Later Fall Field Work

Reynald is doing some "landscaping" with a bulldozer and the grader and I am working on running the subsoiler.  Both projects take patience.  There is no rushing with either operation.  Here's what I look at every day.  I'll try to get a few photos of Reynald's project before he finishes so you can see what he is up to!

Every day I fuel my tractor.  It's a good time for the tractor to warm up before starting in on a long day of hard work.

So these round wheels, called coulters, slice the soil, so that the shank behind will go in to the ground a bit easier.  The shank is going in to the ground about 14" deep.  The round wheels behind slightly pack down the ridge left by the shank.

And this is what I look at all day long!  

No work today in the fields.  It rained almost an inch last night!  No one is complaining!  It's so wonderful to have the soil replenished with the much needed moisture.

We used the break to do a little transit work where Reynald is landscaping.  Sure enough, his eye is true and he has leveled and graded the land so that the water will run in a very slight depression, hopefully without cutting a new ditch.  He's spent so much time this past week working on this project.  It will take most of the upcoming week to finish, but it will all be worth the time and the effort when it's finished,

Tools of the trade.  Reynald rented a wonderful D5 Caterpillar bulldozer which he loves and wants to keep.  In the background you can see Gertie the Grader, which belongs to our farm.

This shows a little bit about what he is doing.  You can see the ditch behind, yet to be repaired.

And this is what it looks like when he is finished with the repair work.  

At the end of two of the really deep ditches, is this dam that my dad put in years ago, because the land that we farm is below this dam.  The land that is being repaired, is above this dam.  

Today we made the dam a little bit higher with these boards.  The cement is still in good repair, we just wanted to add to it a little bit.

A different ditch that Reynald has fixed, than the one pictured above.  

And this is a different view of the ditch repair.  You can see more work has been done, with a side ditch that comes in to the big ditch, and a rocky side hill that he pushed some extra soil on to, so that we can farm through it.

All this work will make this field more efficient to farm and hopefully more productive.  Doing this kind of work requires skill that not every farmer posses,  I'm very happy doing my fall field project, while Reynald works on this one!  He hopes to finish by the end of this week, weather permitting.