The rain is back this week and has put planting on hold. The weather has made it tough to get our field work done which turned out to be a good thing since we didn't get our vegetables in because we had a freeze warning and frost this past weekend. On Sunday I noticed that cow #64 had "stuff" hanging from her indicating that she probably dropped her mucus plug. Gross sounding? Well, it looks kinda gross too but that's the process a cow goes through before giving birth. Since the plug can be dropped long before the actual birth, I figure that she'll give birth sometime over the next couple of weeks. Things should start getting pretty exciting around here as soon as the weather clears up and the fields dry. I'll have to complete my field work so that I can plant my cover crop/summer forage and put the vegetables in right away. I also have to take a cutting of hay off of the fields that are going into beans in time to allow the hay to dry before the beans can go in. Lots to do... once the sun shines for a while.

Why does a cow go under a fence? Because the grass is greener on the other side, and when you're doing rotational grazing the grass is always greener on the other side. So just at sunset last night George happened to notice a cow outside of the grazing paddock. The other observation we've come to believe in is that animals never seem to get out when the weather is warm and sunny. Last night was cold and rainy. So when Geo made his announcement everybody bundled up to go out and pile into our pickups to help the cow back in. Cows have what are called flight zones that surround their bodies. Flight zones are areas that when invaded by what they perceive as a predator cause them to move away from the predator. As a prey animal they have the instinct to run rather than fight so moving cattle generally entails understanding the cows flight zones and working with them. A cow that's scared has really big flight zones and can be unpredictable and is just the opposite of a contented cow. A cow that is away from its herd, outside of a fence, and approached by a human is generally a scared cow. That meant that slow and steady with wide turns going in and out of the flight zones was required. After a little bit of running on the cows part she was slowly guided back into the portable electric fence area. Geo, Tom and Dan stood as a human wall to keep her from going West away from the fence opening and all was good again once she was in. Then we wrapped everything up by moving all of the cows into their next paddock to join the wayward cow. Just when we finished it started to rain and with a 30mph wind and temps in the 40's we were happy to be in too.

Burn

Today we burned off a field that has been fallow for several years.  It was a corn field that we let grow weeds and grasses for wildlife.  This year our plan is to plant a complex mix of cover crops to build the soil and feed our cattle over the slow pasture growth period during the summer.  The cover crops will also give wildlife and bugs food and shelter, at the same time it amends and feeds the soil.  There was so much plant matter on top of the soil that was oxidizing rather than decomposing we decided to plow it down.  When that didn't work because the plant matter bound the plow up it was decided to burn the field off.  It went very well.

High Tunnel

We received our high tunnel yesterday.  They delivered mine and a couple of others for farms in the county here yesterday so I delivered the others to two other farms yesterday as well.  The pallets that the high tunnels came on where way too small for the load but I managed to get them off of the semi, on to my trailer, and out to the farms with only one box opening up.  And the box that opened was mine, so it wasn't too bad.  I did have the bobcat/skidloader breakdown while I was in the process of unloading one of the high tunnels - Conked out just as I was trying to pull a pallet off of the trailer out at Dennis' farm.  I thought I would have to crawl out of a window on the skidloader because the arms were blocking the door but was able to get it running enough to get out.  After a run to the parts store for a new filter I was back "off schedule" as Dennis said and wrapped up the deliveries.  I don't think we'll get started building our high tunnel until later in the summer because of the time constraints but this will be a great learning opportunity and will share our progress with everyone through our blog and website. 

Management

When you raise animals without confinement there are many more variables that we contend with.  Weather, stress, light, and other environmental changes all change the way animals perform.  Sharon moved the chickens to the egg mobile on pasture, and while the eggs are again at their finest, the changes have caused the chickens to change their production and their activities.  They're breaking more eggs in the box and laying less.  Sharon is investigating, and losing sleep over, ways to mitigate these changes and hopes to make some changes to the next boxes soon.  I've move the cattle out to areas of the farm that haven't been grazed in probably 10 years and at the same time I'm experimenting with stock density.  I can experiment now in early spring because the pasture grasses will actually get ahead of my ability to have the cattle graze it, but once summer temps move in, the pasture growth will slow and overgrazing any area can cause that area to stop producing for the year or more.  I've put 10 pregnant cows into an area about 1/20th of an acre.  One day I had them on the 1/20th for 24 hours.  Then I tried the same size area for about 14 hours.  The idea is to maximize the the cattle's grass intake and optimize the grass utilization without sacrificing the grasses ability regrow.  A grass plant that has been severely bitten will take longer to regrow - like cutting your grass if you cut it too short it will "stunt" the lawn - the same type of thing happens with grazed pasture.  But with grazed pasture the cattle create and are impacted by many variables.  Cattle don't like to graze grass that has been soiled by cattle, so once the ground has is fouled with cattle manure and urine they slow down their grazing.  That's good for the grass but bad for cattle performance.  My next experiment will be to cut their area in half yet again and move them to see how long it takes for them to slow their grazing due to fouling.  I have been considering purchasing a GPS that will allow me to calculate area and to calculate grazing areas better ultimately allowing me to setup a grazing plan once I'm back in the pasture.

Started the day off by making someone's morning less that ideal.  I dropped a rack of large rounds off at the sale barn this morning for this morning's sale.  Unfortunately I pulled the hay rack into a very soft part of their parking area.  The guy that owns the sale barn wasn't too happy with me.  I'm guessing that he won't work to hard to sell my straw today...  Oh well, time to go move the cows.  It's beautiful with the cows.  I could hang out down by the wetlands with them all day but I guess I've got other things that need to get done.

Asparagus

I cultivated the asparagus yesterday and today.  It is a joy to cultivate the asparagus.  Not only because the asparagus is doing so well, but also because it mixes manual processes with tractor work.  Because we planted the asparagus in a disked alfalfa field, the alfalfa bounced back shortly after disking and is still active which hides the asparagus.  We flag two rows of asparagus before running the cultivator.  Flagging gives plenty of time to enjoy the sites, sounds, smells and warm feeling of spring coming into bloom.  Then its into the tractor to cultivate out the weeds and alfalfa for a couple of passes before pulling the flags and flagging the next two rows.  Since we don't use herbicides it is a yearly battle for domination.  Weeds and alfalfa grow along with the asparagus, and we push back against the weeds and alfalfa.  It's never about winning or losing, its simply a matter of making sure that the asparagus has enough room to grow without being overwhelmed by alfalfa and weeds so that we can get a harvest.  This year is the second year for the asparagus and we'll let it grow for one more year before we harvest it.  We're excited about next years asparagus!