In the Pasture - Sometimes I amaze my self ...

... with my stupidity! WHAT WAS I THINKING? I know better than to calve in January. I teach about this, write about this, talk about this, ad nauseum. But, when I couldn't find a bull at the appropriate time (mid July - early August), did I wait? Did I say "It would be better for the cow, the budget, and me if we skipped a year."? NO! I jumped at the chance to cross May ( our wee Dexter cow) with a young, still fairly light, Angus Bull before he got shipped out. So, now I get to deal with the consequences of my stupidity. (You read about the calves arrival. Our "heroic" effort to save her after she was born in 6 inches of freezing muck on a 20 degree morning.) Now, you get "The Rest of the Story." But first, Jane (that's her name. NOT my choice, but I've given up the naming rights to all critters born here. Her mom is May, because she was born in May and arrived at our farm in May. Logical, I suppose. So her daughter should be Jan, right? Wrong. Jan didn't stick. Jane did. The other suggestion was Robot, which had my second vote after "Stinking-stupid-baby-cow", which I was told wouldn't work because she wouldn't be a baby for long and then we'd get confused with her mother, "stinking-stupid-cow".) is doing just fine. She had her first day out in the pasture. It lasted 15 minutes. When the goats came thundering out it spooked her, she bolted, hit the electric fence and popped right through. May followed without a pause. I got them turned back toward the barn without having a heart attack, and they have been there since. Here she is with May, enjoying some sun in the barn.

Now on to the rest of the story. My stupidity.

In the wild, in my part of the world ruminant animals give birth in June (some in late May, and some possibly creeping into early July.) Further north they give birth closer to the middle of June. Even further North and they ALL give birth within a three week window around the summer solstice. Why? That's when they are most likely to survive. Did they have a meeting and plan this out? Was there a program put out by the Governing Council of Ruminant Creatures helping them plan their pregnancies? NO. The "non-conformists" were systematically eliminated. Harsh? Maybe. But that's how nature works. For hundreds of thousands of years the deer, elk, moose, etc. that cycled in a way that ensured their giving birth within that window survived, and their young survived. They stayed represented in the gene pool. The rest didn't. Now the "rut" can be marked on your calendar. It happens at the same time every year, and the young are born at the same time every year. Why? Because that's when there is the most food available. That's when the mother will be able to eat the extra amounts she needs to ensure that the baby has all the milk it needs to thrive. When we plan our breeding season so that we are calving, lambing, kidding, on grass in late May, June, and early July we give our animals the same advantage. A ruminant will eat 4.5 - 5 % 0f it's body weight every day when it is beginning to lactate. That's a lot of hay to have to feed. They will continue at 4 - 4.5 for the entire lactation period. The more of this they can harvest themselves, the better for you, the farmer. That's where I got stupid. If I wanted milk through the winter I should have had a fall calf. Yes there is some extra hay cost, but not nearly the stress of a mid-winter calf. STUPID. Hope you learn from my mistake.

In the Pasture - Sunshine

This post was supposed to go up yesterday, but... it turned out to be a bit of a do-over day so I didn't get my blogging done. (I had resolved to post everyday, LOL.)



The sun came out, the temperature broke 35 deg. F, and the Mob wanted to go out. They have been confined to the barn and a small yard for most of the past two weeks. We are feeding hay right now, and when the weather is really bad it is easier on all of us to keep them close. But, with the sun shining and the temperature rising they wanted to go out. I wanted them out too. I needed to do some work in the barn and it is much easier to do without a dozen goats nosing in to see what you are doing. So I hauled hay and water out to the pasture and turned them out. They loved it. Running, bucking, acting like kids. It was fun to watch.



Once I got them settled it was time to get some projects done. There are things that have been waiting for a break in the weather. Time's getting short, and it looked like I was going to get the break I needed. Besides getting the animals out of the barn, there were a few bits I needed to pick up to be able to do the barn projects. So, I jumped in the truck and headed out. Backing out of the driveway I slid off the edge of the hill and got stuck. I tried every trick I knew (including calling the neighbors to beg for help.) Nothing worked. An hour later I gave up. The truck was well and truly stuck (I've done this before, so I know.) The barn projects were not going to get done.



