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.
The pasture looked like it was pretty much done for the summer. Then, out of nowhere, we got a rain storm on the 16th, and got a couple of tenths of an inch of rain. This may have given the pasture a new lease on life. We'll see if this bulks up the north pasture… Continue reading Separating the Young Stock
The rain has stopped for the summer. The pasture is not growing anymore. We have about another two weeks of rotation before they are off the pasture until the rains return, hopefully in September. This means we have to buy in hay. Last year we got about a hundred bales from Papa's field. This year… Continue reading Summer Drought and Truck Maintenance
We are getting to the end of the spring flush. This means that the weather is getting hotter and drier, so the grass growth slows down. If we irrigated the pasture we could probably keep it growing longer, but irrigation of two acres of pasture would be very expensive, so we do not do that.… Continue reading Fixing Fence
This is the "sacrificial paddock" from last winter. I think we can safely say that experiment was a failure. The areas that were re-seeded and buried under hay are dry and dusty, with exposed dirt rather than green grass. This is going to require some serious rehab. The reason I was down here in the… Continue reading Miscellaneous.
We have been noticing a problem in the pasture with the onset of hot weather. It is the presence of flies. Deer flies, specifically, but there are many varieties of fly out there. They love poop, especially cow poop. They also like landing on warm, sweaty surfaces, and in the summer, there is no warmer… Continue reading Pasture Ducks
We are doing the pasture rotation a little bit different this year. We have three lambs and a calf in our little flerd, and there has been some coyote activity in the area over the last few weeks. Also, there is not enough grass yet to sustain them in a small 40x50 foot paddock for… Continue reading Early Spring Pasture
Way back at the beginning of December.... We built a fence. We got a lot of work done in a single day, but left some of the brackets unattached, but this was no big deal we came back and got 3/4 of them put in a few days later. Couldn't quite finish before sundown and… Continue reading Finishing the Fence
Cow salt and sheep salt are not the same. I don't know if you know this. You may have thought that we just salted our cow and our sheep with the same generic table salt, but you would be wrong. Sheep salt has to be granular, not blocked, because sheep have smooth tongues. They cannot… Continue reading Salt Boxes
Meishans are a very interesting species of pig. We haven't completely figured out their behavior yet. Most of the time you can run them through the pasture and they may root a little here and there, but overall they will leave it alone. At most you'll have a spot or two where you have to… Continue reading Pasture Rehab
Here in the good ol' Pacific Northwest, getting ready for winter is more about getting things ready for rain than it is prepping for snow or ice. This means cleaning out the gutters (before and after the leaves fall). We had gutter guards, but found that we grew too much moss under them and the… Continue reading Winter is Coming
Little Farm in the Big City 