The blessings of proper tools

With the winter being as mild as it's been, I've actually had the opportunity to get some pre-season garden work done.

A lot of this is simply clean-up work I should have done last fall, but didn't get around to; things like weeding the beds and raking up leaves.

One of the things I wanted to get done before spring planting was to apply a generous layer of compost on each bed. In October when I harvested potatoes, the task took longer than I would have liked simply because the soil was more clay-y than anticipated and digging was hard work. Additional compost (and some sand) will help alleviate that issue.

Thanks to the diligent efforts of the cows, we have no shortage of compost. The trouble is our property is almost entirely sloped, and the compost needed to be moved from down there...

...to up here.

The difference may not look like much until you're pushing a wheelbarrow filled with about 75 lbs. of compost a hundred yards uphill with an elevation change of about 20 feet. Trust me, as I figured out last fall when I put compost on the two garlic beds, it's exhausting work.

I needed to add at least two wheelbarrows' worth of compost to 30+ beds. Sixty trips pushing that heavy wheelbarrow uphill. No wonder I put it off.

Then Don stepped in and saved the day by offering to move some compost into the garden with the tractor. God bless my husband.

The garden is long and narrow. When we fenced it last year, we did so with the understanding that we would need to remove sections of fencing from time to time (such as now).

I started by clipping the hog rings holding the deer netting to the cattle panels.

Leaving the deer netting dangling from the overhead wire, I peeled back the cattle panel to open up a section of the fence.

Meanwhile, using the tractor, Don started scooping up bucket-loads of compost and bringing it around the perimeter of the property to the garden. (In a perfect world, the barn, compost pile, and garden would be cozily clustered together, making this an easy process. We do not live in a perfect world, so using the tractor to move compost means a bit of a drive for each load.)

Altogether he was able to move six bucket-loads of compost for me (for starters), which amounts to hundreds of pounds of this "black gold."

When he was finished, I moved the fencing back into place and started filling the wheelbarrow. Because I was moving on relatively flat ground for a much shorter distance, I could fill the wheelbarrow fuller, to perhaps 100 lbs. or so.

Then I trundled it over to various beds and dumped it. A thousand percent easier than shoving the wheelbarrow uphill.

It goes without saying that the tractor has saved us immeasurable work over the years, ever since we bought it back in 2015.

This force multiplier is one of the best tools we ever acquired, and as we get older, it gets even more valuable.

I tell ya, the blessings of having the proper tools on a homestead.