Chicken Bits

I worked at the farm this morning. I got the "special" job of adding soil amendments just before the tractor mixed and formed the soil into a raised bed complete with drip tape and a beautiful black plastic mulch to keep the weeds down. My job consisted of lugging 15 pounds of composted, dried and granulated chicken bits (mostly manure, feather meal, and bone meal) down each row, grabbing handfuls of it at a time, and chucking it into the wind. Repeated 29 times until my arms ached, my knees were bruised from repeated whacks with the heavy bucket, and I was covered in a fine layer of composted chicken bits.

*ugh*

It's not the most glorious of farming duties, but I did it. And I did it well! And now I know more about soil fertility and what it takes to grow great tomatoes :) I also heard from the other farm hands that spraying fish emulsion is a thousand times stinkier than what I did today. Noted! Tim was the DJ for the morning, so I got to do my work listening to jazz, smooth jazz, and twangy gospel music. Last week, we mostly listened to John Williams movie scores and opera. The time before that, it was soft rock. And the first time I ever worked with Tim and his music, it was Simon and Garfunkel.

I also learned that one of my co-workers (who has been farming for over a decade) once slept a summer in a farm storage shed on the bottom rack of a shelf just below the sacks of not-so-composted chicken manure. On purpose. Repeatedly. Like, that was literally where he slept every night. And now when he gets a whiff of composted chicken bits, it takes him right back to those days.