They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
We finally got to the thing! The intensive pasture management, or rotational grazing, or whatever you want to call it, that we have been planning on since Ryan started reading all the farming books during the pandemic, before we even had a farm. Almost two years after buying this farm, we finally have the infrastructure… Continue reading We are really doing it!
The last shade mobile we built had a door. This is because, eventually, we plan on enclosing it in chicken wire and putting chickens in it. However, this is not ideal for cows, as they can get stuck in the doorway and break it. So we made another shade mobile last Tuesday. Incidentally, Ryan had… Continue reading The Second Shade Mobile
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… Continue reading So easy a child could do it
Thursday is usually a fairly short day of work. Thanks to some recent changes in Daddy's work schedule, it should soon be a day off for both Mommy and Daddy! Then we will have a family day every week (until we fill it to the brim with errands and extra-curricular activities and such...) But for… Continue reading Thursday Afternoon
It's amazing what we can accomplish with a few hours of work and some motivated helpers. Miss Winnie fits Seppi's old cowboy boots. Man work! Not quite big enough for Daddy's sunglasses. Ellie was sent to go get a roll of wire from the barn. Apparently she needed Seppi and a wheelbarrow to bring it… Continue reading The Sheep Shelter
Right now the process is too time consuming. We are going at look at ways to improve the process so it only takes a few minutes. At the beginning of the week last week we found that the sheep were beginning to test the fence. Their side of the fence was eaten down pretty low,… Continue reading Setting up a new paddock
Well, it's not pretty, but it will do. Two 8-foot gates closing a 16 foot gap at the end of the laneway. They are only fastened by two relatively light chains with extremely light clips, but there is a pile of rocks (yes, I know, but I was in a hurry) behind the middle section… Continue reading Opening up the lane… by closing it off!
Last Saturday, after the bull calves casually walked through our (somewhat) electrified netting for no apparent reason, Mommy and Daddy went on a date. I record that here because we made a resolution at the beginning of the year that we were going to do one date per month, and so far so good! Of… Continue reading It never goes smoothly…
A week ago I did a bit of "fancy" fencing to get a gap closed. However, despite how fancy the chiseled notches looked (not that fancy), at the end of the day it was only tied in place with one bail twine and one wire tie. So yesterday we ended up having to go to… Continue reading Fancy Fencing, Part 2
The ultimate goal of having cows is for them to eat our grass and turn it into meat and milk. Accordingly, we want to get our bulls out on pasture as quickly as possible to take advantage of the Spring flush. (I say "bulls" and not "steers" because, despite the fact that they have been… Continue reading Bulls on Pasture
Little Farm in the Big City 