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.
When I was a kid, my Dad and Grandpa had a fencing wagon. It was a large flatbed that pulled behind a tractor, always disorganized, loaded with a jumbled rack of wooden fence posts and rolls of wire, stacks of step-in metal fenceposts, buckets and bags of insulaters and gate handles, usually a few fencing… Continue reading Fixing Fence
I bet you didn't know there was going to be a part deux. But there is! LAst time, when we put the thing together we didn't have a tarp to go on top, so, while it did cast some shade, it was very little, and in a grid pattern. Now we have a green/silver 12… Continue reading The Second Shade Mobile, Part II
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!
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
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!
There are two main issues with keeping animals on pasture all year around here. One is the heat and dryness for 3 months every summer. The other is the cold and wetness for 9 months every winter. Other than that, it's a cinch. Since our pasture doesn't have any trees (yet) we are constructing mobile… Continue reading Mobile Shelters
Little Farm in the Big City 