Prep For A Dry Spell

We are by no means at the end of winter yet, but Mike has already started preparing for the weather to ease from the more than 40 days (and counting) of measurable precipitation.

On his trip into town the other day, he had a ton of organic lime loaded onto the pickup. This is just the first load of at least five that will need to be purchased to ‘sweeten’ up the hayfields and bring the Ph level back to grass growing optimization. Between all the rich, fresh fertilizer we spread from cleaning the barns, and the winter long soaking of the ground during the winter, the soil needs a little boost. Lime is simply limestone ground up into very small chunks that break down naturally in the soil. We prefer not to use chemical fertilizers on our soil and still want to have good hay production and fine grazing areas for the herd.

The bags are 50 pounds each and are just the right size to cut open to fill the small spreader that we attach to the back of the tractor. Each spreader full only carries enough lime for a few rounds in the field so many trips are needed to complete a whole field, but the size and weight of the tractor and spreader combined are light enough do not do much compacting of the soil or sinking in the really wet areas. That is as long as we wait for the fields to firm up after all this rainfall.

While we wait for Mother Nature to decide when we can get into the fields to start spreading the limestone, the pallet of lime will be sitting snugly in the barn across the river where it will stay dry and safe from critters messing with it.

Thank you so much for supporting our stories. We appreciate every reader we have and love it when you spread the word about SchmidlinAngusFarms, fill out the FOLLOW information so you get each story right to your email each day and/or leave comments about the stories. I would also like to take a moment to thank those who click on the icon to do shopping with the affiliate, your clicks give me credit for directing people to their site (clicking on the affiliate icon does not make you purchase, only gets you the their site) and sometimes I get a small commission from your purchases if you do shop, without a cost to you! As always, Prime and special codes work with the icon and you do not have to purchase any item that I promote. Please consider using my link when you do your cyber shopping. Thank you for your support