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just a couple of quick shots from around the farm yesterday.

the first one is a shot of Caucasian Bluestem….Many years ago my late neighbor, Jack, had to make some repairs to his pond dam.  The contractor borrowed some dirt from a hillside by the pond.  To seed the bare area someone from NRCS advised Jack to use Bluestem Warm Season Grass but they did not tell him which species..Jack ordered caucasian  bluestem.  He broadcast it on the bare area..it came up..  I had not been over there in a while but was over there yesterday…snapped a photo of the bluestem…over my head tall…

this is just an example of what the warm season perennial grasses can produce…they are difficult to get established and they must be managed grazed…but they are supper productive…this grass is over my head tall and the cows love it…the biologist say the Caucasian is not a native and can be invasive but this stand has not invaded anything in the 25 years it has been there….Oh and the warm season native grasses do not require lime or fertilizer once established.  This stand has never been fertilized…in fact it has since been fenced out in an exclusion project and this area is the only part of the exclusion that is not rank with typical overgrowth…blackberries and saplings and such.  I will either mow it or Flash Graze it some time this summer.

I was over there because with all the rain we have had I can not drive my tractor from the front of my place to the back of my place.  I had a tree come down in the wind and naturally it fell on a corner assembly…  to get my tools and supplies to the corner I had to go around through the neighbors pasture.  he was in the process of moving the cows…he was moving them to stockpiled summer pasture.   this is just pasture that has not yet been grazed.  He is an advocate of rotational grazing and this year he has a world of grass.  I had thought he was a little overstocked but with all the rain this year it is not a concern….He has grass galore…

to give you some idea of the grass volume in this field…the below photo is of my big CC&7 daughter, Wanda.  Looks like the grass is up to her belly…actually the grass is so rank that it is hard to walk through.  and Wanda is a 1600 lb little maiden who is close to a seven frame.. I am raising Wandas last calf who is a son of Alap of Wye, as a bull this year.  First bull I have raised in six or seven years.  Also raising a Red Angus bull for the neighbor.
And six heifers…two of mine and four for the neighbor…two red angus one black angus and one that is alt least 3/4 angus but she still looks like a belted galloway…

Behind this field is another 14 acre field that is almost strictly summer grazing and it is about half and half fescue and bermuda grass.  There is probably enough grass back there now to carry forty cows through the summer…

Meanwhile the front pastures are regrowing and they are awaiting an application of Biosolids to stock pile fescue for winter grazing…

one more shot…these are not calves in this grass.  this is the cow herd…grass up to their backs…

rotational grazing pays dividends.