How do you spend a glorious fall day? If you’re the Hilberts, you recycle manure!
Huh?
I’ll issue a warning at this point: If you are squeamish or have a weak stomach, you don’t want to read any further or look at the pictures. This is another one of those down-and-dirty farm topics that I tackle head-on. It’s standard procedure on many cattle farms, and why waste all that great fertilizer?
Or, you could pretend I didn’t mention manure, and just tell yourself what you’re seeing in the pictures is mud and hay, which is what it looks like anyway.
Further, in order to avoid risking my General Audience rating, I’ve refrained from making the obvious jokes. This required considerable restraint! The subject matter is “manure” not $#&%.
This is Mt. Manure, elevation 4 feet, 6 inches.
Huh?
I’ll issue a warning at this point: If you are squeamish or have a weak stomach, you don’t want to read any further or look at the pictures. This is another one of those down-and-dirty farm topics that I tackle head-on. It’s standard procedure on many cattle farms, and why waste all that great fertilizer?
Or, you could pretend I didn’t mention manure, and just tell yourself what you’re seeing in the pictures is mud and hay, which is what it looks like anyway.
Further, in order to avoid risking my General Audience rating, I’ve refrained from making the obvious jokes. This required considerable restraint! The subject matter is “manure” not $#&%.
This is Mt. Manure, elevation 4 feet, 6 inches.
Mt. Manure was bladed into existence by Bill in early April from manure, mud and hay that accumulated in the lot where he fed grain and hay to a few cows and the replacement heifers last winter. The combination makes great natural fertilizer for pastures, fields and gardens.
Some of the calves discovered the mountain was a fun playground for games of “King of Mt. Manure.” Others just hung out at the top.
One of the items on Bill’s list of fall tasks was to dismantle the mountain and distribute it wherever he needed fertilizer. This task required two pieces of equipment: the tractor and the manure spreader.
Manure Spreader 101 – A farm implement that distributes manure. It looks like a trailer with a row of large rotating blades on the back end. Our spreader is powered by a power take-off—resembles a drive shaft—from the tractor. The first photo below shows the inside of the spreader. The strips of flat chain linkage on both sides move the apron, the horizontal iron slats, along the floor of the trailer from front to back, carrying the load of manure to the blades where it’s flung out, creating a…um…manure-storm!
Manure Spreader 101 – A farm implement that distributes manure. It looks like a trailer with a row of large rotating blades on the back end. Our spreader is powered by a power take-off—resembles a drive shaft—from the tractor. The first photo below shows the inside of the spreader. The strips of flat chain linkage on both sides move the apron, the horizontal iron slats, along the floor of the trailer from front to back, carrying the load of manure to the blades where it’s flung out, creating a…um…manure-storm!
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The tractor served a dual function: scoop up the totally-organic-no-artificial-additives fertilizer and drop the load into the spreader.
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Once the spreader was full, Bill hooked it up to the tractor and began the distribution phase.
I did a ride-along to get a front-to-back perspective.
This year's Mt. Manure has been fully recycled and the ground bladed level.
Now you know the down-and-dirty of recycling manure!
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