We’ve had a bit of an understanding that there are two parts to our section. The front half that we’ve been looking after and developing. Planting trees, making garden beds, adding some irrigation, regularly mowing, etc. Slowly we can see some progress as the orchard manages to get though the growing season with leaves still on the trees (we’ll worry about not actually getting much of a fruit harvest some other time when we finally get irrigation to the trees), the vege gardens are providing more produce, and the number of weeds in the lawn is slowly diminishing.
And then there’s the back half.
Frankly that back half has been a bit of a disgrace for a while now. Other than fencing it off and occasionally having it chopped for hay, or on one memorable day just running the ride on over it. Oh, I guess there was the welcome alpaca invasion of 2013 too. But really it’s been left pretty much to its own devices for at least the last 8 years, give or take a bit of early sheep grazing. But we didn’t feel too bad, as our neighbour’s property had pretty much the same history.
But all that has just changed. Yesterday our neighbour spent many hours going up and down and round and round his plot on a bloody big tractor that he’d managed to borrow from a mate who’d apparently been given the job of testing it in NZ conditions. And trying to do anything in what passes for soil around here is a pretty good test indeed!
Luckily for us, when he’d just about had enough of going round and round he was still prepared to pop over and go round and round a bit more, just for us.
The pictures don’t really do the size of the machine justice. The front wheels were about my shoulder height, while the back wheels towered over me. Just trying to get to the bottom of the ladder to get up to the cab to have a word was a major stretch! It made pretty short work of the “back five” really. Not Rocks nor stones nor old hay bales made even the smallest difference in travelling speed or engine note. And it provided us all with the nice view normally entitled “watching someone else work” as we cooked and ate our dinner. I did run him out a couple of sausages in bread at one point, just to ease the guilt slightly (and a care package when he left).
And so now we have a ploughed paddock ready for the next stage in its transformation.
Stay tuned!
