Speed of break down will be mostly dependent on what the bedding material used is. Moisture management and turning can have a good effect, but in my experience it's the bedding material. The most popular bedding materials are usually shavings, straw or other wood product. Straw is slow, shavings a little faster and pellets or sawdust can be composted in a few months without much effort on your part. That being said, once you're ready to go I'd put it in my garden whether you think it is finished or not. I have horses, compost myself and regularly use it less than complete. If you still see a significant amount of identifiable wood product you might consider using it on the top of the soil so you don't get the wood temporarily tying up some nitrogen. I use mine that is less than complete as a mulch all the time.

Okay, the wiring problem has been taken care of, but their was additional problems with either the brake or the clutch, possibly just the brake if the clutch kind of works the brake pad as well. On one occasion I pushed in the clutch, shifted into neutral and felt the gear shift come out of gear as put the gear shift into neutral. When I let off the clutch the motor seemed to bog down a little and I heard a squealing sound so I put the clutch back in. I shut it off and looked at the clutch and brake pad area to see if the brake looked to be in the braking position, it kind of looked like it was. I started it back up and messed with it some more, till finally it went into neutral or the brake came loose. I've always had to rock back and forth as I shifted gears at times, so that's one thing I did while it was in neutral as I slowly let off the clutch I rocked back and forth. That seemed to help. Sometimes it does this even if I don't use the brake but use the clutch to come to a slow stop.

The longer you wait to use HM (or any type) the less available N, which isn't too high in the manure to start with- you'd be better using the alfalfa first. 'Course, you won't get that for free. There are some who insist it be composted for a year, presumably to remove pathogens...but compost without manure can also contain pathogens. A sensible approach says don't put raw manure near soon to be harvested produce. My own method is to soil incorporate prior to sowing a cover crop, either spring/fall, buckwheat or rye/vetch. The road apples or muffins have a hydrophobic mucous coating. Smashing or grinding will speed up breakdown. The fellow who Lloyd refers to was Gone fishin', indeed a gentleman with a novel approach...judging from pics he posted, quite successful.

I would probably buy two 16 foot cattle panels at around $20 each, then put some two foot chicken wire fence across the bottom of it. That would allow you a strong fence, and the 2 foot chicken wire fence would keep the dogs out. My garden fence is chain-link but also has chicken wire around the bottom. Chicken wire is lightweight, but attached to the panel it will be fine, and it isn't very expensive. You will need tall t-post at the end of the panels, then two shorter ones for the middle of each panel to give them a little more stability. I like strong 6 foot post for the ends, but use the lighter weight 3 footers in the centers. In the Fall as I am clearing out parts of my garden, I build pens with cattle panels, then stretch plastic construction fence to them. Not pretty, but it keeps the chickens where I want them to start cleaning up the garden, and keeps them out of the area that still has useful plants. What about a gate?