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The morning commute…
…sometimes a 12-point buck crosses the path but usually there’s not that much traffic. I can only shake my head when people ask if I ever get bored on the farm. David
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At the end of the rainbow…
…there are cows in there somewhere! The wet weather this past year forced a late start on grazing. We’re now finally allocating a half acre every day to 35 cow/calf pars. And with this perfect growing weather they’ll be back in four weeks.
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The good, the bad and…
…alright, the ugly. We’ve certainly answered the question: can you overseed fescue. Grandson Church did just that last January, using a small spreader between light late-season snowfalls. As you can see there was considerable success. You’ll also note some wayward red clover…perhaps in the bulk seed bag but also possibly from earlier years. This much clover will provide all the nitrogen our pastures could possibly need. Now for the bad…a confession: this will certainly serve our goal, which was to provide warm season grazing; an antidote to the endophyte fescue. But as you can tell by the seed heads, we’ve let the orchard grass get ahead of us The best…
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A modern Tom Sawyer….
….grandson Luis came out to the farm after school Friday and managed to fish before the storms and dark rolled in. The final total was 11…including what looks to be a nice two-pound large mouth bass. Perfect pan size but Luis practices catch and release and so the bass and crappies and blue gill went back into the pond. As we said, storms were closing in and they can be dangerous here…dangerous but beautiful! David
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A lovely young maiden at Cathy Cochran’s Oak Hill Farm.
She’s just two days old but seems older. Her sire is Thistle Hill’s King David. He spent the last breeding season at Oak Hill and contributed new genetics to Cathy’s award winning herd. Meanwhile King David is back home awaiting his next assignment. David
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Watching grass grow….
The definition of “boring” may be watching grass grow but whoever said that was certainly never a cattleman. We’ve finally started strip grazing and here’s an after-action picture of the first paddock. The untouched grass is behind the electric wire in the background. This was the result on a half acre with 30 cow/calf pairs in the first day. Church has decided to add eight more two year olds to increase the trampling and manure distribution. We’d also like the main herd to clean up some of the weeds. Maybe on the next pass. This paddock will rest for about a month…depending on grass regrowth. It’s trial and error while…