I love the smell of plowed dirt

Yesterday Cliff hooked our 1930's plow up to the tractor and plowed my garden.  First, though, we responded to a Craigslist ad that read, "Gardeners, landscapers!  Horse manure compost FREE!  Very aged.  Will load."

So we took the red pickup and got what I thought was a lot of compost, although it turned out to be about half as much as I needed.  That's OK, next year we'll put some on the other half of the garden... if I'm still gardening then.  Cliff offered to go back and get more, but honestly, shoveling that stuff out of the pickup wore me out!

I didn't have to shovel all the compost out; Cliff had it on a board, and pulled the board out onto the ground with the tractor where he could scoop it up with the bucket on the tractor.

This morning I asked Cliff to get the tiller ready for me, and next thing I knew, he was testing it in the garden, so I went out and took over that job.  I love running the tiller.  I just hold on and keep it going the right direction, and it slowly pulls itself from one side of the garden to the other.  That's Klouse's tale you see in the corner.

You can tell where I tilled.  There are a few big hunks, mostly because some of the compost was still frozen in big pieces.  It'll smooth out before you know it.  I should have cut my shadow out of this picture, but I'm lazy.  That tiller on the other side of the garden stays outside all summer, with that tub over its "innards" when it isn't in use.

The old plow is likely 90 years old.  Cliff had a decent plow, but decided he was too old to plant any crops and sold it.  Then I started whining that I really like my garden plowed before I till it, so he got a reasonably cheap, very old one.  It isn't ideal, but it works well enough to shut up my whining every year.  By the way, genuine farmers striving to make money from their crops don't even use plows any more because they contribute to soil erosion.  

There's the old plow.  It doesn't work right, but it does the job.  Gabe is such a showoff, isn't he?

I hope to get the seeds I'm lacking tomorrow and perhaps get some of them into the soil.  There are lots of seeds that can be put out as soon as the soil can be worked.  One year I had peas up to about five inches tall when we got some snow; it didn't hurt those plants one bit.  Carrots, radishes, cabbage seeds, lettuce:  Cold weather just doesn't seem to hurt them.  

I think Gabe and I will go for a walk next.  I'm loving this weather!