The soil was hard as a rock, so no digging, weeding or cultivating was possible. For every season there is a purpose, so I decided the time was ripe for assembling soil enrichment materials. However, the drought removed any growing vegetation.
All summer, I'd been looking at the vacated cow pasture, with an eye to slipping through the barbed wire fence and swiping some of the cow pies. So when the weather turned from unbearably hot, over a hundred degrees, to just hot, I set out with my big rope tub and turning fork. Finding a really big dried cow plop, I realized that if you are the sort of person who considers such a thing a treasure, you must accept it about yourself. I have.
If questioned, I was prepared to argue that I was taking it in trade for all the huge tracks the cows left when they got out and wandered through my place. I could show them exhibits. Anyway, no one seemed to notice. Over several days, I got rather a lot and spread it over the garden in anticipation of fall rains.
Who knows, maybe this dried cow stuff has lost all its nutrients, but it was lightweight and should provide some organic material to be tilled in.
In my gardening life, I've shoveled a lot of manure. When I had the dairy goats, I could load the big manure spreader with goat droppings and straw bedding in a few hours. Later, when I lost the farm, I gardened in the small town where I lived before finding this place. I was not above begging horse manure, even llama toidies.
A few days ago, this area was blessed with two inches of rain, the most we'd had at once in a long while. I was actually able to pull a few weeds in the iris bed. Soon, I'll be able to till in the cow pies. Life is good.
