Green!

So, it's not very often that people get excited about a couple of blades of green grass. But ... I'm beyond excited ... I'm ABSOLUTELY excited!! Each time I drive into town it's like all the other pastures with their thick cool season grasses are laughing at my acres full of warm season grasses that are not growing much now as they wait for the ... warm season! I was excited to drill in the new grass seed, but I'm a "right now" kind of guy and it's been killing me not seeing anything growing out there. But, if you look closely at the picture on the right you can see a few thin blades of grass poking through the ground and even some clover in the front! Needless to say, I'm excited ...

Seeding Pastures

After I finally figured out how to get the no-till drill set and calibrated (at least I think I did) I was able to get going on actually getting seed into the ground. I drilled my mix (Pradel Meadow Fescue, Perennial Ryegrass, Orchard Grass, Italian Rye Grass, and Alice White Clover) Saturday afternoon and evening and did about 5 acres. It was nice to see the visible progress of slowing cover more ground and getting a start on adding some cool season grasses to the pasture. It also gave me plenty of time to observe and think as I was bumping along on the tractor. Here are some of my observations:

• There is clover coming up in quite a few places. In fact it is the only thing that is growing on the clay that covers our septic filtration area.
• There really was a lot of bare ground in the pasture. In some places the switchgrass stand had just become very thin and in other places the brush had gotten so think that it shaded out all the grass. That was especially true in the area where I mowed down the brush yesterday.
• The lack of quality grass and the bare ground was kind of depressing at times.
• I have no idea what I'm doing! Yesterday while I was taking a break from the tractor I tweeted, "Ever feel like you're doing something, but not sure if you're doing it right? I do ..." I knew that seed was leaving the drill, but if it will ever grow ... of that I'm not sure!
• Warm season grasses are just that ... warm season. As I look at my pasture I don't see the lush green that surrounds the farms around me ... oh for some lush and thick grass. It will come in time.
• I'm excited about the possibilities of mob grazing ... if ever there was a farm that could use some good microbe management this is it!
• Now ... I'm praying for grass to grow!

First Time for Everything ...

It seems like every week I'm doing something for the first time on the farm ... and all too often I'm trying to figure out how to do that thing by myself. That is what is going on today. I'm trying to figure out just how this Truax no-till grass drill works. I'm starting to get it figured out and I have a plan, but I'm worried about getting the settings right for the pounds per acre that I want. I do have the manual, but it doesn't seem like it explains as much as I would like it too. Such is farm life ...

So, with that being said ... I'm going to head out and try to defeat this thing and get my pasture seeded!

A River Runs Through It ...

In the movie I think the river ran through Montana and was full of trout. Here the river runs through my pasture and down into the ravine flowing through the woods ... plus, I'm pretty sure there are no trout! Right now it's a pretty impressive sight with it streaming down from the hill top and making this neat little waterfall. Also, at this time of year I don't think it's doing much erosion damage because there is still some frost in the ground. Come spring and summer though when the water comes tumbling down like this though it usually takes a quite a bit of dirt with it. In fact last summer I think we lost quite a few feet where the little waterfall is.

I guess this should probably be added to my list of summer projects! Obviously this won't be a little project that I can work on for a week and call good. In reality it will be a several year thing because part of the solution will have to be building up the soils so that they can store more water in the spring and summer (right now runoff is going to happen no matter what). As far as other options go I'm going to have to do some exploring. I think there would be some grasses that we could plant to help with this area and the rut that it is starting to create. Also, I've been filling it up with brush cut from other areas.

One thing is for sure ... I could make a nice little pond down there. But, I don't think it would be deep enough for trout. Maybe just some crappie and such ...

Busy Ants Make Big Hills

I mentioned yesterday that one of the biggest obstacles that we are facing in our pasture renovation are the ant hills. When I tell people that we have ant hills I don't think they can really picture what I'm talking about and up until we bought this place I wouldn't have been able to picture it either. But when I say ant hills I'm talking anything from 6 inches to more than 12 inches high and anywhere from 10 inches across to over 2 feet across! Ant hills this large cause a problem when it comes to making hay because a sickle mower will not make it through them!

