Posts Tagged ‘rotational grazing’
Springing Considerably
The forest floor is sprouting forth with an abundance of white trout lilies this week. It made me curious about the trillium that we transplanted from our lake place last year. I should have marked them better, because the complete transformation of the woods in a year’s time has me confused now over where I put them.
I planted the “borrowed” trillium in several small groups in a section of woods just below the house. Surveying the area late yesterday, it seemed like the only growth was trout lilies, but I eventually spotted a grouping of the distinctly different leaves.
In a few weeks, flowers will make the trillium much easier to spot.
Up north, it is obvious how prolific trillium is in naturally propagating to carpet the woods and create a dramatic visual. We are hoping to seed our spaces with enough starters to enable the natural process to do the rest.
After some passing gentle rain showers on Thursday, the pasture that I mowed last weekend is greening up nicely. I strung the webbing between posts yesterday to complete the divider fence that will allow us to rotationally graze the horses on that precious field.
The point where I connected the new webbing to electricity is right at the paddock, and the horses took great interest in what I was doing. I had the charger turned off to work, and while I experimented with several methods of connection, Legacy and Cayenne took turns putting their noses right into the business at hand.
I sure hope they are keen enough to sense the hazard of doing that when the electricity is on.
Even though they already had a stint on the alley grass earlier in the day, Cyndie talked me into letting them come out on the pasture with the new divider for a short nibble after so patiently watching me fix it up all afternoon.
I can’t really say whether they even noticed the new divider, because their attention was exclusively focused on the succulent green blades immediately available just steps beyond the opened gate.
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Anxiously Waiting
We knocked off a good number of satisfying chores yesterday, taking full advantage of perfectly summer-like weather. In fact, it was so summery, I found myself mowing grass. We also put fence posts in to split our back pasture, so we will be able to rotate the horses back and forth, allowing us to provide the turf occasional rest from the voracious foursome.
The herd spent most of the day lined up at the gate, anxiously awaiting access to the new green smorgasbord that is sprouting beyond the confines of their paddock. Cyndie captured a wonderful shot of them eyeing her as she walked past, sending their message of bewilderment over being neglected all this time.
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They won’t have too much longer to wait. We have shut them in for a few weeks to give the grass a head start, protecting it from both their heavy hooves while it’s wet, and their devouring ways.
While I was getting machines prepared for the day’s work, Cyndie drove the truck down to one of the older rock piles at the edge of our woods and selected perfect specimens to create a border for a new native wild flower garden that she is creating in the spot where we recently removed all the old barbed wire, stump, and brush.
Visitors will be greeted by a colorful splendor as it comes into view over the crest of the first rise in our driveway.
Cyndie has some of her own anxious waiting to do, for her vision of new growing flowers to become established and in full bloom on this wonderful spot she is creating.
It seemed like more additional work than I saw a need for, but once again, her ability to make things happen is bringing about another enhancement to Wintervale that will add even more charm to an already precious place.
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Relative Something 