A Mile in His Shoes
April 13 was not a typical day for Dana Shaum and his business partner, Nolan Martin. They own and operate D and N Manure Pumping LLC. Shortly after their day began, the pump pressure weakened, which led to the discovery of damaged equipment. I learned some of the struggles and solutions of manure pumping after spending a day walking in their shoes.
I met Shaum, 33, and Martin, 30, at their shop in Milford at 6:30 a.m. After a short stop for gas and to pick up an employee, Jordan Kaufman, we drove to a farm in Monterey, where we would stay for the whole day.
We arrived at the farm shortly after 7:30 a.m. and split up to manage different areas of the job. Kaufman oversaw the lagoons, Shaum drove the applicator and monitored all the equipment from his tractor and, for the first half of the day, I joined Martin as he managed the hose line.
"The key to a successful manure haul is to keep everything flowing," he said.
Martin connected the dragline hose to Shaum's applicator and signaled for the start of three pumps, which were spaced a mile and a quarter apart to maintain pressure strength. The pumps can be controlled remotely from Shaum's tractor, Martin told me, but, currently, someone has to be at the lagoon to maneuver the agitation boat, which could not be controlled by Shaum. This is what Kaufman was doing.
"The goal is to have a consistent liquid to apply to the field. You've got to agitate it to keep the liquid consistent," Martin said.
He explained that the dairy farm uses sand bedding, some of which gets washed into the lagoon with the manure. If it is not evenly mixed in the lagoon, the dragline may become clogged with sand. This very thing happened during a prior week, and Martin had to find and carefully extract the clog. This is one of the most dangerous aspects of the job, he and Shaum said. They showed me a video of the clog being flushed: The hose flung itself uncontrollably as the sand was blasted from its end due to about 160 pounds of air pressure.
"You wouldn't know what hit you," Shaum said when I asked him about it later that day.
Similarly, Martin commented that those who aren't careful and stand too close would risk death.
Martin and I drove in a utility vehicle (UV) to the third and closest field to the lagoons so he could connect the dragline. This proved to be a bit tricky because he had to pass the hose under a small bridge. As he was working to find something heavy-duty enough to pass under the bridge to pull the hose through, Shaum called over the radio that the dragline pressure was weakening.
We hopped back into the UV and checked the pump in question. Martin found that the engine wasn't charging the battery properly. He hooked it up to a battery charger and began some routine maintenance checks while he waited. As he did, he found the source of the problem: a crack in the front housing cover that was allowing oil to leak.
Martin collected the pump from the third field and replaced the broken one after he determined that the crack was too big to weld himself. The broken pump would need to be shipped back to the manufacturer in Canada. This would eliminate the third field from the day's work, unfortunately, resulting in lower amounts of manure being spread.
As Shaum finished spreading on the first field, Martin quickly collected the hoses laid out on the third field and moved them to field No. 2. The hoses are different depending on their purpose: blue and black hoses are wider around, about 10 inches in diameter and expand around the circumference to allow more fluid to run through the line. Red hoses expand lengthwise and connect to the applicator. These 7-inch lines are more durable and able to move across the field, but the blue and black ones are moved minimally.
When laying out the dragline, Martin said it is important to place them diagonally across the field to allow for more reach. Not long after the hoses were set up on the second field, Shaum was ready to begin spreading. As he switched fields, I joined him.
Riding with Shaum, I felt immersed in natural serenity, surrounded by blue skies, budding trees and working under the bright sun. No, it wasn't a bad day to be out in the tractor and, if a man doesn't mind the smell of manure, what's to stop him from starting a job like custom pumping? According to Shaum, nothing.
"I enjoy what I do. Even if it involves manure," he said.
To Shaum, it's all about being outside in the dirt, being his own boss and helping dairy farmers.
I asked him who the business was more important to, dairy farmers or crop farmers.
"It's more important for the dairy farmers because they have to get rid of it (manure) somehow. But it's important to the grain farmers, too, because they don't have to spend as much on commercial fertilizer and I think it's probably better for the soil," Shaum said.
