A Fine Day For Spreading It Was

Alayne took this photo of me spreading compost with our manure spreader this afternoon.  It's that time of year, when the compost windrows have finished cooking and curing and can be spread on the pastures.  We have several days worth of spreading to do.  Then we'll start dragging the fields with the chain harrow.  Fall is another way of saying "pasture maintenance."

The compost I was working with today started out as all the manure, bedding and hay we mucked out of the horse stalls last winter and spring.  By now it's a wonderfully earthy, black, crumbly mixture that looks like soil ... and it's ready to be returned to the land.

That's Widget's House on the far left, then Beauty's Barn, and in front of the tractor is Scout's Barn.  Lena's Barn is off to the right, along with some of our run-in sheds.  You can see our cottonwoods have started to lose their fall colors, and we're already bracing for the next blast of cold -- a low of 16 degrees forecast for Wednesday night! 

(Click on photo for larger image.)