Silence, hay season, and garden beds

Cucumber Seedlings

The University of Maine has already started haying its fields.   I still have to grease our hay baler, and George is going to work on the baler's clutch.    These things have to happen before we even take the baler out of the garage.

We've been waiting to turn over the vegetable plots.   Normally I try to do this around mid-May, then do it again around the end of May, then plant.  The gap between the first and second turning allows the winter rye, which has been turned under, to break down.   The second turning wipes out the sprouting weeds that thought they were about to take over the world.

Vegetable Bed #1

This year, we didn't do the "first" turning, because the ground never got dry enough.   So, yesterday, we went to do our one and only turning.   We use our one and only farm tractor, an old Agco Allis 5650.   This is the same tractor that we depend upon to get in the hay.   That would be during the hay season that has already started.

Vegetable Bed #2

George started up the tractor a few days ago, and moved it out of its winter storage space in the sheep barn.  He came in the house and happily announced that the tractor had "started right up". 

Yesterday, we moved the tractor over to the tiller and hooked it up.   I got up in the seat to start the engine.  Silence.   Not even a sputter or a click.

George determined that the problem was an electrical issue.  He checked the fuses and switches, and we pulled lots of things apart.  We couldn't find the problem, and that left the starter motor as a possible culprit.   This was late afternoon on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.  No way to get parts before Tuesday, and even then, might have to order them.

We both stayed calm, and kept nosing around the tractor.   We didn't get it started, but we were great.

The next morning, George climbed up on the tractor and started it.  Just like that.   George says that the brushes in the starter mower may be wearing out and just a bit of moisture, or maybe a shift in angle, got it started.   He is going to order a new starter motor and ignition switch.

We turned over the main vegetable beds today.   We always seem to be the last ones in the area to get our garden going, but we have big, flat, heavy clay beds that take a long time to dry out in the spring.   Last year I didn't get the garden in until the first week in June, but we still did fine.

Tomorrow if it doesn't rain and there is time...maybe I can start some new vegetable beds!  Go Agco Allis!

Another Vegetable Bed Picture