Dan Geddings: Freshly plowed ground

The big green tractor roared forward, and the disk cut deep into the soft earth. The scent of the freshly plowed ground was good. Rainy days and work commitments had delayed our plans, but this day had dawned clear, and we had much work to do.

I had left home early, just after dawn, anxious to get started, but I knew it would be a little while before Ed showed up. He had sent me a text to let me know he was coming later. It gave me time to look around at the food plots and time to make some mental notes about the work ahead of us.

When I got to the tractor shed, Ed was there with his son, Thomas. We hooked the disk up to the John Deere tractor and headed to the Borden property. Shannon called to let me know he was on the way. I told him where we were headed and asked him to meet us there.

Our biggest food plot is on the powerline that runs through the property. Shannon had plowed the plot a week before with his four-wheeler and small disk, but it was a little rough. Even though the plot was somewhat bumpy, I was impressed with the overall result. The tractor and big disk smoothed the plot out and gave us a good surface for our seed.

We had planted the entire plot last year in chufa. My plan this year was to put half the plot in chufa and half in a regular wildlife mix. Five-year-old Thomas helped me with the seed. I put some chufa seed in a couple of five-gallon buckets and showed Thomas how to carry a bucket in one hand and broadcast the seed with his other hand. He did a very good job with the seed. When we finished with the chufa, Ed went back over the seeded area with the disk to cover the chufa.

Next, we put some of the wildlife mix in a canvas seed spreader and did the other half of the plot. The mix contains peas, beans, sunflowers and buckwheat. Thomas couldn't carry the spreader, but he could walk along with me and turn the handle to spread the seed. He was delighted to see the seed spin out onto the ground, and his laughter was contagious. We laughed along with him.

When we had covered the other half of the plot, Shannon took his four-wheeler and pulled a drag harrow over that section, to cover the seed. The disk would have buried those seeds too deeply. Now we headed back to plant some of the other plots.

The next plot was near the main sign-in box. It's a long, narrow plot with big timber on each side. Good sunlight is a problem here, but we can usually get a decent result. That plot was plowed quickly and seeded quickly. Shannon went over it with the harrow while we moved on to the next place.

The small powerline near Ed's stand was next. By now I was beginning to notice the heat and the dusty, sandy soil coating my boots. Thomas was also losing some of his enthusiasm, but we had at least one more plot to do before calling it a day.

Ed went on ahead to plow the plot by the fruit trees. That plot had been too wet for weeks but was just now dry enough to work. The plot runs right up to the clubhouse. When Thomas and I got there, Ed was waiting for us on the tractor at the clubhouse. We took a little break, and Shannon caught up with us there. Ed and Thomas took the tractor back to the farm shed, and Shannon and I planted the plot and covered the seed. Then we headed back to the tractor shed.

We have some more wildlife food plots to plant and will do those soon. All we need now is some rain on the freshly plowed ground.

Email Dan Geddings at cdgeddings@gmail.com.