Tag Archives: pasture management

5 Benefits of Letting Your Pastures Grow without Mowing

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Managing pasture is both an art and a science. And we certainly don’t have it all figured out. But when the pasture is pretty much your entire food source for 90% of the year, having “good grass” is an all-consuming part of the farm life. Animals don’t eat grass that gets too old. And if they do, it doesn’t have the same nutritional value that it has when it’s younger. When it’s young, the grass is focused growing leaves, which makes it tasty and full of good vitamins, nutrients, and … Continue Reading…

How To Use Pallets as Small Bridges on the Homestead

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We’ve been knocking out several smaller projects around the homestead this summer, in between busy off-farm schedules and sports practices. It’s also been a really rainy summer around here. Normally we’re talking about droughts, but this year we’re talking about the never-ending rain. We haven’t had time to get big projects done between the raindrops! But we’ve finished several pallet projects with our scrap pile recently. Even little projects can make life easier or better on the homestead. It is very flat in our area. Very flat. And since water moves … Continue Reading…

How To Build a Water and Mineral Stand for Your Homestead

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There’s always big projects and small projects on the homestead. It often bothers me that we have a 1,000 things going on and nothing is ever started and finished in one big swing. But I’ve learned that the farm is ALWAYS bigger than the man and it’s best to be flexible if you want to get anything done. And every once in a while you find a small project that you can knock out quickly and move on. Our recent mobile water and mineral stand project was one. Wood pallets used … Continue Reading…

How to Use Google Calendar for Farm and Home Maintenance Records

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So, in the crazy-busy season of summer holidays and all the end-of-school “festivities” (annual testing, awards ceremonies, field days, summer camp registrations, etc.) I’m reminded again how glad I am that we’ve worked out a maintenance record-keeping system that is quick, easy, and efficient when I don’t have the time (or inclination) to go through the piles of paperwork that need filing in our home office. We’ve developed a system for using Google Calendar to track certain important information and events in our farm management–backed up by paper and digital records–so … Continue Reading…

Building a Mobile Shade Shelter (Part 2) The Roof

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Well, it rained all day on Friday. It was raining, soggy, and overcast all day on Saturday and we had some special events with the kiddos. So we were up with the sun on Sunday and got a lot of things knocked off the TO-DO list, including finishing up the rebuild on our mobile shade shelter. I talked last week about completing the structural rebuild and throwing a tarp over it until we could get to the permanent roof. This weekend we got the roof done. Building a Mobile Shade … Continue Reading…

Building a Mobile Shade Shelter (Part 1) The Structure

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You might remember the twisted pile of mess Coal was always climbing on last Fall that was our mobile shade shelter for the animals. It had blown apart again and it was time for a real overhaul. So it sat around all winter as a pile of farm junk in the back of the field while we didn’t need it. Since we’ve had our first week of over 80 degree days, now we do, so we hauled it out of the field and got started on the rebuild last weekend. Building a … Continue Reading…

Why We Take Pasture Walks…Even in the Rain

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The weather’s been beautiful lately. Except for the days when it’s not. It’s been sunny, 80 degrees, shorts and tee-shirt weather. Except for when it’s a chilly 60 degrees, damp and raining. It’s been outside-all-day, work and play in the sunshine time. Except for the allergies, sinus migraines, and ear infections. (All me, this time!) The point is that it’s a normal spring in Virginia–and whether it’s sunny and 80 or drippy and 60, we’re out in the paths and pastures every day with the dogs. A regular pasture walk … Continue Reading…

Managing Winter Bedding Waste by Composting

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We use a deep bedding system (also called “deep litter” for poultry) for all our different livestock around here in the winter. That means that instead of a regular schedule of removing waste from barns, sheds, and loafing areas, we continually add clean bedding material on top of the old bedding. It becomes a deep pile of material, which is cleaned out all at once in the Spring. We “clean” it up by composting it and eventually spreading it on the pastures. Here’s a more detailed look at how it works. … Continue Reading…

Spring Fence Work and Fence Maintenance Supplies for the Small Farm

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One of the things good spring weather means is that outside farm repairs can get going again. While I was moving lambs last weekend, Mr. Fix-It and Speedracer were fixing and replacing fence posts and adjusting gates. Some of our woven-wire fence is in bad shape these days. Cows and horses are tall enough to reach over and get grass on the other side. When they leannnned on it, it sagged. Running a strip of electric around the top will fix this problem, but we caught on a bit late … Continue Reading…

Moving Lambs to New Pastures

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With the nice weather this past weekend, part of our outside chores included moving the lambs (and their mommas) to new pastures. There’s grass coming up, so the goal is to keep the animals on fresh, green grass as much as possible. That involves a lot of moving animals around from one pasture to another, from one side of the farm to the other. The older animals do fine with it. They’ve moved before and they understand the typical routes. They also know there’s good grass at the end of the … Continue Reading…

The Lambs Are Growing

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Our oldest lambs are nearly 6 weeks old now. They’ve grown enough that the later ones are catching up to the early ones and the singles have really jumped ahead of the twins, size-wise. You can also start to see that the ram lambs (males) are starting to bulk up faster than the ewe lambs (females). The grass is just starting to haze the fields from brown to green. We’ve started weaning the adults off their grain supplement. Soon we’ll worm them and move them to the big pasture. Sheep … Continue Reading…

Pros and Cons of a Hoop House Chicken Coop

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Our latest chicken coop is a hoop house style made from an old greenhouse frame, with hog panel sides and salvaged tin for the front and back wall. We wrap it in 9 mil plastic for weather proofing. There are runner boards (or skids) along the bottom on both long sides. This means we can drag it around the field as needed–something we do weekly. That also gives us something to fasten the plastic to in the winter. At the top of the hog panel wall on each side are … Continue Reading…

Fixing Fence and Family Time…the Daily Farm Adventures {117}

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The weather around here is so wonky in the Fall/Winter. When school starts, it’s really still summer. About October, Fall hits and we’re all in sweatshirts for the morning, and long-sleeve tees in the afternoon. Then suddenly between Thanksgiving and Christmas we get a beautiful Indian Summer, and everyone’s back in tee-shirts for a few weeks. Our real “winter” doesn’t hit until January–and even then it’s usually broken up with some weeks of 50s and 60s. We normally have lamb harvest in September, then we hit the winter prep work hard while … Continue Reading…

Pasture Walking…the Daily Farm Adventures {113}

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Walking the dogs several times a day means I get to see the subtle changes that happen in the pasture as the seasons turn.While walking the dogs is part of the crew’s chore routine, I also walk them every day. Usually early in the morning (when I need to be alone to wake up nicely) and the evening right after work (to relax into our home life after the busy day). Coal also insists that I take him for a walk every evening after dinner. By insists, I mean that … Continue Reading…

Cattle Dogs, Sink Holes, and Sunny Weather…the Daily Farm Adventures {107}

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A cattle dog is like velcro to their owner. This is Coal’s favorite place to end the day, laying with me while I read a book in bed… The problem comes when he spends the whole afternoon before that like this… Turns out he’s a big fan of swimming in sink holes. And drainage ditches. And storm ponds. A sheep troughs. And if I complain that’s he’s stinkin’, wet, and dirty, he likes to clean up by rolling in…dirt. With the best of intentions, I’m sure. So I try to … Continue Reading…