While parasites in farm animals are quite a headache, there are luckily a few ways to manage them. Besides rotating pastures, de-worming and keeping healthy flocks and herds, animals themselves create what we like to call a 'zone of repugnancy' around their own manure (you'll notice this if you ever drive by a field that has been grazed and there are lots of tufts of beautiful grass that have been left behind). Naturally, many jokes have ensued since it's an amusing topic.
To counteract these 'zones', we harrow them which is basically dragging a huge metal rake across the whole pasture to spread everything out. Strangely, my lacrosse stick is from a company named Harrow.
Harrowing is incredibly fun and we got a chance to do it both on the tractor and with our team of horses, April and Ruby. Theo and I helped Olivier harness them and attach the driving seats. Riding behind horses is akin to being on a roller coaster and harrowing a sloped field with them is as good as a trip to Six Flags (without the dippin dots, cotton candy and 64 oz. sodas).
After the horses were done for the day and back in the barn, we took the tractor out to finish. Earlier in the day we turned two manure piles and added the contents of the chicken coop to the newer one. I'm getting quite good at the tractor as long as it involves driving it in straight lines and doing fun things with the bucket.
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