So I decided to turn my attention to the greenhouse. It is past time to get it ready for early planting. As I walked by I started smacking the plastic with my hand, trying to get the snow to slid off the top. After three good smacks the rotted lath along the bottom gave way and half of the plastic started flapping in the breeze. I could see the rest of it starting to give way too. I knew the lath needed replacing this year, but I was hoping to be able to wait until the snow was gone and the day was calm. Two hours of crawling around in the snow screwing scraps to the base to temporarily hold the plastic in place. The greenhouse wasn't one bit cleaner, but at least it would not blow away (I hope!)



I went to check on the Mob in the pasture. All this activity out in the sun would make them thirsty. I needed to make sure there was still water in the trough, and that they weren't completely out of feed. The feed and water were fine, but Darby, one of our first fresheners, was laying in the snow off by herself. She is usually one of the first to the fence when I come out to check on them, so this was a bit strange. She is due to kid the first week of March. Still far enough away to not be a concern, but... I jumped the fence and trudged over to her. She had miscarried and was bleeding. I tried to get her up so I could walk her to the barn, but she couldn't stand. So, I had to carry her back. She only ways about 120 lbs, so it wasn't that difficult. Still, 120 lbs of squirming, unhappy goat, 6 inches of wet, melting snow, and a mob of interested others who wanted to come along to see what was happening, made for an interesting trip. I got her to the barn, bedded down in some dry straw, and checked her out. The bleeding stopped, I got her cleaned up, fed, and doctored to the best of my ability. Exhausted, I went back out to find half the goats out wandering around the yard. Apparently I didn't get the gate shut properly. They just wanted to see what was happening, and let me know that if I didn't do something about the gate the cow would get out too. I got them back to the pasture, locked the gate, and looked furtively around for what ever was coming next. The sun was sinking toward the western hills, long blue shadows reaching out across the snow. Time to call it a day. Wish it could be a do-over.

Things we do on grass - the rise of the lawn mower people.

It has been quiet here in my neighborhood for the past few weeks. No rain, hot, dry... the lawns turning a crunchy brown. In the shade or behind the shears in the picture windows you can see the lurkers. Waiting. Sometimes you see them in the depths of the garage, sparks flying as they sharpen blades. The smell of oil and exhaust wafting out as engines are tuned and decks are cleaned. They wait, equipment gleaming and ready, for the first glimmer of green to emerge from the dry, brown waste they called a lawn.

After 5 weeks of now rain, we have had showers every day for the past week. The grass has exploded. The lawn mower people have resurfaced in their gleaming, howling glory. No weed shall survive in the neighborhood! No blade of grass shall grow beyond 3/4 of an inch! Everything shall be orderly, clipped, trimmed, perfect.

Until you get to my yard. There you will discover a rampant, chaotic, wildness of unmown grass, weeds, and overgrown gardens. The lawn mower people glare and shake their fists as they drive by. Some of the closer ones creep over the boundary and mow or spray when I'm not looking. They can't stand it.

They are my neighbors, so I talk with them. They chat about their new mower, which can cut a 6 foot wide swath in one pass, and cost more than my truck. They ask me if I need any spray because they have the latest loaded in their mega sprayer, and it will take care of all the weeds. They ask how I keep things dry, the long grass doesn't let the ground dry out in the bottom land around here. But mostly they ask me when I'm going to mow, why I don't mow more, and why we have so many animals.

When we bought this place 5 years ago it was all mowed. We had five acres of manicured grass with a few old buildings. No trees. No flowers. No weeds. Just grass cut to one inch, and trimmed around all the buildings, posts, and everything else.

We decided when we moved here that 4 of those acres would be pasture and gardens. The gardens are being developed, some are orderly and some weedy. That will improve. The pasture is not mowed. The livestock keep it productive. Depending on where you look in the remaining 3.5 acres the grass could be as short as 2 inches or as tall as 14". "Weeds
Weeds are pretty common in some spots. The goats love them. My unmown grass, the pasture that feeds my livestock 10 months of the year is worth about $3000.00 a year to me in feed I don't have to buy. It isn't "beautifully manicured" but I think it is quite lovely. As a bonus I have lots of red-winged black birds, gold finches, indigo buntings, frogs, toads, snakes, crawdads, dragonflies, and other critters who happily live in my world.

