Friday, May 27, 2011

Project: compost sieve

Finished! To the extent I will be working on it... I don't know much about motors and gears and stuff... so I finished building the frame and basic structure and Dan is going to add the gear later; probably a motor.
The right side is a tumbler (that black rubber strap is waiting for a motor or gear of some sort) and the left side is a chute. You toss compost in on the right side and compost sifts and rocks tumble out. We decided to design it of the tractor bucket because it was the easiest way to them get the compost wherever you want it.
The chute has rails to make sure the rocks don't fall back into the tractor bucket. Farm #1 raises turkeys for Thanksgiving/Christmas and the bedding is replaced daily. The previous caretaker had spread rocks all over the floor of the turkey house (who knows why, seems silly) so now whenever the straw bedding is shoveled out and put into the compost pile it's full of rocks. Hence my project: Compost Sieve.


Side note about yaks!
This is what yaks do when they are spooked. They are standing in a group with yaks facing in different directions. They were standing like that for a while until a wild turkey flew up out of the grass and they broke apart their neighborhood watch group.


UPDATE: I also drove a big tractor (solo; it is a John Deere) for the first time today!

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