More Sheep Manure & Shitake Time

Friday and Saturday (March 19 & 20) were busy farm days which was good because Sunday was rained out.

We have been able to find so much on Craigslist for the farm. So far we have a farm truck (which also is Alex's vehicle for now), a tractor, bush hog, plow, cultivator, tiller, UTV, and free sheep manure. We are buying everything used to save money. The plow, cultivator, utility cart and bush hog all fit on the tractor; which is a Ford 8N. The tiller and utility cart fits behind the UTV.

Friday afternoon we drove around Tennessee and Mississippi picking up the plow, cultivator, utility cart and tiller. We started at 2:30pm and got home finally around 9:30pm.

Saturday Cris and Alex left the house around 7am and headed to the co-op to pick up cover crop seed and to order the culvert for our driveway. Then they headed to Susan's to pick up more manure. Alex helped feed the lambs again and one decided that Alex was his mamma. Bubba (Alex gave him this name) followed Alex everywhere. He would put Bubba in a pen and the lamb would find his way out and next thing you know, Bubba was at Alex's heels. Cris and Alex managed to get 2 large loads of manure and with my help, we got it spread on part of the farm.

While the guys were knee deep in sheep poo, the dogs and I went to the farm and started clearing in the pine tree area of the property. We have about 5 acres of pine trees. It makes such a nice place to walk and hopefully camp in this summer.

Shitake Mushrooms: Our shitake mushroom plugs came in the mail this week. We have 1000 plugs that will need to be hammered into oak trees; so we cut down a few trees on the farm and brought them home. The trees were cut into 3 foot sections and need to sit for a week before we start plugging them with the spores. It will take a year before we will have our first harvest.

The tomato plants (in the poo pots) have sprouted, as well as the broccoli. Spring is still come and go here (30 degrees tonight) so planting in the ground will have to wait a little longer.

Cris plans to plant some cover crop next weekend. It will be a mix of fetch, rye grass and clover. This will help improve the soil. We are able to borrow our friend's seeder so that is one piece of equipment we don't have to buy.

Easter weekend will be the barn weekend...... hopefully the weather will cooperate and Cris and I can get alot of the barn finished. The concrete footings will go in next week for the barn.