The grass near the house is mowed less often than the neighbors would like but more than I want too. It is slowly being turned into gardens, forests, and other interesting places. Someday we will only need a small push mower to trim the tiny bits of grass between the garden rooms. The livestock will keep the pasture well trimmed, and everything will be lovely. Until then we will be vigilant in protecting our land from the spray wand wielding, mower driving lawn mutants that have taken over our countryside.

Clean-up crew

Cleaning Crew at work

The Spring Cleaning crew made it into some neglected areas of the pasture today. It was such a nice day, sunny and warm (40+ deg F) for a change, that I moved everyone back into the pasture to clean up the old grass and have some more space. The goats, cows, and ponies had been confined in a yard near the barn most of the winter. Now that the snow is off they have really nibbled everything right down to the ground. It was also starting to get pretty pugged around the gate and water trough, as well as getting quite a lot of manure and waste hay building up. This is supposed to be the children's play yard in the summer. Getting the animals off it was critical.




They all seem happy with the change.

Franny seems to be responding to the medication. She is not 100% yet, but much more active and eating much better. The swelling in her joints is greatly reduced. We will go back to the vet next week to see how thing are progressing.

Soaking up the sun

Soil Test

Gardeners and farmers, when they even bother with soil testing, usually look at 4 things, pH, N,P, and K. The assumption is one should add enough lime to bring the soil close to neutral pH and add the right blend of N,P, and K, and everything will be brilliant. Even in Organics practices follow these rules. They use different things, like compost to get there, but it's the same model. What you find if you keep your focus on NPK and pH is that you have to add more and more fertilizer each year, and you get increasingly poorer results. Why? Balance. You can bring soil to neutral pH and still have soil that doesn't promote healthy life. Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, and Sodium have a lot to do with pH management, maintenance of balanced hormone and enzyme systems, healthy plants, protection against insect, bacterial and fungal attack, weed control, and nutrient availability. You can have a pH of 6.5 or 7 and still be way out of balance in these 4 elements. If you are, you can feed your plants as much N as you want and they will grow, but they will be continually stressed, highly susceptible to disease and drought, and they will produce fruit low in nutritional quality.

Our first order of business in building fertility in the pasture is to get our soil into balance. Here's our soil test and the recommendations.

We are going to use a high calcium lime on the pasture this spring. Picking the right lime is important to archiving equilibrium in the big four. Common limes are Dolomite, which is 21% calcium and 12% magnesium; Gypsum, which is 21% calcium and 16 % sulfur; and Hi-calcium lime which is 30% calcium and 4 % magnesium. Since our sulfur and magnesium levels are about where we want them we don't want to add more as we bring the calcium level up. After we let this work in for a season we will retest and see what else we need to adjust.

Soil fertility and health

Our problems with liver flukes reminded me that I have been neglectful of my pastures. When we started here we got the soil tested all over the farm, and developed a plan to address some of the big imbalances. We based our plan on the work of Dr. William Albrecht (see the Acres bookstore for his works and Acres magazine for a good ongoing discussion of its implications.) I've worked very hard to get the gardens into balance. We are not there yet, but we are much closer than when we started. The results have been impressive (at least to me.) We have had minimal damage from bean beetles, cabbage worms, Japanese beetles, and other common pests. We have had no blossom end rot, very little damping off, and everything has held in storage for much longer than expected. I haven't had the nutrient content of the produce tested, but it isn't even comparable to the produce we can get at the store.

With the livestock I have focused more on balancing their supplements rather than pasture fertility. That wasn't the best approach. This year we will begin a more deliberate soil fertility improvement program in the pastures. I expect that we will see increased productivity and improved animal health as a result. I'll be posting details of the plan and describing our implementation as we go along.

Updates - Luna and other things

Luna-She wants you to know she is "not dead yet". We had a very optimistic day. Her energy was up, and she was much more puppy like. I called the vet this afternoon to find out what the next step was, and had a bit of air let out of my happy balloon. Our vet is great, but she is not one to pull her punches. We have a long road ahead of us. Luna still isn't drinking, has diarrhea, and is only three days into this. Things will go up and down with her, and nothing is certain. Still, she came through the day bright eyed and feisty. Hope, it is what gets us through the day, and will get us through the days ahead.

