After the local excavators gimped out on our plan to terrace the crater, Flora came up with a scheme to hand-rake some check-dikes into it on contour. I pitched it to Mr. Universe, and he was like, "so let it be written, so let it be done."
Here's Ms. Flora showing me how it's done. (Ain't she something? I love a woman in boots.) Of course Mr. Universe has a laser level, we used it to mark the contours and got faster with it as we went along.
We raked five dikes about five inches high - the lower two separated by about 8-9 inches and the upper three separated by about a foot. Over 1000 linear feet altogether, which took the two of us most of the day.
Meanwhile, Jolson took back Old MacDonald's manure spreader and rented his chisel plow, which we're going to use to decompact the west field.
It's set up to plow about ten feet wide, and has three rows of chisels plus a drag rake. Training day: I practiced with it in front of the shop. Redbeard said I looked good driving the tractor. (Mental note: bust chops on Redbeard mercilessly in the blog.)
I found I could chisel about eight or nine inches deep before the tractor ran out of traction.
It was fun chatting with Old MacDonald. He knows a lot about the local geography and who done what to where. He was like, "yah, you've got a job to do over there - they planted corn every year there until it basically wore out." He likes our Ford 8000 tractor "that's some good horse."
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