It has certainly been a while since I've written. Spring was really welcomed after that very cold winter! In fact, we are still dealing with the mess from the ice storm itself and also the continuing fallout of weakened trees and limbs whenever we get windy weather. Of course most of the trees are near fence lines so any tree fallout usually affects a fence.
In April, we participated in the 2014 NC Piedmont CFSA Farm Tour which required a lot of preparation to get the farm ship-shape and ready for guests. We had a decent turn out of very interested folks and the weather was perfect!
Last week we started planting the cover crops we will graze in July and employed our concentrated mob-grazing techniques which we will use through the summer.
Mob grazing essentially means allowing 100,000 - 600,000 pounds of hoof pressure per acre. So, for a very basic example, if each cow weighs 1000 lbs, then 100 cows per acre. Seems like a lot of cows on a small space! But that is EXACTLY the point! When the cows are close together the manure and urine distribution is better across the land and the stomping in of the grass litter (what they don't eat) is a HUGE benefit to the soil. It's kind of like a mulch + manure except we just let the cows do it for us. After a couple of hours we move the mob to the next acre. The grazed land is allowed to rest and fully recover. It's very exciting to be involved in this process. I am learning (and re-learning) SO much!
Short-cuts usually take longer!
When I worked at Wil-Moore Farm last summer through a Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) internship, I learned some very important lessons. The first was about pressure and resistance. The second was about taking short cuts...
5:30 AM. My alarm goes off. I snooze for 15 more minutes but it's already getting light. 5:55 AM and I'm out the door. Simon (my dog) is excited and ready to go to work. Five minutes in the mule (Kubota ATV) down the road and across the pasture to where the cows are ready to move. Some are grazing, others are at the water station but most are gathered together for the much anticipated move to fresh grass.
Doc and I had set up all our pasture lanes the evening before so I just had to reel back the fence and call the cows. Once they all had moved into the new paddock I just reconnected the fence behind them. Pretty simple. The cows would stay in this paddock until 9 am. I was back at the house at 6:32.
I got a cup of green tea with lemon and settled down with my Bible for a few minutes. Now, I am NOT a morning person (but sure wish I was!). I woke up at 7:45 to the sound of a tractor and saw that Howard was out mowing the roadside fence lines. He was trying to beat the heat. I grabbed a quick bite thinking I'd meet Howard back at the shop for the day's work but when I got up to the shop Howard and the tractor were still gone. Well, this was another rare opportunity for me to move the cows by myself. It's really hard for me to learn things when someone is just telling me what to do. I need to be able to critically think through things and go through the trial and error process in order to learn things well.
So, feeling confident from my success with the cows earlier that morning, I headed over to do the second mob move for the day. This time, I needed to let them into the second paddock and then open a lane back to the water station.
You have to understand at this point that there are a number of complicating factors in this scenario. First, you have the whole pasture with a perimeter 5 strand electric fence. In order to section off the pasture we use temporary step-in posts and reels that carry a flexible, conductive rope called "polywire". To make the polywire "hot" the insulated handle is hung on one end of the perimeter fence, the polywire is spooled across the pasture, and the conductive reel is then hung on the perimeter fence at the other end. Once the step-in posts are in place you have a temporary, "hot" fence.
In this particular section of pasture, there were 5 reels
So, back to the task at hand. I drove the mule across the pasture to the reel for the second move. I called the cows and they all came through. I had two options at this point: 1) Leave the reel rolled back and let them walk the full length of the paddock back to the water station; or 2) Go to the end of the paddock closest to the water and pull the insulated handle over. Option two would allow me to keep the fence "hot". I went with option 2. There were a number of adjustments to make to the gaggle of reels comprising this network of paddocks but, successfully I opened the paddock and the cows came through to the water station.
The next 2 hours could have been totally avoided had I remembered I let the water station gate down so that I could reconfigure the lane. To my horror, I watched the entire herd exit the paddock system. About this time, I also realized I had left the gate open at the road and to top it all off, I had boxed myself and my mule on the other side of the paddock system. I was unable to quickly cut the herd off but had to go all the way back around the pond to the road.
By the time I could get to the cows, every single cow and her calf was on Longest Acres Rd! About 200 animals! I only had one spare reel with me (with two or three reels I could have contained the situation much easier) and a long-handled flag. Basically, I strung a wire across the road on one side (and ditches which I later realized were full of poison ivy) and used my mule and the spring gate on the other side to get them back into the fence but that put them into pasture they had already grazed. The cows immediately dispersed to the shade trees spread out across this pasture. I then needed to get them all back together and herd them back through the water station and into the paddock system. I accomplished this task again using the polywire and reel, mule, and flag. The last step was to open the paddock back to the barn where there was shade for them. I went ahead and opened it up for them earlier than scheduled... after all, it wasn't their fault the gates had been left open! It was 10:45 and I was soaked with sweat by the time I was done. 15 Seconds to close the two gates in the beginning could have saved me 2 hours!
This whole story reminds me of another shortcut that many of us try to take: To believe we are OK without Jesus in our lives. Jesus is THE way (John 14:6). There is NO OTHER WAY to have eternal life in heaven with the only one true God than through Jesus.
Pastor Lincoln (of Shandon Baptist Church) has used
In the same way, we have ALL fallen short of God's perfection and the result of that shortfall is spiritual death. Jesus is the only way to be rescued and have spiritual and eternal life in heaven with Him. Christ paid that death penalty price for us once and for everyone but, you must BELIEVE this fact as if your life and the very next breath you take depends on it... because it does! Cutting out Jesus is definitely a shortcut you don't want to take!
One of my daughters once was telling me all about these great books she was reading written by progressive philosophers. She wasn't sure she believed in Christ. I told her it was fine to explore different faiths but in fairness she should be sure to also study the bible. So often, people are critical of the bible because of what they think they know when they have not really tried to read it and understand God's message. I was hostile toward the Christian faith in my youth but now realize I couldn't have been more wrong. I pray, if you haven't already done so, that your heart and mind would be open to the message and life of Christ. It's THE best decision I've ever made.
I love you all! Thanks for reading my blog.