Economic collapse - I know it is rocking the world, but for us it hasn't really done much. We live with a very low debt load, only a very small mortgage. Everything else we pay as we go. Our "retirement" is either in the state teacher's fund or strutting around in the back yard laying eggs or eating grass and giving milk. For us, food still costs a lot when we have to go to the store, but we are getting more and more put away so we don't have to do that as much. Gas has gone from a recent high of $3.89 to today's price of $2.64. That's not a bad thing. I know we are just at the start of this chaos, but ...

Rain - Was greeted by rain this morning. After a week of near 80 degree days, it was refreshing. The lawn is growing and looking pretty shaggy. Probably ought to mow before the snow. The pasture has grown too. At least an extra week, but not enough to make that much difference. Still, the warm temps and rain will help. On the flip side, it soaked the last of the wood pile that we hadn't yet transferred to the wood shed. We seem to be running out of space. The stack is at least 2 feet above the rafters in most places, and we still have quite a pile to move. That is a frustration, but it also leaves me feeling secure for the winter.

Goats on the micro-farm

Our Friend Ben left a comment on one of our recent posts lamenting the fact that he can't fit goats into his small homestead. They just don't have enough space. This got me thinking, so I did some quick calculations and here's what I found.

With proper management you should be able to graze a dairy goat (weighing about 135 lbs) for 8 months of the year on just over 1/10th of an acre. If you add in a pen and a shed sized mini barn you can keep a goat comfortably on 5000 square feet. That fits pretty comfortably in almost any back yard.

The key is management. To do this successfully you will have to buy in feed for the 4 month non-grazing season (or harvest your own. Gene Logsdon has a great post about this with ideas that could work on a much smaller scale, like using your lawn for hay.) You will also have to actively manage your grazing using a MIG type system. I will be detailing the nuts and bolts of this in my grazing booklet which will be available soon. If you are willing to do this you should be able to keep a dairy goat healthy, happy, and productive just about anywhere.

Mobil Chickens

As I mentioned in my earlier post Tall Grass Grazing, my chickens have been off rotation for a few weeks. They are still out on the pasture and have free access to well over 6000 square feet of grass. They are, however, parked. I have been moving the fence around so they can have new grass and don't do too much damage in one place, but it isn't the same as having them on rotation. They are an integral part of my pasture system. My flock of 50 birds produce and spread just shy of 4000 lbs of chicken manure over the course of a year. Great fertilizer for the pasture and I don't have to move it at all. They also shred all the dead grass and weeds the goats and cows left, eating any bits of green they find and all the bugs, flies, and larva in the grass and manure piles left by the grazers. I feed them about 30% of the diet I would feed confinement chickens and they give me about 800 dozen eggs. So, why are they parked?

Well, we are on year three with this mobile chicken house. It has been out in our rather wet pasture through three springs, two summers plus a bit, and two winters. Now the bottom frame has rotted to the point that I can't move it. So, fixing the chicken house has been added to the infinite TODO list.

Frame rot causes loss of mobility

Unfortunately, while I have been planning the repairs and upgrades (no point in doing it without making things better), other things have bumped it down the list. Today, for example, instead of fixing the chicken house (or finishing the herb boxes in the greenhouse, or weeding, or....) I worked on finishing the living room. Why? Company coming this weekend and the project we started in November and told everyone about STILL ISN'T FINISHED!!! Life sometimes gets in the way of projects. So, the chickens will have to wait for a few more days while I stain trim, fix the windows, and finish the bookcases next to the fire place we installed in November (which did a brilliant job of keeping us warm through the winter without the trim.)

Our chicken house after three years

Our chicken house is very simple. We bought a poultry house from Farm Tech and added a frame, wheels, roosts, and a nest box. It has held up very well through several feet of snow, -11 degree weather, floods, high winds, and being wheeled all over my very rough pasture. The chickens have stayed healthy and comfortable in it for the whole time. All I need to do is replace the wooden frame I added to hold the wheels, nest boxes, and winter side covering. I'll be doing it as soon as I find a free day.

