Bob Jones showed up early this morning with his tractor and five decades of farming experience; not sure how much lime I would have spread if either were absent.

spreading lime-1729On a normal farm, the lime supplier would show up with a giant spreader truck to apply the correct amount of lime to the fields.  But at my place, the fellow from Connecticut River Ag came out and told me that there was no hope of running his 10-wheeled spreader truck up and down my hills — the only option was to get a bulk delivery and spread it myself.  The catch is that it’s quite difficult to load lime into the spreader from the big pile with the same tractor that’s pulling the spreader, and that’s the first way that Bob came to my rescue.

 

I was able to focus on driving around the fields without tipping over the tractor rather than constantly unhitching and re-hitching the spreader.

 

We were figuring out a good working rhythm when I managed to get the big tractor stuck in the back field.

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I tried to turn uphill and discovered that the ground was wetter than I expected.  The tractor wheels started spinning, and my half-assed attempts to rescue myself got me wedged at the bottom of the field with no purchase and no room to maneuver.  Bob once again came to my rescue, with tractor and chain.

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With his tractor chained to mine, we were able to get just enough traction to get moving again.

 

By the end of the afternoon, I’d made a single pass on all the fields that were navigable by tractor, but we hadn’t quite used up the mountain of lime, so I’ll add a bit more tomorrow.  I’m not sure if Bob will be around to help, so I’m hoping I’ve learned enough of the relevant lessons to keep myself out of trouble.