Spent a few hours harrowing the cattle pasture on this beautiful sunny spring day. Saw the first crocus of spring, not visible in this picture though. This old prairie wool is unbroken land that has never seen the plough, or any other tillage for that matter. Its undisturbed since the days when the bison roamed here. Only my cattle and a few gophers to disturb the surface. That old threshing machine in the background is from my grandfather's time. Its just an ornament now. A handy back scratcher for the cattle too. Fields are still muddy but it won't be long before spring planting begins. Today was just a warm-up.
"Spent a few hours harrowing..." I always liked running the harrow. Seems the weather was always fair and the spike tooth harrow didn't put any demands on the '37 JDA or the '49 WD Allis. Got to kite right along in third or fourth gear. Don't think I ever got stuck harrowing, or broke down. Did occasionally snag some old pieces of baling wire, bits of 1x6 the pigs had ripped off the A-frames and other artifacts.
ReplyDeleteYes, harrowing was where my Dad started me on field work and it was a relatively simple job. Still, that big 30 foot drawbar was hard to judge distances for a new kid on the job and I did have an encounter with a poplar tree which left a bit of a bend in the harrowbar. Today's work was relaxed driving due to the many gopher holes to bounce through. Speeds in the 3 mph range were the order of the day.
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