January 2024 vol. 1 It’s been a while since we’ve published a newsletter, but it’s not for lack of content. We’ve been quite busy – taking advantage of the unseasonably warm winter we’ve had to complete a few projects and repairs. But now the temperatures have fallen, and with that, we’ve gotten a good bit
November 2024 vol. 2 I started feeding hay this week! All of the summer grass has been consumed, and I’m having to dip into my hay stockpiles to keep the animals satisfied. Though it’s technically not winter yet, the feeding of hay is a clear indicator that we’re into the dormant season. Ideally, we wouldn’t
October 2024 vol. 1 We’re very excited about the forthcoming fall weather. The little taste we’ve had so far is quite refreshing. However, the cool winds are stirring up a significant amount of dust, serving as a stark reminder of the prolonged dry spell we’ve been enduring. It’s been several months since the last rainfall,
My previous post was about a disappointing hay harvest. Well, the second cutting exceeded my expectations. I got 39 bales of hay off of ~15 acres. This same area only produced 13 bales the first cutting. What made the difference? Well, I think the fertilizer had finally kicked in. We had a good 2″ of
I had a few acres cut for hay this year as the cows weren’t keeping up and it was going to seed. On 25 acres I only got 15 bales. I knew one 10 acre patch would be sparse, but I was expecting 2 bales per acre on the remaining 15 yet I got less
Added more earthworks to the ranch. This time I put a swale in as the first phase of my orchard. A swale is basically a ditch on contour. The idea being that runoff acclimates in the ditch and slowly infiltrates the soil instead of running off. The added depth of topsoil and moisture retention is
When I built the pond in front of the house (the one that catches the rainwater overflow) I was left with several yards of spoils. They had been stacked up for several months and were quite unsightly – with weeds growing in great abundance. So I finally broke down and rented a dump trailer from
Hurricane Harvey passed through this month and dumped about 12″ on the ranch over a 5 day period. It was rather insignificant as the water fell at a steady slow rate, and had plenty of time to move through the terrain and make its way off of the property. Of course it all moved towards
If you were with us for And More Water – Part I, you saw the cisterns that we put in to capture rain water from the house. Yesterday I finally got around to completing the system. When I built the cistern, I left a 2″ stub up in order to draw water out of the
