Recycling on the Farm

Welcome home!

Today was beautifully sunny and warm, well, edging towards hot, and I was glad to get home to the farm this afternoon. Lucy came to greet me as soon as I turned into our driveway, the dogs came down after I came in through the gate, and the recently-planted irises still sported a few bright blooms. We are truly blessed to live in this beautiful corner of the world.

After quickly exchanging work clothes for working garb, I headed down to pick the horse pasture. I had let it go a couple of days, so there's plenty of pickin' to be done. It took some minutes, but once the green SmartCart began filling up, filly Janet came by to investigate. Like her dam, Lucy, she understood that I was gathering manure and turned to help. Lifting her tail, she added to my treasure; I was glad to have it land directly on the tines of the muck rake so that tossing it onto the growing pile involved no scooping. Such thoughtful animals.

One little cart can only clear a small corner of this pasture, in one trip.

By the time a small corner of the pasture was clear, the cart was already piled high and I realized that I had better move it while I still could. Of course I had miscalculated and the cart was far more difficult to wangle up the hill and onto the drive than I had expected (although I nearly always make that mistake--you would think I'd learn?). So the brimming barrow that I had intended to haul uphill to the manure pile by the barn, instead formed the first layer of fertilizer on a new lasagna bed.

It appears that irises will line the drive just following the entry gate, and that those overcrowded irises that we planted recently will get thinned out a bit before they even take root. That way I will be able to leave them a couple of years before they begin to encroach upon one another.

Another bed begun.

The new bed began, as I like to begin, with feed bags. (Thanks, Tim Edwards!) The bags have a thin plastic layer between the paper layers which may help to retain moisture a bit and certainly should help to suppress weed growth. I know the plastic breaks down in time, because a bag left out holding trash will lose its base if left too long, but--at once--the plastic lingers for at least a couple of years when smothered in a garden bed. Atop the bags, then, a good double layer of cardboard. And finally the heavy load of manure. Yes, it's fresh, but it will be well down in the bed, not hurting anything--just helping.

That's one of the things I appreciate about this life--the ability to recycle so much right here at home. Feed bags line the gardens that grow grains to feed the animals that convert the feed to fertilizer for gardens. The cycles are continuous and can be counted on to reoccur with regularity.