He believes soil health is vital, and anything that will keep the soil nutrient-rich is a positive. However, some practices are more practical than others, depending on the size and type of farm a person has, he said. For instance, he thinks it is more practical for the majority of farmers to use cover crops than no-till because that hinders his ability to apply manure.
The applicator Shaum pulls uses discs that cut into the soil a few inches, allowing the liquid to seep into the ground. This is more effective than simply spreading it on top of the soil because it ensures that the application gets into the dirt and reduces runoff. Earlier, Martin explained that the minimal-till bar Shaum uses shatters the side wall of the soil so liquid can run into it.
"I enjoy taking care of the dirt. Soil health is definitely something we really do watch and manure is organic matter that helps your soil out," Shaum said.
Martin commented, "It's always enjoyable to see the nice, green crops where you put manure."
"I enjoy being by myself; I get lots of alone time in the cabin of the tractor. I can also take my children along," Shaum said, describing another advantage to his job.
He and his wife, Sherry, have three young children. The oldest, Dana, is 7 years old, followed by 5-year-old Jakoby and 3-year-old Kately. They like riding along with their father and he often plays children's audiobooks to help entertain them.
"Ag is a good place to raise a family because you work together," he said.
When he doesn't have his children with him, he listens to other audiobooks, music or discusses farming, hunting and other topics over the two-way radio with Martin and their employees.
Shaum decided to build the custom manure pumping business when he was 14 years old after helping a neighbor in trouble finish the job. In 2011, he achieved his dream, starting with a tank applicator. Martin would truck the manure to the fields and refill the tank when it ran low. Shaum has always been the tractor man. They switched to a dragline in 2017.
When they aren't pumping manure, Martin and Shaum offer custom chopping and baling in the summer and focus on their 2,000-head dairy and build and maintain equipment in the winter. This, they say, allows for ample family time, although it was in short supply that week due to such good weather conditions.
Shaum said a soil test is taken just before they begin a job. This test determines the rate at which they apply manure. The two cousins worked with hog and dairy waste before 2020, but because hog manure is so much richer than dairy manure, Shaum was unable to spread as much or as spread it as efficiently as he does now.
The average rate at which he spreads today is between 15,000-18,000 gallons per acre. This translates to about 1.5-1.75 million gallons of manure being spread daily.
"A lot of that depends on how much we have to move," Shaum said.
This leads to one of the few drawbacks of the job. During warmer weeks, the demand for his service rises dramatically. This was true especially for the week of April 9, when, after a week of rain, everything warmed up and dried out.
Shaum is careful to avoid all areas of water when applying manure to the field. He also watches objects in the field so he doesn't get the hose wrapped around something, which would halt the application process.
When he wants to stop applying the liquid manure, Kaufman sends a large foam ball that resembles a giant clown nose through the line. This allows time to halt the pumping and flush out the remaining manure. This happens whenever Shaum changes draglines or, in the case of that day, they have to replace a pump or other equipment.
He and Martin work on corn, soybean, wheat and potato fields. Whether or not Shaum applies manure to these fields depends on the time of year. Generally, potato and bean fields only receive an application at the end of the season if they are going to rotate crops to corn in the spring.
"In the fall, we don't have to push it quite as hard because we don't have corn planters chasing after us," Shaum said.
An average day runs 12-14 hours in the spring, summer and fall, and about nine hours in the winter.
Overall, application for April 13 remained on the lower side. The custom pumpers only lost about 30 minutes of their day, but this resulted in only 1.5 million gallons of manure being spread on two fields. The third field would have to be done the next day.
Martin and Shaum love to drive tractors, care for equipment, and this allows them to stay somewhat involved in the dairy business. By the end of the day, I learned that custom pumping was a good way to blend various passions for farming. While sitting in a tractor for 12-14 hours every day might seem monotonous, as the two confessed, too much excitement can cause a delay in an otherwise peaceful flow of the day.
As we packed up for the day, I noticed on the back of their truck a sticker that showed a boy with blue overalls holding his nose. I felt that the caption summed up the day pretty well, despite the early-morning snag. Afterall, Shaum and Martin managed to remain within their daily application range, which, when losing equipment, is very impressive. The caption read, "The sweet smell of success."