08/20/12

We've been having fantastic weather the past few days. With lows in the upper 50s and highs in the upper 70s its been perfect weather for being outside. This morning I got up early and went out just before 7:00 AM. It was cool enough that I would have needed long sleeves had I not been working. I unloaded about two-thirds of the manure from the bed of the truck. I spread it over the area we had covered with boxes the day before, as well as the area around the air conditioner that I had covered with cardboard and straw a few weeks ago.

I didn't go out and work on anything during lunch. I did make some calls, though, to check prices for bales of straw. I called one store in the nearest town, then a few others in London, since I go there once a week for work. The cheapest price is in London, but of course I have to consider the extra gas for driving there and my time. It would be well worth a trip to London if we planned to buy several bales, but right now I think we probably just need a couple of bales. We'll probably just go out at lunch tomorrow and get a couple of bales to cover the manure with.

This evening, after dinner, we went back out to finish unloading the manure. We wanted to mix manure in with the soil in the section of the herb garden that is currently planted in flowers. Before doing that, however, Andrea needed to dig up some bulbs she had planted, then we pulled up some of the other flowers. After doing that we spread manure over that area. We also put down boxes in front of the porch and covered those with manure as well. It worked out that we had the right about of manure to cover the areas we had planned.

I had no idea if we had enough manure to cover the planned area or not. The truck was loaded so that the manure was even with the rails of the bed. I could get more in the next load by heaping it up a bit. I managed to cover approximately 290 square feet. Of course the depth plays a big part in the coverage. I think its fairly safe to assume, though, that in most cases a full truck load of manure should cover approximately 300 square feet. I could potentially haul as much as 3 to 4 times as much in the trailer as in the bed of the truck, so I may consider using the trailer the next time I am hauling manure.