeks. 

In his downtime Jason has made it his mission in life to find the most basic diesel truck he can that is available for purchase. You will recall our truck's latest annoying but not serious issue was the window that refused to go up all day long . . . and then randomly decided to go up at the end of the day.  Apparently the truck heard us debating the pros and cons of clear plastic vs. a black trash bag to cover the window and cared for neither option. 

Anyway, Jason sends me links to diesel trucks that don't even have automatic windows. I'm going to make a confession here. I didn't realize it was still possible to buy a vehicle with windows that you manually roll up and down. I've never owned one in my lifetime. Apparently there is a high probability of that changing. Maybe Jason is just "window shopping" (gosh I crack myself up)  to make himself feel better.

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Jason making a compost pile




Slinky leading the way (at 40 years young) followed by Duesy


Lightning, Lucky, Remmy and Hesse


Fabrizzio and Walden


Chance and Tony


Leo and Homer


Elfin and Trigger


sunrise


The World's Cutest Fainting Goats; Miss Lyle on the dogloo, Mina on the bucket, and Jo in front


Duesy, O'Reilly and Merlin


Largo and Stormy in the front, Donovan and Clayton in the back


Johnny and Toledo


2 comments:

foffmom said...

40 years young? Amazing.

Mel said...

Wow, your compost pile puts all of mine to shame. ;)

Mel at catesgarden