{"id":3789,"date":"2014-09-18T08:01:13","date_gmt":"2014-09-18T12:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/?p=3789"},"modified":"2014-09-18T09:19:25","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T13:19:25","slug":"thistle-hill-goes-global","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/thistle-hill-goes-global\/","title":{"rendered":"Thistle Hill goes “global”…."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20140915_121409\"<\/a>….we really enjoy entertaining visitors at Thistle Hill.\u00a0 We always learn more from our guests than they ever learn from us.\u00a0 Just a fresh set of eyes makes us see things we just never focused on.<\/p>\n

This week we hosted a delegation of cattle and dairymen and women from South Africa and they brought with them an agronomist from Australia, Christine Jones.<\/p>\n

\"20140916_18<\/a>The group had skipped breakfast and arrived from Washington torn between our pastures and our buffet.\u00a0 Food won out!\u00a0 I haven’t had beer for breakfast, much less burgers and brats, since I was flying for SAC,\u00a0but Thistle Hill meats are perfect any time.<\/p>\n

Stomachs satisfied, they set out on what was to be a brief tour and turned out to be an almost day-long seminar in pasture management….conducted by our guests.\u00a0 It’s the first time visitors\"20140916_43\"<\/a>\u00a0have asked for a shovel as they set out…and they quickly uncovered our “dirty little secret”!\u00a0 Little dirt!<\/p>\n

Despite our efforts to increase top soil and organic matter, in fact much of our land sits on shale underpinned by solid rock.\u00a0 Roots in our grass go down about four inches and then start to grow side-ways.\u00a0 Still, the South Africans were impressed with the health of the grass, over-coming its handicap.\"20140916_48\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of our fields are pretty good though…and that’s where we’re stockpiling grass for the winter.\u00a0 Usually group tours are led by an expert but everyone in this group was an expert and it was fun listening as the self-conducted a seminar on pasture management.<\/p>\n

Our bulls made quite an impression.\u00a0 Red Devon are not common\"20140916_71\"<\/a>\u00a0in South Africa apparently.\u00a0\u00a0 We think they’d be perfect down there.<\/p>\n

Their curiosity at least partly satisfied, the group headed off in a caravan of three cars for Charlottesville and then to Joel Salatin’s “Polyface” farm in the Shenandoah Valley.\u00a0 We rushed inside to write down ideas and get to work!<\/p>\n

And we promise never to tell anyone our guests\u00a0had cookies and beer for breakfast!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

….we really enjoy entertaining visitors at Thistle Hill.\u00a0 We always learn more from our guests than they ever learn from us.\u00a0 Just a fresh set of eyes makes us see things we just never focused on. This week we hosted a delegation of cattle and dairymen and women from South Africa and they brought with them an agronomist from Australia, Christine Jones. The group had skipped breakfast and arrived from Washington torn between our pastures and our buffet.\u00a0 Food won out!\u00a0 I haven’t had beer for breakfast, much less burgers and brats, since I was flying for SAC,\u00a0but Thistle Hill meats are perfect any time. Stomachs satisfied, they set out on what was to be a brief tour and turned out to be an almost day-long seminar in pasture management….conducted by our guests.\u00a0 It’s the first time visitors\u00a0have asked for a shovel as they set out…and they quickly uncovered our “dirty little secret”!\u00a0 Little dirt! Despite our efforts to increase top soil and organic matter, in fact much of our land sits on shale underpinned by solid rock.\u00a0 Roots in our grass go down about four inches and then start to grow side-ways.\u00a0 Still, the South Africans were impressed with the health of the grass, over-coming its handicap. Some of our fields are pretty good though…and that’s where we’re stockpiling grass for the winter.\u00a0 Usually group tours are led by an expert but everyone in this group was an expert and it was fun listening as the self-conducted a seminar on pasture management. Our bulls made quite an impression.\u00a0 Red Devon are not common\u00a0in South Africa apparently.\u00a0\u00a0 We think they’d be perfect down there. Their curiosity at least partly satisfied, the group headed off in a caravan of three cars for Charlottesville and then to Joel Salatin’s “Polyface” farm in the Shenandoah Valley.\u00a0 We rushed inside to write down ideas and get to work! And we promise never to tell anyone our guests\u00a0had cookies and beer for breakfast!  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,108,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pasture","category-south-african","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3789"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3806,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3789\/revisions\/3806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}