"THE FLOOD OF 2008"

Hey, if the Weather Guessers can get away with such titles I should be able to as well. Everything and everyone survived. The water has receded and all the critters are happily back out on pasture. I feel a bit like the old fiddler with the leaky roof. Can't fix it when it's raining and it doesn't need fixing when it's not. I'm talking about the ditch that runs through my pasture and the culvert at the far end. Apparently I have two problems (I'm sure there are those of you out there who would say I don't know how to count if I can only come up with two), in my pasture. First, we are located at the bottom of Spring Mountain. It didn't get it's name for the season. Water, like other things, flows down hill, and leave my pasture saturated a few inches below the surface most of the year. That doesn't give new amounts of rain anywhere to go. Second, the ditch. It is supposed to channel the water from the culvert at the top of the pasture (the culvert that diverts all the run off from 3/4 a mile of hill side into my pasture) across the pasture and through a second culvert leading to the larger drainage ditch on the edge of the neighbors corn field. The ditch, hand dug some 30 years ago, has mostly filled in and doesn't really channel much water. Add to that the culvert at the far end, a pathetic 6" culvert that is at least half full of silt, and you will understand why we occasionally flood. The plan is to replace the whole ditch with a 10" pipe and a pond, but that is a few years down the road. Up until this past week, we haven't had any real problems. Early in the spring that part of the pasture floods, but all the critters are well up on the hill, and not effected. This year... Unfortunately, I cant get in there with any equipment to fix it until the ground dries out considerably. Bu then I won't need to fix it because we will be passed the rains and I'll be tempted to save the time and money for more important things. Someone should remind me to look back at these past few posts and get the job done.

A wee bit of rain

We had just finished dinner, enjoying watching the rain fall while we ate, when a knock came at the door. The neighbor from down the road had come to tell us that our goats were getting pretty unhappy. Apparently it was a bit wet in their part of the pasture. I put on my gum boots and went to check out the situation. This is what I found. (All the goats and cows have been moved safely to the dry barn before the pictures where taken. The chickens, however, will have to fend for themselves.)

Am I a chicken or a duck?

High and 'dry'?

The goat pasture with rain shelter, (that is a 50 gal water tank)

Water went over my gum boots a bit, almost to my waist in places.

Everyone is safe and dry now. Thank goodness for great neighbors!

Acres of unmowen grass

Last month's issue of ACRES USA featured an article by Joel Salatin on Mob Stocking. In it he described how he has changed this rotational grazing practice to allow the grass to get considerably older than is normal, well past the peak of the vegetative stage. The article goes on to detail all the benefits of this kind of grazing. As a long time MIG person I was somewhat skeptical. Timing grazing for the peak growth stage is vital to getting the most nutrition out of the grass and getting it to regrow repeatedly. I thought "Joel is just trying to differentiate himself again. That's what he does best." But, the past few weeks the grass has really gotten ahead of me, so much so that I was really thinking about making hay or at least mowing. So I decided to give long grass grazing a try. I'd done it before and hadn't liked the results. This time I cut the paddock size way down to really pack the animals together (I'm still a bit under stocked). I've been changing paddocks every day, and the animals are really doing well. Jury is still out as to what this is doing to my grass for fall, but I think we'll be fine.

Grazing long grass and thistle

I'll keep at it for a while while I watch how the grass responds. If I had made it into hay it should come back just fine, so I can't see how this would be any different.

Micro-scale Grazing

The grass has finally kicked in enough that we can start our grazing rotation. This year I have enough grazers and an early enough start that we should be able to keep up with the grass. Last year some of it got way ahead of me and I had to mow it. It was too far along to make good hay even if I could have gotten someone in to cut it and bale it. This year we will use it all.

Goats and Cows grazing

We graze just under two acres with about 2250 pounds of grazing animals (7 goats and two small cows. There are also some kids and calves, but they don't eat much until mid-summer when we need the extra grazers anyway.) Pasture provides 100% of their feed for 9 months (except a little grain supplement for the does we are milking) and part of their feed for another month and 1/2. We fed hay 65 days last season.

