Pulling Up Old Fence Posts

Today we went out to the farm to scope out our new garden location. Since we bought out the CRP land yesterday (all but 5 acres that we don't plan on using), we are now free to do whatever we want to the land. So tomorrow we are going to hook up a borrowed plow and turn over some dirt!

We went over lunch time, so we took the kids and had a nice picnic on the loader. When we were done eating, Ethan wanted to do a little work and pull up some fence posts.

Ethan hopped on the tractor to operate the loader. I wrapped the chain around the posts, stepped back so Ethan could pull it out, and then he drove to the next post where I would unhook the removed post, throw it into the loader, and hook the chain to the next one. It worked out quite well.

The kids also followed along. I'm glad that they were able to. It gave me a good chance to do some teaching about where they need to be when equipment is running. I explained to them how they should never stand behind a tractor that is running (or any vehicle for that matter), and they need to stand where the driver can see them and be a safe distance away. It was nice to be able to walk them ahead each time Ethan moved to a new post and talk to them about tractor safety and safe distances. I also knew that when I was helping out with the posts, the tractor would be stationary.

I figure that if they are going to be living on the same land as a working tractor, this is probably one of the best opportunities to teach them about tractor safety - when it is actually running and they can be highly supervised.

We still have lot more posts to go, but wire needs to be removed before we can pull the rest. The next thing to be taken care of on the farm, however, is the garden!