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A grazing update….
With our neighbors all feeding hay for some days now, I took a quick run through our pastures and think we’re still in pretty good shape. Our mob grazing experiment has paid off with a better winter stockpile of grass than usual. The main herd still has more than a month of grass left and that’s without squeezing out the last quarter of an inch as we’ve often done in the past. We want to leave a good residual of at least 3 inches in all our paddocks so growth has a head start and can take off in the Spring. That was our major weakness as we began our…
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Turkey Bowl VI…
Our annual Turkey Bowl has become a fixture of our family weekend. And the play has improved each year, mostly because our grandchildren have moved up to high school and college. Grandpa, in the center, has also moved up to great-grandpa and has been assigned a more limited role to a few plays as nose guard and center. This is a recognition not of his skill but his singular lack of mobility. Son-in-law Paul, the quarterback of our team, is the prime force in organizing the game and always has a few trick plays up his sleeve, which insure that our team will continue its losing streak. We were further set back…
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Thanksgiving feast at Thistle Hill…
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Why we’re so fat….
Dad’s note: what follows is a post from our daughter, Carolyn. At the Baylor Medical Center in Dallas, they call her Dr. Matthews. She is a cancer surgeon who has shifted some of her attention recently to creating a center for integrative medicine at Baylor. Carolyn is a frequent writer and lecturer, the mother of two, and a partner in Thistle Hill Devon. Here’s her post: In our lifetime we are experiencing never before seen rates of obesity, with a 60% rate of overweight in adults. In my field of gynecologic oncology, our surgical cases have become tremendously challenging due to the large size of our patients. When I was…
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On the soap box (again)…
If Thistle Hill has a secret weapon, it may be our mineral program. It’s certainly not a “top secret”; many natural livestock people do what we do. But it is not generally used in the commercial industry because of the cost involved. A cow grazing in the wild doesn’t need mineral supplementation. She can select from the grasses, herbs and even the soil to keep her system in balance and her immune system strong. But in a fenced pasture, she is at the mercy of what is before her. That’s particularly a problem in the East, where the land was “farmed out” long ago. I’ve seen estimates that it would…
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Important information for your Thanksgiving…..
If you’re like our family, the second best thing about Thanksgiving—right after the stuffing—is the annual Turkey Bowl. Usually grandpa (your humble blogger) determines the rules (usually favoring your humble blogger). We’ve had more than a few challenges to the rulings on the field (issued by you-know-who). But daughter, Linda—wide receiver, mother of two running backs, wife of one of the quarterbacks and grandmother of this year’s rookie phenom—has forwarded a set of rules not to be quarreled with. We offer them to your family as a public service. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204531404577050370294096452.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLE_Video_second I mentioned one quarterback—Linda’s husband, Bill—the other is Paul—Janet’s husband. I also mentioned our new rookie, great-grandson Rowan. Rowan may be only six months old, but…
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From the Soap Box….
Sometimes it seems to us that farming is a bit like the canary in the coal mine, a kind of early warning system. It’s the farmer who first saw the dangers of modern, industrial agriculture. He tried to tell us that not only was he being shoved off the land, but that the corporations replacing him were using industrial, mass production practices that were ultimately destructive to the land. But because the immediate result, as far as most consumers could tell, was lower prices, no one paid any attention to the warnings. Even when, like the canaries, millions of farmers keeled over and died. Only now are scientists beginning to worry, and…
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A magic number….
….1,000! While we’ve been occupied the past several days shipping animals to their new homes, hosting visiting firemen, and attending a conference on grass (aren’t you sorry you missed it?), this little blog that barely can, passed the thousand mark in readership. Since we got started less than two months ago, with an appropriate lack of fanfare, that is gratifying. To be honest, we don’t know how this counter software counts, or anything else about blogging, so we can’t say if this is just one of my grandchildren visiting 25 times every day to make grandpa feel good, or if there is actually some interest in these meanderings. In any event,…
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Did you know…
…that you can click on any picture on this Blog page….and the pictures enlarge to full screen? I didn’t; and I’m supposed to be in charge here.* Just found out by accident. We will continue now, at the same low subscription price. * I know because I reconfirm that every morrning with Wooz.
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Visit from old friends….
…but a little younger than I am. Gisela and Kurt Volkert have been an important part of my life since 1967. That’s when I was assigned to Viet Nam by CBS News. Kurt and Gisela, newlyweds, were new to the war, too. Kurt was one of those brave but anonymous combat cameramen who made CBS coverage of Viet Nam so noteworthy. I kept my head down and provided the words later. Kurt is now an artist living in Germany but the Volkerts are regular visitors to the States, not so much because of the quality of my conversation but because they have a baby granddaughter living here. Visitors, old friends, none…