Grazing paddock on the right followed by chickens

We follow the cows and goats with a flock of 60+ chickens. They finish off the grass, weeds, and kick around the manure. They also do a great job on the flies, grass hoppers, and other pasture bugs. The chickens get about 60% of their diet from the pasture during the growing season, supplemented with a bit of scratch grain and some layer mash.

Mobile chicken coop

We use Premier 1's poultry netting for fencing with the chickens and the goats. I only use one electric fencer and switch it from the fence containing the goats in the day time to the fence containing the chickens at night. So far, after two years, it has kept the livestock in and the predators out (with the exception of an owl who got a couple of stupid chickens last fall. If they won't go in the coop at night there isn't much I can do.)

Our farm has no perimeter fencing (maybe someday it will be in the budget) and the area we graze is across the yard from the barn. This forces me to lead the animals to pasture and back to the barn every day. It takes a bit more time than it would to just turn them out, but it forces me to work with them each on a daily basis. For a small operation with limited animal handling infrastructure, this is very important. I know my animals well and I can walk up to any of them in the barn or out in the pasture, clip a lead on them and do what I need to do (vet checks, medication, what ever.) It's not a perfect system, but it works for us.

Getting out of the barn

The weather finally got good enough that I could get the animals out of the barn for a while. They still get hay morning and night, probably for another two weeks, there isn't enough green grass out yet to expect them to survive on that alone. But they seem to be enjoying the extra space, the sun, and the tender nibbles they find buried in the remains of last years grass. The first day I put them out, May, our Dexter cow, really kicked up her heels, jumping and bucking like a calf.



We had a nice visit to Columbus over Easter weekend. Molly and Patty traveled well and were a hit in the neighborhood. The cousins loved feeding them, and the neighbors came over to check them out. Even Grandma thought they were cute, though having them take up residence in her garage didn't thrill her.



This morning it was 23 degrees. The sun is shining and things are starting to thaw. Sandy seems to have the program for the day under control. Wish I could join him and bask a bit, but... the list of projects is starting to grow at an exponential rate. Maybe when I retire.

Long Dark Teatime

The weather did not cooperate for me so my Winter Solstice bonfire celebration was a bit of a bust. We did enjoy a fire inside for a while, but we weren't successful in keeping it going from dusk to dawn. I hope the light returns to the earth despite my negligence.

In addition to the fireplace in the living room we have installed a wood burning stove int the dining room. Between the two of them we have been able to heat most of the house quite well. This should help a lot this year. Last winter we used just over 800 gal. of fuel oil for heat. That's a lot of oil and a lot of expense. We didn't even manage to keep the house comfortable most of the time. So far this year we have used about 10 gal. and some electric space heaters. It was pretty frigid in the house before we reintroduced fire. I got the tile work done on the fireplace, but haven't finished the trim work. The holidays got in the way.

The grass has lasted longer than I thought it would. I still have about a week of good grazing left. I'm glad of that. I did buy some hay at the end of the summer, and that should get us through. Hay is over $6.00 a bale now if you can find it. I don't know how people can afford to feed it.

The chickens have disappointed me. We were doing some holiday baking and ran out of eggs (I had sold the two dozen we had in the ref. the night before.) so I did as I always do and went out to collect eggs. There are always one or two eggs hiding out there somewhere. Well there were none. We haven't had an egg since the 22nd. We had to buy eggs at the store to finish our baking. I know I could get them to lay if I put a light in the coop, but I haven't done that yet. To do it I would either have to bring them in close to the barn so I can reach with an extension cord or I would have to rig up some kind of solar panel/battery system. I didn't do that this year because they layed so well last winter. If they don't start back soon I will have to do something.

Today is gray and dreary, rain is coming. It's a good day for inside projects and planning.

A Busy Month

Thanks Pen for reminding me to do this. The whole point of blogging was so I didn't get behind on recording what we are doing. I guess July got a bit ahead of me.

Here's what we have been up to,

The kids and Connie had Vacation Bible School for a week. They had a great time, but it went pretty late in the evening. The last day of VBS was the first day of Camp Roberts. We had two young friends come stay for three days. It was great fun. The kids got to help with all the chores, including milking the cow and goats. They made scrapbooks, went swimming, made tee shirts, cooked out every night, and slept in a tent. We also enjoyed a fun day of fishing with to cub scouts. The cub scouts are coming to our house for a rocket project on Sunday.

