winter is hanging in

Frank Fusco said:

What I 'know' about snow bringing nitrogen I got from the county extension services and a feeds and feeding class. 'supposed to be fact. But, when I was trying to raise cattle by feeding them Arkansas rocks I often looked with envy at the results our northern friends got with their crops and cattle.
Northern growing seasons are shorter but (maybe) more intense. There is an undisputed northern effect. e.g. a certain breed of cattle raised in the Ozarks may top out at 1,000 pounds for a cow. (this is all hypothetical but typical results) In southern Mississippi, that same cow will top at 850 pounds. In central Canada it will go 1,300. In Bolivia, South America it would be lucky to make 700.
Where I live topsoil is something we often just dream about. I had places on my pasture where the 'topsoil' was only 1" before hitting bedrock. (try hand setting fence posts in that) Y'all in Maine and Canada go down dozens of feet before running out of rich black soil.

Click to expand...

I don't know about dozens of feet. We got gravel loam topsoil to about 52 inches, (varies greatly though) then goes into gravel. When my well driller put my well in he asked me why I was putting a house here. Underneath the loam was pure gravel to a depth of about 17 feet.There I hit shaley ledge, went through it at 22 feet, picked up more gravel until bedrock began at 40 feet.

When I die, Alyson would be smart to burn this house down and make Lake out of "Johnson Hill" as its known I've hit gravel just land plowing up some of my fields. When I put in my addition and had to "buy dirt" man did that ever irk me. It's all around me, but the contractors can't make money moving your dirt around...they want you to buy it off them.

Here is a picture of a gravel bank I've been digging into lately when I need gravel for this or that.

Frank,

In central Orgeon...the Bend, OR area I helped a friend reclaim desert and turn it into pasture for his horses. We were reclaiming 5 acres at a time. He had an old tractor.....we'd disc the sage brush down.....disc the sage brush down.....disc the sage brush down.....and then harrow and harrow an harrow and harrow to drag out all the roots. Finally we'd get to the point where we could smooth it out, plant grass and irrigate it. When trying to put fence up the soil was so shallow that you could use steel fence posts as there was enough soil to drive them. So we'd build a wooden rock weir every so often and then use steel fence posts to keep the strands separated properly but you often couldn't drive the fence posts....little or no top soil....but you could plant grass for a pasture.

Ken...I don't know about soil depth out there, but I sure know the ground is hard.

We were railroading in Guernsey Wyoming when the machinist I was was working with had his dog struck and killed by a train. We tried digging a hole but the ground was rock hard. So not knowing what to do we called up the local railroaders that we were working with.

"No problem, I'll be right out, I've had this problem before."

So he comes over, we throw the dog in the back of the truck and head into town. I'm thinking "what is he doing?" then think it even more when he turns into a cemetery. We go to the back and start digging a hole, because where they water the cemetery the ground is pretty soft. Anyway its like 2 AM and I feel like some grave robber digging a hole in a cemetery in the middle of the night so Peanut can have a proper burial. We did not get caught luckily, but I learned my lesson about how hard western soil can be. Kind of like ours in January (frozen ground for those that are wondering why I am laughing)