So easy a child could do it

Maybe.

The ultimate goal of getting our rotational grazing set up is to be able to move cows and sheep, +/- pigs, and poultry of some type around the pasture every single day, with less than one hour of work per day most days. We anticipate having seasonal ups and downs, e.g. planting and harvest seasons, and days when we will need to make larger stock movements or harvest animals. However, we want the day-to-day running of the farm not to take up too much time and to be fairly streamlined so that we can have friends and neighbors help out with it at a pinch, without being too burdensome.

Of course we are a long way from that yet. We are still designing systems and working out kinks. Actually, we are still creating the kinks that will need to be worked out, but we are trying, and now we have critters on grass it is pretty satisfying to see them out there, happily munching away.

We don’t have our systems set up, but we are in the experiment phase. There are a couple of big questions to answer.

• How many animals can our land sustain, during the wet season? During the dry season? During the cold season?
• How much paddock space does each type of animal need per day?
• What is the most efficient way to control their movement?
• How to provide them water and shade/wind screen as they move?

We have read books, watched youtube videos, listened to classes on School of Traditional Skills, and they have helped us get pointed in the right direction, but in the end, we are just going to have to experiment and see what works.

This may sound like a lot of work, and it is. I enjoy every minute of it, because I get to do it with my wife and kids, as well as for them. Unlike going to the clinic to do things that they can’t be a part of to earn money for us to buy things for them, this is a process that they can be a part of, each in their own way, at their own level.

Slowly, one step at a time, we are returning the family to the center of the economy, building an economy of the family, by the family and for the family.