The past month has seen some changes on the Rock Farm. Most are due to the addition of a remarkable ingredient – water. Good steady rains have seen the grass continue to leap out of the ground, but it has come at a cost, as we shall see later.
Out of our 11 beautiful cows, we welcomed 10 calves into the world. Miss-Steak was our one cow who didn’t calve, but after the shocking season we had last year, I couldn’t hold it against her. We have a soft sport for Miss Steak after an unfortunate incident a couple of years ago (https://rockfarming.com/2018/11/16/a-terrible-miss-steak/). Miss Steak is, as you’d expect this season, in rotund condition 🙂
Thankfully all the other cows calved without incident. The Not-So-Little-Helpers got a whole heap more than they bargained for on one of our daily check ups during the school holidays. Ice-Cream was down and in labour. We sat down and watched proceedings from the dam wall. The 13 year old had the binoculars at the critical moment when Ice-Cream gave a tremendous heave, and the calf appeared with a woosh… he was more than a little horrified to witness the miracle of life in such close up detail.
We marked and vaccinated the calves, and were thrilled with five heifers and five bull calves. We used rubber rings to mark the boys, who left the yards a little cross eyed. They were soon reconnected with their mothers and on their way to a fresh paddock.
The regular rain has been most welcome. We have been spared destructive storms, with steady small amounts of rain falling regularly. This has led to a prodigious amount of grass. But with the grass has come weeds.
We are attempting to use the cattle to eat firebreaks around the house. When the grass dries out, we will be at risk of grass fires. The cattle do a fantastic job, but they’re not such great fans of Paterson Curse.
This purple (and occasional white) flower (echium plantagineum) has come up in abundance this year on our place. Whilst a weevil has been introduced as a biological control, it takes a while to build up numbers sufficient to tackle it in a meaningful way. A short term solution to reduce the seed bank is to slash the flowers. Our old mulching mower is extremely effective at knocking down the weed. A good grease, new tyres and some fresh oil in the gear box and it was pressed back into service.
The mulcher is also extremely effective at finding any wire in a paddock. I thought our paddocks were pretty clean, but I still managed to find a section that wrapped itself around the drum. Thankfully it was all pretty easy to sort out and get back on the job.
The good news is that other grasses are in full flower, with Brome, Rye and Cocksfoot grass and legumes such as clover all developing seed. I feel at times completely ignorant with such a vast variety of forbs, grasses and legumes growing on our property, but there is some pleasure in taking the time to get up close and observe the beauty of nature.
My assumption is that all plants (weeds included) are filling a niche. The trick I have to understand is what niche that is, and how to manage the grazing, slashing and resting regime to best encourage the useful plants and reduce the competition from weeds. Allan Savory is convinced that good management is the key to a successful regenerative farming operation. I just have to learn to observe closely and learn from experience. I won’t get it right all the time, but I hope we can slowly turn the tide and increase the productivity and beauty of our property.
At the very least, I can take pleasure in the small beautiful details. I hope you agree. 🙂
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