Mist

A rather harmless swear word in German equivalent to English "Damn" is "Mist". It is also the word for muck as in muck heap.

My plans for today to get the roof finished before the weather breaks down on Sunday, were thrown overboard when Framer Franz phoned last night and said he wanted to collect our muck heap before the ban on Tuesday. In fact, it suited us otherwise as the ground would be frozen from the good frosts we are now having, so it would make less of a mess of our fields, and we even persuaded him to come a bit earlier than he wanted.

The bad news was that he was alone, his son who has decided against a farming life but does help out when needed, was busy at his normal clean, warm workplace in Memmingen, so he would be coming with one tractor & the muck spreader could I use my tractor to load the muck. While in the past it has happened he is alone, he got us to drive him home to collect the big tractor with 2 m large front loader bucker, he didn't want to do it as the tractor hasn't got front mudguards at the moment, and he doesn't want to get the cab dirty.

I was horrified at the idea with my 1965 John Deere, no servo steering, 80 cm small bucket with no hydraulics at the  bucket end to shake out the sticky bits plus the usual huge muck spreader he hires (we pay for) is so high that I doubted my bucket would manage it.

Luckily as things turned out, the big spreader wasn't free, and he borrowed a small one from his neighbour. The whole operation went like clockwork, I was very surprised at how good I was. Had never done it before on this scale. Two loads and barely any muck fell on to the field.

As tends to happen with Franz, we actually spent more time chatting than working especially as this year with Corona we haven't seen each other at all. Normally he pops around on the odd Sunday afternoon to inspect our property and give ideas as to what we should & could do next. The good part is he knows everyone and everything that is going on locally, better than any newspaper.

So it was very late before we finished, and I 'lost' most of the day for my building project. However, good to have the muck gone which will make it easier for Angie with the wheelbarrow. I hope if it stays dry to get a few buckets of the muck left to put on the vegetable garden but that will have to wait.