‘Is that you in the tractor’? I texted Farmer Ross.
The big John Deere with its planter boxes had been slowly trolling back and forth around the house for a few hours. ‘Three minutes’, he texted back.
So after a couple or three short minutes I walked out into the field. The ground flat and groomed like a calm sea. My ride was waiting. The big monster motor idling. The early evening was fine and clear and still. The scent of good chemical free earth with more than a hint of hot motor swirled around us. We began our conversation mid sentence like we always do, even after not chatting for months, I climbed the ladder up into the passenger seat of the planter and we settled and rolled around for a bit, the planter drilling lovely organic seed gently into the earth behind us and we talked about stuff.
Now we await germination. This field will be organic field corn. The fields are certified organic this year. And you and I will follow its journey. All through the season. After the harvest we will create a huge field with a bunch of electric fence and let the cows out into the corn field to clean up. We will bale some stalks for bedding. Though the cows just eat it in bed.
It was a lovely gentle time. I love a good ride along.
I have a big trough with a hole in it. (below)
Now it is a planter for zuchinni.
Filled with broken bricks and old compost. I do love container gardening but this is a pretty big container!
We will see. This is very experimental. The roosters may yet make a mess of it.
R and another of her family members comes out to the farm today. We will finish the chook house and begin to catch all these wild chickens.
And then finish the back pen for the new calves. All the water and feed bowls will get a good clean.
Then the young person will wash the totes (and all the associated paraphernalia) in preparation for the chicks (layers, turkeys, ducklings) next week. None of it will be too difficult. It will be a good day.
Go HERE for ten minutes of leaning on the fence watching Jude and FreeBee. Tonight on TkG Take Ten we have the barn swallows – they are delightful. I love it when the swallows come back.
Thank you so much to the thirty Tenners who have subscribed to the Paid portion of our evening ambient farm sounds on Substack. Twenty more to go and I have reached my goal. Your subscriptions paid for bags of apples for the pigs.
And in answer to one of your questions over there – I give Jude aspirin for his limp – I hide the pills in pieces of banana and simply pop them in his mouth.
OK, all the organic corn is in the ground. Yay. Today: Some tidy ups in the barn and the chook house and some more herb planting. It is sunny and wonderful! This will be another great day. I feel like we are making good headway with our summer set up.
And it is Friday!
Tomorrow (Saturday) I open a new sustainable living chat thread for The Tenners and Sunday we have our first free-to-all newsletter since I have been away. (And hopefully we pick up the new three calves this weekend).
See you Monday!
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
20 responses to “Ride along on the Big Tractor”
I can hardly wait for next week and pictures of all the fun and changes you accomplish today and over the weekend. Bananas are a great cover for pills! I suspected you had a clever way to hide them 🙂
Everyone loves bananas. Training pigs to take treats from my hand makes dispensing medications so much easier..
I had to wonder if Tima will see the courgette trough as a food dispenser…
It is a tall cow trough so she won’t be able to reach but I worry that the birds will eat the fruit. We can but try! 😆
I’ve got three growing in a smaller trough on my balcony. No pigs, but plenty of flying birds around. No fruit yet…
fingers crossed!
…and toes 😉
A ride along on a tractor is always fun and relaxing. After my brother died, my dad said the only thing that gave him solace was driving his tractor. Good luck with the zucchini. They need a big planter because they grow fast and huge. I once planted three seeds and when I turned my back, I got about a dozen huge zucchinis! xo
I would love that. We have a resident bug that eats the vine – but it is soil borne so I am hoping the container will result in a few courgette! They are my favorite vegetable.
Mine too. I use it instead of cucumbers (my least favourite vegetable.) I make all kinds of quick and easy things with it and even a mean chocolate cake!
OO a chocolate zuchinni cake sounds delicious. Have you published that recipe on your blog?
No but I should. I’ll send it to you. Super easy and sooo good.
Zucchini Chocolate Cake
Mix – 2 eggs, ½ cup oil, ½ cup soft margarine or butter, ¾ cup sugar (or less)
Beat – then add ½ cup sour milk (or yogurt)
Add – 2 ½ cup flour, 4 tablespoons cocoa, 1 teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon cloves, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, ½ teaspoon baking powder and a pinch of salt.
Beat well
Add – 2 cups grated zucchini, stir
Place in a 9 x 12 pan
Sprinkle with chocolate chips
Bake at 325 degrees F for 40 – 45 minutes
Enjoy!!
I have a delicious zucchini chocolate chip loaf/muffin recipe.
That is quite a machine! My 4-year-old grandson would love it; he owns its version in miniature. I love zucchini-raw, cooked, fried, in bread, etc. Around here it grows so well that it’s a joke that people leave it in unlocked cars and on people’s porches. 🙂
Translation-field corn? For animals and not sweet corn for us to eat?
Yes the corn is for feed. Also we grind it for cornbread and cornmeal etc. .
I am jealous of those pigs—-eating in bed is such a luxury, especially if someone else brings it to you and cleans up afterwards.
I can see how plowing and seeding with a huge machine like would be relaxing. Not only that you have the satisfaction of finishing and being able to actually see the work you’ve done. There! Done! It’s much more satisfying than doing scattershot jobs that don’t add up to a whole thing—you can stand back and really see the extent of your time and effort.
That is true. I never thought of it like that. Often women like us race from one job to the other then finish them in backwards order. I am a shocker for that. Plus sitting with this fellow always leads to some very interesting sitting down discussions, shut in our little bubble in the middle of a field. I have nothing to do but look out the window and watch the soil accept the seed.
Love the tractor ride and the chocolate cake recipe:)
I love riding in big farm machinery. The best one so far has been a cane harvester; you’re 15 feet up in the air, with giant worm screws in front of you gathering the 12 foot canes in to be chopped up and the trash blown out through a hopper behind. A truck rides alongside, and the chopped cane is shot into that.