October cleanups

It is time to take down the garden fences, and repair the fences that the sheep broke through last month. The horses are closed in at night now. The are put out to the paddock each morning, and get out to the pasture every afternoon. Bruce and I have a new manure spreader, which clogs up miserably. We had mixed the manure with lime, and spread it as best we could in the field, at least on part of the field, just beyond the horse pasture. The lime does pretty well at promoting grass growth, as we have done it a few years now. This is the first try at using horse manure. The horses never eat the green grass growing near their manure. I was given a nice agricultural book, written by Eliot Coleman, called The New Organic Grower. His advice is to put back into the ground what we remove. At his first farm he said he was lucky enough to have a farm with horses down the street, and the manure thing really helps. Our fields were cleared probably 200 years ago. I feel an obligation to maintain them by mowing them, but I would be so happy to fight the weeds and let the grass dominate.

So much for that. We stacked 3 cords of wood and there is more from the logging that will heat our home this winter. Our logging man has made some nice horse trails, as he promised. With a little work, we might be back to riding the long trail out back. For now, the short trail came out really nice.

For the Sheep, Alice will go visit our friend who has a nice Ram, for three weeks, then return. Audrey and Coconut will be visiting with Fred, so 3 ewes will give us a few lambs in the spring.