Putting Equipment Away - End of Year

After the rush to get everything harvested before the weather changed, there was one final push to get equipment cleaned and put away ahead of the cold and snow.

Dad and I got everything in. I still have to rearrange a few pieces, as well as a day or two of work to get the shed doors working correctly.  Then I'll be busy working outside on the buildings until the poor weather forces me indoors.

This was my fifth year of organic farming. Looking back, it's had a lot of new equipment, new techniques, and new buildings/infrastructure.  Several challenges - leading to frustration - but no real "failures", just enough setbacks to help me learn how to do things better. "Nothing succeeds like failure." I'm looking forward to next year.

It was windy when I shot the following video, so unfortunately the sound quality is occasionally bad.

The following is an exchange I had in the comments section of the above video. I thought it was worth sharing here.

Geiger Farm 7 hours ago (edited)

Those chisel points are worn! I seldom run that deep with the chisel. 8" is about the maximum for me. If you can still walk through the barn, there is plenty of space ;)

Grass Creek Farm @ Turtle Lake

7 hours ago

We got our money's worth out of them. On the clover that we partially terminated this fall we went about 8" deep. On the ground where I have compaction/foxtail we tried to go deeper. We were thinking about renting a ripper - but couldn't find one. So we set the chisel deep. In the 5 yrs that I've owned that ground it hasn't been chisel plowed - there never seems to be enough time to do it. I doubt the previous guy did it either. The pieces that got dug up by the plow were still hard as rocks. Glad we got it done.

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I'm not sure if I've said this here before but I really appreciate Dad/Gramp's (btw, that's him driving the tractor at the top of the blog/website) help and advice. He has been invaluable in getting this venture up and running by doing all kinds of work, from chisel plowing (see above video!) to moving equipment around, to offering his professional advice on business/accounting issues. He told me the other day that he's put something like 19,000 miles on his truck this year, almost all of that is from driving back and forth from Bloomington to Turtle Lake (180 mile round trip). Thanks Dad! I love you xxx, ooo.