Sharpening the Saw

(post by Jason) When I worked in corporate America it seemed that the office world was full of metaphors. I can remember attending a three day workshop where we would pause often to “sharpen the saw” and “beginning with the end in mind” was a corporate credo for the masses.

Well guess what I did today. I began with the end in mind, the end in this case being very real and very large clean fields full of waving green grass. The very first thing I did in the spirit of beginning with the end in mind was stop to sharpen my saw. In this case, my saw is a Stihl MS362 and it took about an hour to run a file across all the teeth to put an extra edge on the blade.

Just as you probably spend significant time picking up sticks and fallen branches from your yard before you fertilize and mow in the early spring, we do the same for our pastures. The difference is in the size and scope of our tasks. My “yard” encompasses 149 acres and, as you might imagine, there are a lot of branches and limbs that need to be dealt with. In the next few weeks I will go through many tanks of chainsaw fuel as I create several vehicle sized burn piles.

Every farmer in North America starts his spring work by cleaning up the mess that winter leaves in his work space and we are no different. When you wonder what we could possibly be doing with our free time in the waning days of February now you know. Anybody care to lend a hand ? 🙂

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Levendi

George and Gus

I seem to take a lot of “grey horses only” pictures. This time I took a “bay horses only” picture. Snappy, Fabrizzio, O’Reilly and Slinky

Lighty and Murphy having some playtime

I had recently decided that I would award Bergie the title of dirtiest grey horse on the farm. However after taking this picture of Moe I am reconsidering that. Moe loves to roll in a mud puddle that forms in a small ditch in his pasture.