Before the rains

My goal is to be a well-balanced, healthy, sociable, reliable farmer. I didn't feel I had any of those qualities this past week. Reliable, maybe, but I was stressed the &%*$ out, sick, cagey, and anxious. I needed to spread compost before the second discing and the rain, with enough time to seed. No vineyard manager was available to spread compost except one, who said he'd call on Friday. The only rentable spreader needed equipment insurance that the LLC doesn't hold, so I tried to push the LLC and insurance company to add it to our account. John Gramke said he'd talk to Tyler at Nelson Family Vineyard about borrowing their spreader, but I'd need a tractor which CTTB didn't have available. Which would it be: vineyard management company, spreader with no tractor, or insurance coverage (spreader and tractor). I made calls, waited, made more calls.

In the end, John Gramke said Tyler gave the ok and that John would bring the spreader on his trailer. Mark at CTTB called to say that the tractor was back for the weekend, which I could borrow. It all came together! Pete said he could bring his tractor early so that it would pull the spreader while I use the CTTB front loader tractor to pour in compost.

John showed up with a rented trailer and spreader on Saturday. What a life saver! He showed me how to use the spreader – functions, gears, settings, etc. John also appeased my fear about not getting to cover the seed. With the rain, there might not be enough time to cover the seed using the horses. Seeds need soil contact to germinate. But!, if it rains hard enough to do some earth moving, the seeds should get necessary coverage. I hope this year turns out to be an El Nino one.

The next day Pete came out with a crew to spread, but unfortunately his tractor tire was flat. This meant we had to use the CTTB tractor to pull the spreader and manually shovel compost into the spreader's hopper. At the end of the day, the bolts holding up the grease tank of the spreader's PTO-driven spinner broke. A broken grease tank and a flat tire were on the top of our list of Monday morning fixes.

Now, it's Monday afternoon and the drizzle passes through occasionally. The tractor is back from the shop, the compost is getting spread, and hopefully we'll be able to disc tomorrow morning. I've only had one meal today, but I'm going to get groceries and follow through on a social engagement for tomorrow. Healthy, sociable, and reliable: check. Well-balanced is in the works.