A lovely lady not far from me has two horses, and she has been carefully heaping up their droppings in a corner of her field, for a couple of years. It's wonderful stuff, well rotted, ideal for the garden. I have collected a few loads before, in my trailer, and arranged, this time with my Dutch gardening enthusiast friend, to visit again.
Collecting it is not without its hazards: last time my car got stuck coming out of the field, and the wife had to come and rescue me, bringing a pair of steel ramps to get me over the steep slippery bit. My Dutch friend was having none of this, leaving his car outside the field while I drove in (armed with ramps this time, just in case).
All was well. We filled my trailer and wheeled several barrow-loads each out of the field to his waiting car and trailer, and took them home. Now he wants to go industrial and hire a lorry and digger and collect the whole lot in one go. Economies of scale (and of effort) do make this attractive, but originally, I had, essentially, an inexhaustable supply that I didn't have to store, and could collect whenever I wanted. And it was free. Hmmm. Be careful what you wish for.
A trailer load for me
Some barrows for him
4 comments:
I'd say by looking at the photos of your garden, that all that hard work last year has paid off.
Mind you muck shoveling is not the greatest of jobs.
I expect that you will be glad when it is all over.
What you should have done is either hitched your friend's trailer to your car, or filled your trailer twice and emptied one load into your friend's; thus no need for wheelbarrows!
Hiya pretty bird, your post is logical, and hitching my friend's trailer to my car would have solved the problem. I didn't propose it, though I did think of it, on the basis that he didn't want anything of his stuck in the field, neither his car nor his trailer. There was no guarantee that my car was going to get out successfully at all, or once or twice.
Hi Lia, thanks for yor comments. The garden is getting better, and I am balancng my time between development and maintenance as best I can.
I love happy endings like this.
I remember collecting cow poo from a farm for free. The droppings were like ice cream tops, only hard and took ages to break down. I would kick them, as I walked through the fruit trees (leg over them). When they started to break down, tons of weed and grass seeds began to sprout.
The best haul I ever made was TURKEY manure. It is magical stuff. I had a little left over after feeding the veggie beds and put the entire lot under only one tree, in a row of evergreens. Well, talk about tall poppy syndrome...
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