So, what I tried to do was take a picture of the ant hills. Just imagine 26 acres dotted like this and you will have an idea of what we are dealing with here. The cattle graze around and over them, but when they get done with an area you it looks something like the picture above.

Anyone else have any suggestions? I would love to hear them.

The Farmer Round Table

Last evening I had the opportunity to sit down at the farmer round table. Actually, it was just a meal with my uncle who has been farming for years and my younger cousin who grew up on the farm. They were up in the area around my home town for the WHO Radio Great Tractor Ride and I wanted to stop up and check out all the tractors. But, since it was my old stomping grounds I was also able to show them where to find a place to eat and we spent quite awhile catching up and talking about the things we are doing and need to do on the farm.

I have to admit that my Uncle has been one of my biggest helps as we try to break into this farming journey. He has helped us by passing along books and information, sharing equipment with us, giving us stuff, and of course sharing knowledge. Last night was all about the knowledge and chatting. It was even better because my cousin was there as well, so it was a great meeting of the minds (mine was more of a sponge than a mind).

After catching up on all the family news we spent a good amount of time brainstorming on ideas for our pasture. The anthills seem to be a bit bigger problem than I had thought just because they are so big and there are so many more than I realized when all you could see is tall grass. Knocking them all down might be a bit of a chore and then we also have to think about what state the forages are in.

Now that the cattle have grazed down various sections it almost looks like a prairie dog town and lots of shrubs! We talked about the possibilities of knocking everything down and then seeding and even discussed the option tearing it up and starting over. I think in the end we might do a little bit of all of the above ... and then see what works the best. That way we can kind of see what works best for our farm and the way we want to run everything.

But, job number one is fence... ahh ...

Putting Together a Pasture Mix

As the cows have gotten out and grazed our pastures this spring I have really started to notice how much work they need. I have mentioned previously that our 40 acres was in the Conservation Reserve Program for at least 13 years before we purchased it and in that time nothing was really done to it besides the initial seeding of switch grass and various prairie grasses. As you look over the ground on a whole late in the summer you see plenty of tall prairie grass, but once it has been grazed and once you take some time to walk through it you really begin to understand how overgrown everything is with brush and weeds.

Which leads me to my question. Do you have any thoughts on a good pasture mix that I could broadcast on before or after the cows hit an area? I attended a little round table discussion on the subject at the PFI conference this winter and I need to find my notes from that because I realize that this is a subject that is very regional. But, I know that there are people around my neck of the woods that read this blog and I always love to get ideas from other parts of the country.

What kind of grasses, legumes, and even weeds (or at least what some people call weeds) have you had the best success with? And, do you have any suggestions for seeding down areas? Now might not be the best time I realize, but I would like to tackle this as much as possible.

Mow, Bale, or Burn?

About a month ago I wrote a little bit about our pasture on the farm. Right now the entire 26 acres of pasture is in the Conservation Reserve Program and it appears to have been seeded into switchgrass at some point during its tenure in CRP. The switchgrass is a nice warm season grass that we hope to maintain as part of the pastures (it will be difficult), but judging by the amount of small trees and brush growing it has been awhile since it was last burned off or mowed. So, the grass is really tall and not really ready for grazing by our Dexters. Which leads us to the question at hand ... Mow, Bale, or Burn?

The picture above (click image for larger picture) shows some of the grass still standing and some of the area that we mowed on Tuesday. My dad test drives County Clipper ZTR mowers so I had him bring one up and we mowed the area around the building site so we could more easily envision the project and to see what it looks like after a couple of passes with a mower. Of course there is a lot of residue on the ground after mowing, but it is fairly well chopped up. One thing that I did notice after mowing was that there are there are clumps of switchgrass and then there are spots were other grasses are coming on. We are supposed to get some rain tomorrow and then a slight warm up on the weekend, so we will see if the grass pops.

