Ahhhhhh, the sweet smell of fresh plowed dirt.

Anyone else out there think the smell of fresh plowed soil is one of the greatest smells on earth. Plowed about ten acres last night during a little rain storm. Man that smells great:>)

Not many things are better! At one time we had a little 40 acre place that was 22 acres of Cherry orchard, and 5 acres of flat land with the rest just wildlands. We used to plant a garden of 3 acres or so, lots and lots of corn and beans, and peas for freezing and canning. We used an old JD tricycle to plow it pulling a one horse plow on a chain. I got to walk behind Dad while he drove. I loved it until we plowed into a huge den of bull snakes. ICK.

Only thing here is that it's closely followed by the choking smell from the diarea tanks that fertilize it prior to discing............ But it's good while it lasts.

Dave

Around here they all small like the neighbour's boxer.

Bull Snakes are fine. They control all kinds of varmants. It is the Rattlers, Copper Heads and Cotton Mouth that are no good.
gitrib

There's a name for that smell; It's called Petrichor. It's one of my favorite odors, but I still like fresh-cut alfalfa better though.

What are you plowing at this time of year? Trying to get some alfalfa in after corn silage or something?

Preparing a field for fall seeding, alfalfa grass mix. I plant some in the spring and some in the fall. In this climate it needs to go in late in August or early September or it doesn't get a good enough start.

I do love the smell of fresh turned dirt! Gotta say the best smell on this hill every year is dark air cured tobacco just after it starts yellow'n in the barn.

Dave

Gotta agree with you. A barn full near Bradfordsville,Marion County Ky,2009 JH

Tell me the process/steps on how you get the tobacco crop from the field to what I'm looking at hanging in the barn.

Yep, one of my three favorites. Ranks right up there with poppin' open the bulk tank on an early June morning and you can just smell the fresh clover from grazing. The other favorite is a womans freshly shampooed hair.

Good smells,
Bill

You got that right!

Yup, that's a wonderful smell along with the smell of a just cut hay field and sweet coastal hay.

It don't take too much to get it just from the field to what you see in the barn. That is burly, you have to cut it at the ground with a tobacco knife (looks like a hatchet with a real thin blade) then spike (or spear as they say in the hills to the east) it. A tobacco spike/spear is a metal cone looking thing, 4" to 6" long, with a 1.5" to 2" hollow base and real sharp point. It fits over the end of a tobacco stick. A stick is just that, 4' long stick, old ones are mostly split hickory, new ones are sawed popplar roughly .75"X1.5". The cut tobacco is picked up and you run the spike through the stalk about a foot from the bottom so the stalk will hang from the stick when hung in the barn. Burly is (most of the time here, depending on the weather) left spiked in the field for three days and then loaded on a wagon. This is a big diference in burley and dark, dark his early and up through most of September will "sunburn" and turn a nasty black color and have bitter taste if it is left cut in the hot sun in the heat of the day for more than two hours. This means with dark you have to cut a little, then spike and load it and get it to shade durring most of the day. If you wait till 3 pm or later it can stay out till about 10 the next morning. Once it is loaded on wagons it is taken to the barn to be unloaded. If flat bed wagons are used it has to be unloaded pretty quick. If scalffold wagons (made of oil field pipe and an old truck or car axial) are used it can stay loaded a few days before it starts to rot. when you get to a conventional barn like the one shown, there are "tiers" up in the barn for the sticks to hang on. These are most of the time rough cut oak some where between 2X6's and 2X12 depending on how long they are. (Some newer barns have 3 or even 4X6's and these are much nicer to stand on, real old barns and some newer ones built by people on a budget like my grandfather in the 90's are built with "poles" made from small straight trees cut off the creek bank.) The tiers are about 3' wide abpart and 3' to 6' apart high, depending on when the barn was built and the type of tobacco it was built for, dark tobacco is alot shorter than burley and tobacco has gotten bigger over the years so newer barns have teirs spaced farther apart as a rule. Depending on how tall the barn is and how many tiers it has one to 3 or even 4 people have to work in the barn. You have to stand with a foot on each tier with your feet spread 3' bend over and take sticks from who ever is on the ground handing up, pull the stick with tobacco on it up and hang the stick on the tiers. Sticks have to be spaced so that air can flow between them and the 5 or 6 stalks on each stick have to be spread out so air can flow between the stalks. Air cured hangs in the barn for 6 weeks or more before it is cured and ready to be taken down and the leave striped off the stalk. Fire cured works the same way exept when it gets in the barn you cover piles of oak or hickery saw mill slabs with wet saw dust and keep a real smokey fire going for about 4 weeks. It ends up smelling more like country ham than tobacco.

I can't load pics on the work puter, but if you will email me I can send you pics from my cell phone. You have shared enough pics on the site over the last while I owe you that much.

Dave

fresh soil or drying red clover hay

Wow Dave. That was a thorough job of an explanation. I learned alot.

Heres a shot of a field ready and same in the process of Harvest. This work was done by a crew of itenerent Mexicans who come to Marion County Ky. every year for work such as this. When I was a youngster family did all the work but times have changed. JH

Thanks for describing tobacco harvesting in detail.

Guess I"ve always been interested in how it"s done.

Sent you an eMail last night to get a copy of your photos.

Really appreciate you taking the time to explain the process.

Thanks for sharing your photos with us; all three are very interesting.

It's the only way some of us will ever get to see different regions of our country.

No problem, it was nice to explain the pocess with out have'n a language barrier. Most the time when I tell some one how to cut and hang 'baccer I have to show them cause they don't understand a word I am say'n, or act like they don't any way.

Dave

The large field is near Loretta Ky on a friends farm.The road side field is across the road from our farm at Merrimac Ky. When I was a kid I hired out to the farmer operating the field across the road many times during Tobbaco setting time,Hoeing time,suckering time,topping time ,cutting time and racking time at the barn.Also helped with hay and corn tending on this field.That was a long time ago.