harrowing

Part of the joy of farming is that for every major action, there are subsequent minor tasks to be done.

For instance, for every field that is fertilized with anhydrous ammonia, it subsequently needs to be harrowed (smoothed out.) Today, it was my turn.

Yes, finally, I got to spend my afternoon, with no kids, by myself, with a radio, 70 feet of harrows and 240 acres to get done. Norm was busy. Dale was running the anhydrous on the next field over. Dad was busy getting the seeding rig ready. Mom was babysitting Char for the afternoon. I got to...um...drive back and forth. Yup, that sounds good.

Yes, it is a boring job. Knew that. There is the slightly stressful part at the end of each run where you have to turn the 70 feet without taking out the landlord's fence (who has been forewarned that it is a lady driver on the tractor) and without putting the harrows through the cab (possible, but improbable given the speed I was allowed to travel.)

Otherwise, it is 20 minutes of trying to drive perfectly straight, overlapping little (35 feet out) and checking gauges. I'd check the harrows themselves, but the window is too yucky with dust. Harrowing makes lots, and it all seemed to end up on my window.

Anyway, everyone helped out, again, today. We really appreciate it. I think we have about 600 acres as of the last anhydrous fill to go, and then we can work on seeding. That's the exciting part. But, if Grandma looks after Char tomorrow, I'll be harrowing again.