Monday, 27 August.  Headed out around 7:30 am in Bobby's truck, to drive the 2 hours to Russellville to pick up the car trailer I bought over the internet, then back toward Campbellsville to pick up the three implements I bought back in April;  a 7' lift disc; a 9' cultipacker, and an 8' seed/grain drill, which we didn't use this time but will definitely come in handy for future seedings.  The trip went well, except for a little bit of navigation difficulties; however, the trailer was in good shape and the equipment all fit on it, so that part was a huge success.  We had a lift package installed on the tractor before we came out, with interchangeable bucket and pallet forks, so I hitched the trailer to Jack the Tractor, pulled it up the hill, and unloaded everything quite uneventfully.  Finished mowing the pastures with the grass bar in the evening.

Tuesday, 28 August.  The old cut grass litter on the pastures had accumulated for many years, and needed to be lifted and raked up high enough for the bush hog to chop it up, so the soil underneath could be exposed for the seed and fertilizer, and to hasten its decomposition and incorporation as soil organic matter.  The chain harrow I bought quickly clogged up with hay after the first pass, so I planned on hitching up the disc to harrow it up.  Got up early, greased the tractor, checked fluids, filled the tank.  Made a huge boo-boo; assumed the blue 5-gallon fuel containers were diesel and the red ones were gasoline... Bobby had no such system set up, so I put gasoline in the tractor.  Major calamity!  Had to drain the fuel, the guys emptied it out completely (big mistake on a diesel engine, means you have to bleed the air out of the fuel lines) so D and I got a crash course in bleeding the fuel injector lines.  Thought the fertilizer shipment was arriving at 2 pm so we were sweating the load getting the tractor running again.  Waited down at the road for an hour before calling the shipping company;  the truck had broken down and they would deliver the fertilizer tomorrow.  All that rushing for nothing!  I hitched up the disc and began a light harrowing pass.  At 5 miles per hour, I didn't get finished before it got dark and I lost my line.  The disc did a nice job, though.

Wednesday, 29 August.  Up early to finish harrowing with the disc.  Fertilizer came early, around noon; drove the tractor down to the road to unload the pallets.  5- 1/2 tons of bagged Sul-po-mag (for K) and rock phosphate (for P).  Had to split the pallets up because they were too heavy for the tractor to unload; drove them up the hill and staged them in a row, and got them covered with tarps just before it started to rain.  It rained about an inch, just enough to knock the dust down from my discing.  Ready to start the close mulch/mowing step with the bush hog, but grass was wet and it was getting dark.

 Thursday, 30 August.  Up early to drive into Campbellsville with D to get a 3-point hitch fertilizer/seed spreader at the Tractor Supply place.  Got back to the farm by 11, got the bush hog hooked up, started the long, slow, close mow.  Stopped work around 5pm, deciding to knock off early so we could grill steaks at a reasonable hour up on the hill - my one concession the whole week to not working until dark and eating at 9 pm, and an important break for socializing with Bobby and Alene.  We had a relaxing evening, got some photos, headed to bed early. 

Friday, 31 August.  Up early (6 am) and on the tractor to finish the bush hogging.  Done by 11 am; got the fertilizer spreader hooked up, got the project set up, began spreading fertilizer around 1 pm.  The guys had a great idea to use the car trailer as a staging platform, stacking 3-4 pallets up for me to set a pallet of bags on, then back the tractor up, lower the spreader (it holds 1,000 lbs) and fill it up.  Spread the sul-po-mag separate from the rock phosphate as it was more granular and needed a different spreading rate.  Spreading went well, I thought, although  Bobby complained bitterly that the fertilizer truck could have gotten the job done in about an hour... I didn't bother telling him the fertilizer truck only spreads manufactured fertilizer and that wasn't what I wanted to put on the pastures.  Nearly got it finished, had one load left to spread, when the drive shaft seized.  D drove back into Tractor Supply and got a replacement while I stayed and cleaned up the mess of pallets and fertilizer bags (220 bags!); once he got back we replaced it, and I spread the last load just before dark.

Saturday, 1 September.  Last full work day!  Seeding day, and pretty much right on schedule.  Decided to spread grass seed and clover seed with the big spreader, instead of using the little pull-behind model I bought for behind the ATV.  Worked really good with the perennial ryegrass, not so good with the clover.  The adjustable ports didn't shut down close enough to keep the clover seed from coming out too thick; even once I got them shut, I was still spreading seed and realized it was coming out around the center shaft.  Bummer!  150 lbs of clover seed was supposed to go on at a rate of 8 lbs per acre;  the first 5 acre pasture got about a 100 pounds of it; I sped up and threw the rest around on what area I could, but about 10 acres did not get any clover at all.  Should be very interesting to see that first pasture once it comes up!  Might be all clover and no grass.  Kind of an expensive setback but that's how these things go; you don't know until you try something how or if it is going to work.  Next time I'll spread the clover seed in the little ATV seed spreader so I can control the rate. 

Decided I didn't have time to drag the entire pasture before rolling, so just hitched up the cultipacker, strapped some cinderblocks on with bunjees to add weight, and got the slopes and about half of the flat areas rolled and packed.  I wanted to drag and roll the whole thing to ensure good seed-soil contact and to get the fertilizer down to the soil, but we still needed to clean things up and get the equipment yard set up and everything tarped, so I stopped short of rolling the entire 20 acres.  I can only hope the rains will pack things in pretty well and we'll get a fairly good germination rate out of it.

Sunday, 2 September.  Our flight was scheduled out of Louisville at 6 pm, so we didn't need to leave the farm until around 3pm.  I spent the morning on the ATV with the little trailer we bought for Bobby (payback for him taking us down with his truck to pick up the car trailer and implements), picking the last of the rock I had kicked up with the disc, they were easy to see with the grass so short, but wouldn't be for long, and can do a number on the grass cutter blades.  The pastures looked really beautiful when I was done.  Spent a couple of hours down at the shop, giving Jack the Tractor a really good scrubbing, cleaned off all his grease points, regreased him, etc.  The discing, bush hogging and fertilizer spreading had left him completely filthy, but he looked pretty damned good by the time I was done.  I spent about 50 hours on him this week, and we've really bonded... Then I jumped in the shower, got all our stuff packed up, and we headed north to Louisville to catch our flight.  Uneventful flights back to San Diego, thank goodness, and the house was still standing when the taxi pulled up in front, so all ended well.