I'm not sure if the residue from chopping up the grass is too much cover for new grass to come through or if it is just really good organic matter that can be incorporated into the soil. That is why I have been thinking about the second option, baling. I could go out and mow and rake the grass and then have a friend come in and bale it up to get it off of the ground. The bales would be much good for feed, but they could be used for composting or something. The main reason behind this is to open up the growing grass to more sunlight, but maybe the mowed grass residue would help keep moisture in?

The final option is to burn it off. Maybe this would be the most natural way to manage a pasture full of native switchgrass, but I'm just sure that I have the patience. Right now there are plenty of wet spots around the farm because of all of the rain, and judging by the forecast they will be wet for a while longer! Also, there is a waiting list that we are on to have the Rural Fire Department do the burn and it could be a while before they get to us. I think I just may cross this option off of the list unless I come up with some compelling evidence to make me patiently wait.

What are your thoughts?

That Gully I Mentioned...

Now that the land is finally in our name our plans are beginning to feel real. With that in mind we went out the property right after signing the paperwork and talked about some more of the specifics of the layout. And then today we actually did a little bit of work, but more on that on another day! While we were out there on Monday afternoon I did take a few minutes to run down to the gully that I mentioned last Tuesday and Wednesday. On those days I didn't have a picture of the "major" problem area, but as you can see I have some now.

As you can see from the picture above we are losing a bit of land due to erosion. In fact that tree you see in the middle of the picture used to be on ground about two feet higher, but then it the whole chunk slid down into the ravine. Also, as evidenced by the picture on the right, you can tell that someone else thought this was a big enough problem that they also tried to fix it. Their fix involved throwing in some logs and brush along with the old woven wire and barbed wire fences that were taken down from some of the perimeter. That is not the kind of "fix" that I want to do. But, I do want to do something because I really don't want to lose that much more land down into this hole full of sticks and wire!

This last picture on the left shows some of the water shed that is funneling down into this gully and when you are there you can easily see the grass laid over from the rush of water coming down on all sides. This is not unexpected and isn't the end of the world, but it is something that can be addressed with good farming practices ... or fishing pond building ... but that may just be the fisherman in me speaking! Of course there is always going to be a rush of water in the spring with the combination of melting snow and spring rains, but it will be interesting to monitor this spot throughout the year to see how much water really runs off down the hill and into the gully.

I think my main method of attack will be to slow the water down, either by man made methods or by slowly increasing the organic matter throughout the farm so more precipitation would be soaked up by the ground and less will run off. Of course there will never be a perfect solution and it is totally natural for water to create a path of least resistance down the hill, we just want to make sure things don't get out of hand because of our bad stewardship.

So, any more ideas? What do you think about pulling the wire out of there? I'm not sure that it is really doing the job that it was intended to do and I also don't like the idea of just leaving junk laying around. But, I'm always open for more ideas. I do like the idea of a small livestock reservoir that can be used to water livestock below the "pond", but I think that will be in the long term project file.

Lots of work to do, but we are excited!

My Thoughts On Healing The Farm Land...

Yesterday I posted a picture and a little description of an area on our farm with a bit of erosion going on. Right now it is not a "major" problem (as some pointed out), but that doesn't mean that eventually it won't move from the stage you see in yesterdays post to the stage you see in the picture on the left. The picture on the left is not from my the land we are buying, but I would consider it an unacceptable waterway. It just does not have to be like that.

Eventually if nothing was done, and if the place would continuously grazed (not something I'm going to do) the small cut in the ground could turn in to something like is pictured in the right. There is enough water draining down to cause that sort of damage. After time things could get even worse. In fact (and I'm sorry I don't have a picture of it) if you were to follow that waterway/gully down to where it meets the woods you will see that I'm already beginning to lose part of my pasture from some erosion in the form of a big washout. It is easy to see that the washout is growing and I would really like to help stop that before it goes any further.

In fact, I am not the only one who has realized it was a problem. If you were to head out to the land to day and look down in the washout you would see that at some point (not to long ago) after they took down the exterior fencing they threw it in the washed out area to help prevent more erosion. I am no expert, but I think we can come up with something better than that!

