Mist

Not the mist one might expect at this time of year but the German "Mist" which is muck. Farmer Franz had called in the morning to say he would be coming around late morning to collect our mainly horse muck heap enriched with chicken and geese bedding. In fact there was also a large amount of fresh grass cuttings too as I had mowed out one of the horse fields last night. Generally best if a muck heap is a mixture of "green and brown", grassy material and straw/droppings. Even though not rotted it will provide some food for the thousands of worms which were loaded up and spreaded out on Franz's harvested maize field.

I tried to collect up as many maize cobs as possible as Franz a) doesn't like to waste anything and b) the cobs when ploughed in, in the next few days, make an ideal storage for winter food for the wild boar which then come and dig up the field. Farmers want compensation for the hunters who claim in return that it is the farmers own fault. This particular field is alongside a stream and close to the fores tand has been attacked by beavers, so the hunters claim who are not responsible for beaver damage and deer, which the hunters are responsible for and have to compensate. As this is MrBs hunting patch and we are friends with both parties, will stay out of this!

More of an issue nowadays in farming and particularly in organic circles is the soil compaction caused by heavy equipment particularly when work carried out at unsuitable times. Leads to lack of worms to aerate the soil. Franz had suffered from this this year - last years maize harvest on a wet field led to very noticeably reduced growth this year exactly along the tyre tracks of the heavy harvester.

Had done an early morning "Schickling" walk with the dogs and afternoon did some tightening up of hydraulic pipelines on the digger before starting out on my first project, preparing a 50m long trench for a new hedage. Went OK, managed about 5m in two hours but my inexperience, fear and the rather underweight tractor makes the going difficult. Experience and time will no doubt help speed things up. However in the evening Angie put a stop to my plans, saying first of all we needed to fell at least four,20 odd meter high firs next to the ditch.

Oh and by the way, the roads were jammed with contractors today hauling maize silage. My journey to Ottobeuren took longer than normal behind two JCBs and a Case and a third JCB came in the opposite direction. Rare to see a brace of JCBs in these parts let alone three.