Hey, it's the middle of April!!!!
BUT, a couple of weeks ago, the thermometer actually pushed up into the high 50's. OK, it's ...... TIME TO GET THE TRACTOR OUT! Whooooopppppppeeeee! Yeah, baby, fire up that diesel engine.... breathe in them there diesel fumes. AHHHHHHHHHH. Now, how do I get this thing in gear again?????
It has been a while since I drove the tractor, but it's just like riding a bike. You hop back on, and within minutes you are right in a groove. And, believe me, tractor grooves are really really cool! We have an old cart that we hitch up to Mr. White, the Field Boss, to lug around whatever we are lugging. For this first job of the season, I was going to be lugging willow detritus. Willow trees drop branches, twigs, and other willow parts like my cat drops fur when I take her to the vet. ALL OVER. Now, willows are lovely looking trees... how they blow and flow like water in the breeze. Beautiful. BUT, they are among the messiest plants that our good god created. My job, back a couple weeks ago when I thought spring-had-sprung-because-the-temps-were-looking-good, my job was to rake up ALL the willow detritus and haul it over to the burn pile.
That's another rural delight that suburbanites and urbanites don't know that they are missing. Burn Piles. Out here in the sticks, you get to haul all your willow detritus plus other botanical debris to one spot to make one gigantic PILE. You wait for a good day, call it in to the local fire fighting folks, and set it aflame. Youza, now you are in for a Good Time!
So, one tree. You figure maybe an hour or two and one load to the burn pile, and I'll be outta here on to the next task. OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOO. Not with willow trees. Lordy, it took me several hours just to pull that detritus into nice little piles AND it took EIGHT tractor loads. I shot the whole day on that little project. But, working all day with The Field Boss, well, it was a blast!
