Archive for the ‘Crops - Pasture’ Category

March 31, 2009 – Planting Willows

It’s time to cut back the willows in the willow nursery.

Here’s a curly willow before pruning.

Here’s what it looks like after it’s pruned or “coppiced.”

I use the prunings to start more willows.  I put 88 in the ground. They seem to grow by just sticking them into the ground – we experimented last year just ...Read more.

February 23, 2009 – Winter Willow Nursery

I’m a little bit pumped about our willow nursery.  It’s taken off and I am even more excited to try expanding the willows as browse for the goats and sheep.

As soon as the ground unfreezes, we’ll cut these down and plant many more in the back pasture.  The test plantings we did last year, just ...Read more.

July 20, 2008 – Martin’s View of “The Swamp”

I thought a seven-year-old boy would appreciate the life in the wetland, so I made it a point to bring Martin over and wax on enthusiastically about the tadpoles and diversity of life in the small exclosure when we were working on the trees in the back pasture.

A bit later, he was helping mulch some ...Read more.

July 19, 2008 – Wetland Success

We started an experiment a few years ago.  There was this awful mudhole in the pasture that seemed to get bigger by the day – when the grass was soggy, the cows would keep breaking hunks of sod off, enlarging the mud area.

This is what it looked like in the spring of 2005.  Martin can’t ...Read more.

April 27, 2008 – A Constant Battle

There’s always something to do on the farm, but eventually the most urgent things spring to the top of the list.

One of these items is this fence. We’ll call it the “Leaning Fence of Melbourne.” It’s a bit of a pain to tear out the old, but this one is way past its ...Read more.

April 19, 2008 – Moving Fence

After another rainy week, it’s important to keep moving ahead, even though the saturated ground prevents us from getting the new trees and grapes in the ground. So today, we moved a fence to enlarge an exclosure in the pasture to accommodate the trees, even though we can’t plant them yet. With saturated ...Read more.

March 25, 2008 – Pasture Overseeding

Last year I frost seeded some clovers in the back pasture (frost seeding is a fancy name for just throwing seeds on the ground and the early spring freeze/thaw/rain snow moves the seeds down into cracks in the soil and puts them in a place to germinate).

The pasture was greatly inproved from its grass-heavy state.  ...Read more.

March 4, 2008 – A First Melting

On Sunday, the temps soared to 46 degrees!

In the back pasture, the four foot high fence is nearly buried and the yellow snow is water flowing through the snow from a drainage in the adjacent field.  We’ve got a lot of melting before spring comes.

A temporary river started flowing through a low spot in the ...Read more.

June 15, 2007 – It’s Hot, Must be Haymaking Time!

Now that the temps are in the 90’s – that means just one thing – it must be time to make hay!  We were invited to help at Two Friends Farm this weekend.

How’s this for a date?  Sitting on an empty hay rack after the unloading 100 or so bales is a good rest.

Starting out ...Read more.

June 4, 2007 – Farm View Series #1 NE Corner

Today is the first in a series of views of the farm.  I went to each corner of the property (and the midpoints) and took photos in different directions.  This view is from the NE corner of the property.  I did some of this a decade or so ago, but wish I had been more ...Read more.

May 6, 2007 – Portable Fencing

Here’s a picture of our new portable electric fence.  The name of this fencing is “Permanet” as it is designed to be left up for the whole season, if necessary.  We get our electric fencing from Premier Fencing in Washington, Iowa.  Many people swear it is the best you can get. 

We’ve used some of the ...Read more.

March 27, 2007 – Boundary Fence Up

The boundary fence was completed in short order.

“All” that is left boundary fence-wise is to re-string the electric wire around the perimeter and this new line. Eventually, if the planting goes as planned, a new fenceline along the east edge will be in order as well. But that is a much bigger project.
one year ago…

March 26, 2007 – Moving Fencing Material into Place

Another nice June-like day in the upper 70’s. Started working on some more fencing (it will never end). Went to town to pick up wholesale buying club order, got some cardboard sheets and more cattle panels and T-posts. Martin is a great 5 year-old worker. Sometimes he asks what work we can do outside.

Here he ...Read more.

March 24, 2007 – Getting Piled up Chores Done

The weatherman promised rain most of the day, but it really didn’t seem to come as heavily/often as we were led to believe. That gave us a chance to get some much-awaited spring chores done. First was overseeding the back pasture.

Martin’s job was to reseed the cow trail. He did a good job and seeded ...Read more.