My short term goal is to get someone from the local extension, NRCS, or some other help out here to talk about different seedings that I can do. Also, we have talked about the possibility of mowing and then baling the switchgrass on the land because it could take awhile for the rural fire department to work their way down the list to our names. In that case I had considered the possibility of using some of those bales as filers in the washout. Something to stabilize the edges, but slightly more natural than rusty woven wire.

Next we want to use managed grazing (possibly with some ultra high stock density) to return some nutrients to that area of the land. With the help of our cattle hopefully we can add some more organic matter to the waterway. This will not be an area that we can graze in all conditions, but it is something we can manage as part of the whole and to help improve the land.

In the long run this would be a natural place to put a small pond. I'm not sure how big of a pond this water shed could support, but it would at least be enough to supplement our livestock water. We would not all our livestock access to the pond, but would rather pump out of it (or use gravity) in order to provide water. This is in the long term, but is a possibility. Besides, it would make for a great view from the house!

Those are just a few of my initial thoughts and things that I gleaned from the great comments yesterday. Being a "grass farmer" is my goal, so I want to make sure I am taking care of all the areas on the farm as best as possible. Next time we are out there I will make sure I get a picture of the washout...

Healing the Farm Land...

They say a picture says more than a thousand words. So, today I will let the picture do the speaking and just add a few words of my own!

This picture comes from the valley/waterway on our impending farm. As you can somewhat see from the picture, the grass around the waterway is something different than the switchgrass that is on the rest of the pasture. The cut that you see water running in is probably about 100 to 150 yards long and leads to the ravine that runs through the woods. Just on the edge of the woods there is a rather large washout area from the water running down the hill.

Obviously I want to do something to help repair the land here, and I have a few ideas bumping around in my head, but what do you think? I would be interested in hearing what your thoughts are on how I should go about using and repairing this waterway on the farm. I'll let you know some of my ideas in another post ... along with what I learn from everyone who throws in their two cents.

Pasture Renovation

With so many thoughts running through my head with our hopefully impending land purchase I have decided to dedicate this week to blogging about it and shamelessly asking for input! Today I want to focus in on the pasture. The picture on the right gives you a close up (you can click the pictures for a larger view) of what most of the grass on the land looks like. The pasture is about 26 acres in size and is most a South facing slope. You can scroll down to the past to posts to see an aerial shot. Also, there are two water ways running down the pasture that will need special attention so we don't have a couple of Grand Canyon's on the place!

One of the questions that we are facing is exactly how to get rid of the grass that is there right now. I don't mean we want to kill it all off, but we need to clip it down to size for various reasons. First of all there are huge ant hills everywhere. As you can tell from the picture on the left they are pretty tall. That is Caleb standing on one that is over a foot tall! It wouldn't be so fun to hit those all day long as you were cutting hay. So, we need to make the grass shorter so we can knock down all of those ant hills. Secondly, starting the spring with new growth is probably a good idea for our cattle and for the hay that we will make.

We have two options. Option number one is that we mow it down. I have the wonderful fortune of having a father who test drives lawn mowers. He could come up for a while and knock it all down and find the ant hills (by running into them). One problem with that idea is that you will have a lot of grass clippings on the pasture ... that may or may not be a good thing. The other option is to have the rural fire department come out and burn in off. That would expose the ant hills and give it a fresh start this spring. Right now I am leaning towards option number two, but would love any thoughts on the subject.

The second question I am thinking on is whether or not we should attempt any seeding this spring. For quite awhile the land has been in the Crop Reduction Program (more on that tomorrow) and at some time I believe it was seeded to some sort of switchgrass (not sure on the variety). The stand of grass is pretty strong and there really aren't many weeds in the pasture except for some brambles and berries pushing in on the edge of the woods. But, I am wondering if I should or shouldn't try and inter-seed some sort of clover. Also, I really have no idea how the switchgrass will stand up under Management Intensive Grazing. I have done a little reading on switchgrass as a forage and it sounds like it is good as long as you keep it clipped at about six inches, but I haven't found out how well it does with grazing.

I really can't wait to see things green up this coming spring as the pasture comes to life. I can already image our Dexter herd out grazing on the pasture!