To Till Or Be Tilled

My homework for this darn garden was till, put manure down, then till again. Sounds simple, right? Well, where the heck do you find a till (on craigslist they are $200-$400 used) and where the heck do I find manure. Mark knew where we could rent a till. It was $75 for 24 hours! Seemed like a lot to me. I wanted the smaller one which was only $45 for 24 hours. But Mark insisted we needed the bigger one, so we went for it. I hit pay dirt on craigslist for the manure. I found someone with free sheep shit north of Burlington (more than one hour away). I had a meeting in Burlington anyway, so we went. We LOVED Burlington. Actually, I'd been there twice before. Mark wandered around while I was in my meeting. It's the biggest city in Vermont. No other state has it's biggest city as small as Burlington… It has a nice vibe, like a small San Francisco. Burlington is situated on the Lake Champlain which separates Vermont from upstate New York. It's beautiful up there. And guess what, there is some cultural diversity. I think the majority of the 5,000 Blacks who live in Vermont live in and around Burlington.

The sheep shit was in the Champlain Islands which is just north of Burlington. Another beautiful area. The farm is situated on 10 acres and has lakefront property. We had a moment of second thoughts about where we bought our house - there is no way we could afford that, but it was a pretty nice spread. The gentleman we met was very nice.

He runs an angora sheep farm – the sheep are bred for fiber, not for meat. The sheep are so darn cute. Especially the kids. And they are so gentle. He showed us his whole operation which was pretty simple. So guess what I want to do… So the sheep shit is in a big pile just waiting for someone to take it. Some of the shit spilled out of the bucket from the tractor thingy while the gentleman was loading it on the truck, so the guy pushed it back on (with his bare hands!!!) then declared "the manure sure is hot!" I don't think those would have been my words. He invited us back anytime and especially for the Open Studio weekend in mid-July. It's the same weekend as the SolarFest (we want to get off the grid), so it will be a busy weekend.

So we drive back home with a pile of sheep shit in the back of the truck and no one gives us a second glance. Guess it's normal to drive around with a pile of shit in Vermont.

So when we get back home I tilled (ok Mark helped but I did 80-90% of it) then spread the sheep shit around (It didn't smell as bad as I thought it would) then tilled again.

What the heck made me want the garden plot so darn big. In the middle of tilling, a light bulb illuminates in my head. I scream for Mark to throw me his phone so I can call my father. It's Monday and I think I missed Father's Day. Well, thankfully I didn't. We still had another week. My parents think I'm a weirdo.

Anyway, I have a new-found respect for farmers after tilling. It's not easy work. In fact its very hard work. And the only real bug I saw was a beetle (it was kind of big) that I took pleasure in tilling over... And I wanted to get the smaller, less expensive tiller… In the end, I was so proud of myself. I'm sore and tired from tilling, I thought calluses would appear on my hands any minute, maybe I'll lose weight doing this. Can't wait to plant next weekend.

The garden plot is fairly big. The consultants told me to till however big I wanted the garden to eventually be, and we would cover what we didn't use for next year. The plot measures approximately 30 feet by 60 feet. If you get an angora sweater or blanket from us in a couple of years…you'll know that we have a well fertilized, well tilled, plentiful garden.