Julia was also very busy with 4H. She had an oral report, a demonstration, and the Goat Skillathon test this month. She did very well for her first time.

Things on the farm have been a struggle. Time, heat, and water have all had a big impact on what we could get done. The garden has really struggled due to lack of rain. Some things have done very well in spite of the weather. We have had an abundance of Chard, Zucchini, and Beans. The tomatoes have set well and are starting to ripen.

The garlic had to be dug a bit earlier than I expected, but I am pleased with the overall quality. We have enough to put in four 50ft. beds and still have quite a bit left to sell. People are really interested, so I hope it does well.

August brought rain. The temp has stayed in the 90s, but at least I'm not trying to water the garden every day.

Everything is settling back down after a hectic month. Now we can focus on getting the house painted, getting the fall garden in, keeping up with the grass, and getting the kids ready to start school in two weeks. It should be a bit easier than last month. I have finally worked the kinks out of my grazing system and am ready to put up some more permanent fence (in my spare time). It's fun to see a MIG system start to work. (I knew it would, but it still pleases me when it works in the real world.) We are feeding about 2000 lbs of livestock on less than an acre. Our neighbors run one cow to the acre (about 1000 - 1300 lbs) in a set grazing system and had to start feeding hay in July because they were out of grass. When I talked with them about what we are doing they say that the two system can't be compared because I run goats in with the cow and they eat different things. While it is true that the goats eat some things the cow wont, in my pasture they all eat pretty much the same thing - grass, there isn't anything else.

We are struggling a bit with the cow. We need to get her bred but can't find a bull who wouldn't crush her anywhere close. We will probably have to have her A.I.ed but finding someone who will do it isn't as easy as I thought it would be. I'm going to have to get trained so I can do it myself. It's all a matter of time.

The redwings seem to have dispersed, but the barn swallows are out in full force. Some evenings there will be 50 or more following me around the pasture. It can be a bit unnerving as they swoop in quite close to catch the bugs I stir up as I walk through the grass.

A break in the weather

The sun finally came out today. The wind has died back a bit, only blowing about 9 mph now. The temp looks like it will get well into the 50s. We should get something done outside.

Our grazing system seems to be working quite well. The goats have adjusted to moving down the ally way and are thriving on the new grass. The neighbors think I am crazy. They don't understand why I would be moving fence every day. It is a bit of work, but everything seems to be responding well. The paddock fence I am using is just large enough for six goats. When we get a cow we will have to increase the paddock size. If I add another section of fence that should give me two days grazing before I have to move the fences. The good grazing has boosted milk production. I'm going to have to get serious about this cheese thing. A lot of people are interested in getting cheese from us, I just need to wade through the legal mire so we can do it without getting in a lot of trouble.

The chickens are doing an excellent job on the neglected part of the pasture. After two days in one spot it looks like it has been bush-hogged and de-thached. Looking back at places they were 2 weeks ago is amazing. The old shredded grass has mostly broken down and the new grass is jumping out of the ground. I expect that in about 2 weeks they will be linked back up with the goats. They will follow about three days behind to clean up anything the goats didn't eat and to eliminate the fly larva from the goat droppings. With them out on pasture I have been able to cut back on my grain ration some. That is helping with the cost, but I must figure out an economical way to produce more of their feed here. Otherwise we won't be able to stay in the egg production business.

With the weather on the upswing mowing is going to become an issue. Last summer I tried to keep up with it using a small push mower. It took a lot of time and I wasn't able to ever get it all done. Eventually we hope to eliminate some of the mowing by planting gardens, but that's a ways in the future. The debate going on right now is weather we should get a used riding mower, or try to make it through another summer with the push mower. The rider conflicts with our energy goals, but it would really reduce the amount of time needed to accomplish that chore. Eventually we could convert the rider to electric, which we could produce ourselves. So the question is what moves us closer to our goal; using more fossil fuels and having time to do the other projects we have; or using slightly less fossil fuel (our push mower is gas powered too) and having less time? Right now I am leaning towards the rider. It's not a great answer, but in the long run I think we can make it work.