As I mentioned in the last post we were concerned with the weather. In some years there could have been significant rain by this time. As it was we’d had only a trace. On October 31 Michael brought a tractor here to put up borders in the field. Brett’s job had been to level the field while creating a slight slope west to east and north to south so that the water would flow. The borders are important to direct the water that will be released from the valves during irrigation.

This tractor is set up with the border maker. The photo shows the wings that were folded in for transport down the road. That coiled up cable will help to set the distance for the wings to spread out. By the way, those back tires are taller than I am!

A view from the back. The part with the oval cut out will form the top of the borders.

I climbed up and took a photo of the inside of the enclosed cab.

The wings are spread out here to create borders with 30′ spacing. Michael figured out where to start and sets uses GPS (I think) to keep the lines straight.

Michael invited me to ride along. I rode for a few passes until his wife came with lunch and his young son who was going to ride along with him to finish the job. I took this photo of the computerized controls. This reminds me of looking in an airplane cockpit. There are lots of knobs and dials and screens. If you want to do the job correctly you need to know how to set all the parameters. At least the tractor stays on the ground.

This is the last pass down the field.

The next job for Michael will be to come back with a different tractor to smooth out the ends of the field where the borders stop. Michael is doing us a favor by working this 7-acre job. The normal minimum is 40 acres. It makes more sense to use equipment of this size for a larger property.

Here is how the field looks now ready for seeding.