Post by brigitte on May 21, 2017 21:51:49 GMT -5
New England is filled with stones.Early settlers put them to use as the building blocks of fence lines. Trees were cut to clear pastures, their stumps removed by teams of oxen that wound round and pulled them.
It was a time consuming, arduous task the vast majority of people today can't fathom. The jewels of cleared land have in the 250 years since been turned into bigger farms, house lots and shopping malls. Every time I drive by a remaining field I figure how many cows could be fed by it.
Grass is gold. I don't have enough of it. What small farmer does. . Land is expensive. But then the beavers whose engineering genius constructed a pond before I got here, toppling trees with the legal permit of wildlife, left a legacy of fine silted ground when they left. Much as the settlers did, I coveted it for cows.
What would the cows think of grasses that preferred wet ground and posed a challenge, even as a few cattails were left to poke through the mud.
The local conservation commission made it clear they wouldn't allow the removal of a Normandy class hedgerow with heavy machinery, with one member offering "why dont you just go in there with a wheelbarrow". I withdrew my application and put the cows to the task quite legally instead.
But would they understand the way around the downed trees, back to the gate?
I put an electric fence around the perimeter of the former beaver realm and watched.
Cows are not barn animals by nature, they are at best foragers and love a challenge.
Just as Joel Salatin says pigs should be left to their "pigness," cows are best left to sniff out the best grasses, ignoring the reedy and orchard grasses or better yet trampling them until the mud forgives with softer blades.
The herd of six and their two offspring ventured into the new space, sniffing, walking through wet spots, legs held high, grabbing the good grasses and leaving the rest. They deftly navigated around the gulleys, and happily trampled dead wood, the sound of it echoing back to the barn. The calves copied them as they should, and growled the first and only time they touched the poly electic white fence strand.
The gate was open, but only on one side. Would they find their way back. I readied with the halter and forced myself to wait as darkness descended
And the cows came home., after tromping through wet ground and old branches, dead ends and wrong turns in a maze they seemed to enjoy.
It was a time consuming, arduous task the vast majority of people today can't fathom. The jewels of cleared land have in the 250 years since been turned into bigger farms, house lots and shopping malls. Every time I drive by a remaining field I figure how many cows could be fed by it.
Grass is gold. I don't have enough of it. What small farmer does. . Land is expensive. But then the beavers whose engineering genius constructed a pond before I got here, toppling trees with the legal permit of wildlife, left a legacy of fine silted ground when they left. Much as the settlers did, I coveted it for cows.
What would the cows think of grasses that preferred wet ground and posed a challenge, even as a few cattails were left to poke through the mud.
The local conservation commission made it clear they wouldn't allow the removal of a Normandy class hedgerow with heavy machinery, with one member offering "why dont you just go in there with a wheelbarrow". I withdrew my application and put the cows to the task quite legally instead.
But would they understand the way around the downed trees, back to the gate?
I put an electric fence around the perimeter of the former beaver realm and watched.
Cows are not barn animals by nature, they are at best foragers and love a challenge.
Just as Joel Salatin says pigs should be left to their "pigness," cows are best left to sniff out the best grasses, ignoring the reedy and orchard grasses or better yet trampling them until the mud forgives with softer blades.
The herd of six and their two offspring ventured into the new space, sniffing, walking through wet spots, legs held high, grabbing the good grasses and leaving the rest. They deftly navigated around the gulleys, and happily trampled dead wood, the sound of it echoing back to the barn. The calves copied them as they should, and growled the first and only time they touched the poly electic white fence strand.
The gate was open, but only on one side. Would they find their way back. I readied with the halter and forced myself to wait as darkness descended
And the cows came home., after tromping through wet ground and old branches, dead ends and wrong turns in a maze they seemed to enjoy.