Smoke, Fire and Sod-Busting

What a busy weekend!  On Saturday, along with the clean-up both inside and outside and the "farm work" we've been doing, Neta's cousin, Dawn, came by to pick up an old sewing machine from the farm house.  Then Neta's uncle, Donald, stopped by in the afternoon and we gave him a tour of our progress so far.  I also did some more bush-hogging between the planted pines.  Neta's dad, Terrell, has been busy clearing bushes and small trees from around the little pond.

We've been waiting for a reasonably calm day, wind-wise, to burn all of the overgrowth around the little pond and on the hill in the middle of the pond.  Sunday turned out to be the day.  I called Terrell and told him I was coming over, then applied online for my burn permit.  With the permit number in hand I headed to the farm.

Terrell and I started off trying to burn off the cut grass that had accumulated in the front field, but it was still a bit too damp at 10am, so off we went to the edge of the pond.  Those weeds and grass started burning pretty well, albeit nice and slow, so as not to be a danger to surrounding areas.

Burning off the dry weeds around the small pond.

Perfectly contained

Terrell followed the burn around the edge, while I followed it onto the land in the middle of the pond.  It's a horseshoe-shaped pond, with this little hill/peninsula that the pond bends around.  There were still some swampy areas at the bottom of the hill and a lot of blackberry brambles and green undergrowth, so not all of it burned.

The fire slowly burned around the base of the hill and up to and over the hill where the tall pine is in the center.

Sometimes the fire moved into an area of dry weeds and took off causing me to quickly rake up a fire break, but most times it just slowly burned along in the low, dry grass.  At one point I looked out into the field and saw it was finally burning.  I thought Terrell had gone back to it, but after checking with him he said he hadn't.  The sun had dried out the grass enough it had finally caught.  We'd surrounded it with wide areas that we'd mowed down to the dirt and it burned low and slow enough not to spread.

Beats hand-cutting

It took us about 2 hours to get the hill and surrounding area burned, though it didn't all burn.  Some areas were still too wet or the vegetation was still too green.  At one point, a formation of Marine V-22 Ospreys flew overhead.

Our farm is neither the Halls of Montezuma nor the Shores of Tripoli.

Neta and Robert showed up in the afternoon.  They burned up a pile of brush and other junk that has been accumulating on the farm for some time, while Terrell burned off the dry grass in the rest of the field.

The results of our "scorched earth policy".

While the rest of the fields burned, I got started on plowing the part of the field that we'd burned earlier in the day.  I promised Neta a garden this summer and I intended to make good on that promise.  We'd marked off an area of the field next to the small barn for our upcoming vegetable garden.

There is an old plow and disc on the farm that I figured would work.  The disc could use some repair work, but it'll suffice.  The plow is a single blade that will cut down to 15 inches deep.  It's also great for making trenches if necessary.  I'd never plowed (or used a disc) before, but I have watched some YouTube videos on how to plow a field.  Yes, there are instructional videos for that!  I hooked up the plow and it was time to make my first pass.

It's just dropping the plow at the point you want to start and going forward.

My first pass.

I wasn't drinking.  I was compensating for the curvature of the earth!

"Terrell and I confer over whether a straight furrow is really all that necessary."

Here is how the field looked after plowing.

Step 1 complete.  Step 2 about to proceed.

From another angle.  The last row (on right) is straight.  Not bad for a rookie.

I can honestly say that plowing wasn't as easy as the video made it out to be.  Who knew?  Actually it wasn't too bad.  But I can use some practice.

Aside from the curved first row, each subsequent row requires that you drive with the right tire of the tractor in the furrow you've just created, if you have your plow set exactly right (I didn't).  Keeping it on line was hard.  Some furrows were too skinny in places, too wide in others and some were just right.  When I was finished, it wasn't exactly smooth.  It looked like a scale model of the Rockies.   However, the disc will take care of all of that...right?

Not so fast...

This is a flattering angle, trust me.

There are some high spots and low spots, but overall I'm pretty pleased.

All in all it turned reasonably well.  It still needs some additional disc work, but it's only the end of February.  We're not ready to plant yet.  We're just happy to have this dirt worked up.  It's been years since anything grew in these fields, but as you can see, it's nice dark dirt and we can almost hear it begging to grow something.  We'll keep discing it for a while to keep the weeds and grass from growing until we're ready to plant.

Now then...who's ready for some ripe and juicy tomatoes?