April 24, 2014

Tuition fees.  Most people have paid them and they are very expensive.  When I am learning new things on the farm and make a mistake that will cost money, I try to look at it as a tuition fee.  Most likely, it ends up being much less expensive than my college tuition and I am learning very useful things.  Today, for example, I decided it was high time I learned how to run the tractor with the tiller attachment.  We have one final field to till, it's getting late, and my husband has had to work many hours as a teacher.  So I asked him for some pointers last night and thought I would try it.  I had given it a test run by myself yesterday on a very short area, so I definitely knew the questions to ask.  Today, I started down my first row.  With the pointers I had gotten from my spouse, it was working so much better.  It was tilling much deeper with the right settings.  I was so proud of myself and happy.  Until I got down to the end of the row and saw that I had found the hose with the tiller.  Of course, I shut the tractor down to assess the damage.  Two of our hoses were not fixable and were wound tight around the tiller.  Determined to fix my mistake, I went and got the pruning shears to get the hose off of the tiller.  Much prodding and pulling later, the hoses were off and I went on the plow the garden spot three times over.  Now the short crew with feathers is working on the spot so it will be ready to plant this evening when my spouse gets home.  All for the price of two hoses, but many plowed rows in the future with the new found knowledge.