• Winter feeding…

    …takes several forms at Thistle Hill.  This is my personal favorite because we’re feeding the soil as well. The cows follow behind the tractor as it unrolls the bale of hay.  They’ll eat up to 60%..the rest becomes organic matter enriching the soil…feeding the microbes and, in turn, the plants. Oh and tonight the new calves will sleep on it…staying warm off the cold ground.  And yes New England, that’s what we call winter in Virginia! David

  • A good omen…

    …as a rainbow finds daughter Carolyn inspecting one of our newly-seeded pastures.  It’s been 10 days since we seeded a cover crop of ryes, clovers, turnips, radishes and cow peas. It’s the cow peas clearly winning the germination race but if you look closely you can see the ryes breaking the surface. We let the cows graze the planned seeding areas lower than usual.  Otherwise we did no special prep work but depending on a no-till drill to set the seeds. Our thanks to Glen Covingtin of the MarshAll Coop for consulting on our project. David

  • Upgrading some pastures…

    …and using a no-till drill. In addition to clover, which we often spread, this year we’re mixing in perennial rye, cereal rye, turnips, radishes and cow peas. We’re doing several pastures hoping to extend the natural grazing season.  Not only should it mean extra nourishment for mama and calf in the winter slump but some of these plants put down very deep roots. The theory is that will loosen the compacted soil and bring more minerals closer to the surface to feed the plants.  It also should help capture rain water, limiting the effects of drought. As they say on television…”only time will tell”! David

  • The magic of grazing…

    This photo by son-in-law Curt Humphreys captures the harmonious relationship among soil, grass, animals and sky that is an on-going process on the pastures of Thistle Hill. There are no losers in this kind of farming…the soil, the grass, the cows and the environment all prosper.  And the farmer does, too. It’s easy to lose sight of the Big Picture but every once in awhile we come across a kindred spirit, such as Suzanne Nelson Karreman in North Carolina, who puts it into words better than most of us can.  She deals with the holistic nature of this kind of husbandry…yes, including the ultimate death involved. https://reverencefarms.com/ruminants-make-more-life-than-they-take/ David

  • Strip grazing…

    …and the main herd has settled in…changing paddocks with no more than a whistle.  I’m sure you could set up an automatic gate opener and they’d move themselves. There are 33 pregnant cows in this group.  The section already grazed is in the foreground.  By enlarging the picture you may be able to see the single strand of polywire which is all we need to keep them together. The grass as we began was about a foot tall, and we’ve taken the top half before moving on.  In recent years a technique has developed called “mob grazing”…or “high intensity grazing”…that is jamming the equivalent of 500 to 700 cows into…

  • A picture only a farmer…

    …can love.  A spade full of our western pasture taken at random.  The worms (I count six!) confirm a lot’s going on out there.  We’re planning on improved organic matter readings with more hooves on the ground in the coming year. Here is what it looks like right now too…over in the eastern pasture.  Church is holding back the herd…wants six more inches of grass before he starts strip grazing.  A few more days like today and he’ll be putting in the temporary fencing. Love the clover.  It’s the second year for this stand.  That’s nutrition for the cows…the ground…and those worms! David

  • Not an approaching storm…

    …but an approaching lime truck. Our pH averaged about 5.8 across the farm and we decided to bring it back up over 6.0. We’re adding one to two tons of dolomitic lime per acre…depending on what soil testing revealed. I think this is the best investment you can make in a pasture. It not only kicks up the yield and feeds soil biology, I’m convinced it is one of the reasons Thistle Hill beef and pork just tastes better! IMHO Good timing too…if we can get it all down. Two days of rain coming to soak it in. Incidentally over the years we’ve found some difference among soil tests…with the…

  • Starting second pass…

    …after about 45 days rest. Grandson Church says too many weeds though that’s not apparent in the picture. We calculate we have about 54,000 pounds animal weight per acre…just about a quarter of what we really need to see the results off mob grazing. At this level the cows can still afford to be selective. And there’s only limited trampling affect. The obvious answer is to reduce the size of the paddocks but that brings up the question of water and shade. Yes, we could bring in more cows but it’s almost breeding time and again this year we’ll be testing several young bulls after ai-ing. Interesting choices for a…

  • 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…