Lime

After cleaning the brush, stumps and small trees out from the mid-pinelands field, the next step after disking is to get some lime applied to the naturally very acid soil.   A Circle-T spreader truck put out 2 tons lime per acre.  Jeffrey will disk this in, then perhaps we will run a harrow over it and we can then spread bahia grass seed.

The next day Circle-T brought lime for the horse field, the lime was slightly damp and caked up so that it did not flow down and out with the conveyor chain.  The chain would hollow out a tunnel in caked lime.  Driver had to get up in the back with a shovel and break up the lime so it would flow.  He would drive ahead and spread the broken up lime, but it caked, tunneled and stopped coming out.  This process repeated every 50 to 100 ft for several times.   Then I heard a loud crack.  The drive shaft of the truck had snapped. 

I  got Jeffrey's International tractor, hooked up a chain and pulled him to the side of the field by the road where the Circle-T folks could get at the truck and pull it back to the shop.

One lesson here is that if we have a 18-wheeler truckload of lime dumped to be spread, we have take care that it does not get wet, or it can become really difficult to work with.