Filed under: June 2020 | Tags: animal powered farming, baby horse, horse drawn, horse farming, sprayers, Suffolk Horses, Suffolk Punch
June 27, 2020
What a crazy, wonderful month! Our baby Bree just turned 2 months old. She is learning very fast. She loves a good back rub. She knows her stall. She accompanies mom sometimes when we work and she brings joy wherever she goes.
The covid virus still has us doing things differently. The unrest around the country has us saddened for all involved. We pray for peace and resolution, along with understanding from all sides. It is nice to be able to get lost in the farm happenings if only for a little while.
We shot another episode for RFD-TV, that will air in August, about our new Suffolk Punch horses. Our son Jake introduced his to the world too. We also wrapped up the finishing touches on an episode regarding our recent timber harvest. It was a good day of filming. Little Bree did great too.
We purchased a horse drawn sprayer. We will use it once a year to spray weeds if needed, but mostly to spray liquid fertilizer, like fish emulsion, on our crop and pasture fields. Shout out to Boontown Sprayer in Mount Hope, Ohio
This simple, well built machine, works wonderfully. It is powered by a 5 horsepower Honda engine. The manufacturers have it well designed. It sprays, pulled by horses, at a rate of 20 gallons per acre. Our first outing found this rate to be spot on, as we did our animal corn field.
I managed to get half of the field cultivated, but the weeds were starting to take over. Ragweed and especially a nasty grass called barnyard grass had gotten a real head start. You can even see the corn beginning to suffer from the weeds stealing all the nourishment.
After last nights rain, the gardens, pastures and the field corn all look refreshed. We will be feeding the fields liquid fertilizer in the coming days. The options are many, so research must be done. It has been a long journey making this farm productive and fruitful, but it has been fun!
June 15, 2020
I snapped this picture last night. The horses were all grazing on recently mowed pastures. The scene was peaceful to me. The pasture weeds have been throttled back, giving the grass room to grow and thrive. Brush hogging is boring work, but worth the effort.
The old style garden is off to a good start. Potatoes, corn, tomatoes, a few peppers and two hills of squash, getting ready to grow. Potatoes and corn require a bit of room. This garden used to be all the way to the white fence. We garden a bit smaller now as our nest got empty.
The raised beds too have been planted. The bed or the right will get most of the year off. It has been planted to a cover crop of buckwheat. The buckwheat will suppress weeds, enrich the soil and provide food for visiting bees. The bed on the left has been mostly planted to heirloom vegetables for our fresh eating pleasure.
Haying will commence again once a few nesting birds have fledged . We have about five acres of first cutting to go. There is no shortage of jobs to be done, but I just smile and whistle while I work.
Filed under: June 2020 | Tags: Mother Nature, Small Farming, Suffolk Punch, Summer farm happenings
June 10, 2020
What a crazy start to the month! It seems our snow just melted and now things are busting wide open! We cultivated corn the other night. Baby Bree went along with us. She is tied to mom to keep her safe and out of harms way. I still have to do a little more tweaking on the modified cultivator, but things went well.
Our hay making season is in full swing. We wrapped this nice clover and grass hay for winter feeding the sheep. It is beautiful stuff. We made some dry hay too. One field seemed to have LOTS of nesting ground birds in it. I only made about four rounds. I will wait another week for the baby birds to better be able to fly, before cutting it. It is early June. I am not in that big of a hurry.
“Red”, the stallion will be going home soon. He and Amee appear to have had a successful mating. This handsome guy will be headed south. I am not sure yet, but I am thinking about using him again next year. Time and his offspring will tell the whole story by next year.
Our son Jake continues training his 2 year old Suffolk Punch horse Belle. She is coming along very well. He is a quiet man with a calming voice. It shows in the way this filly is responding to her training. His choice of footwear will never be mine, but I can’t say anything negative about his training methods!
Our growing season is in full swing. Crops, gardens and baby animals are all growing like mad…and so are the weeds! This farming life is a wonderful thing, you just have to work with Mother Nature. Sometimes “mom” pushes a little hard, but it’s worth it!
Filed under: June 2020 | Tags: bee problem, extended grazing, patience, sorghum/sudan grass, Suffolk Punch horses
June 1, 2020
We are all preparing, watching and waiting for the days ahead. Unsettling times seem to surround us presently. Keep in mind that God is in control. This too shall pass. It will take patience, forgiveness and love. I am at a loss for words over the current unrest. The protests are valid, the rioting and destruction are a sad aftershock. Covid-19 had us in its grip and now an old ugly wound has been scratched open again. We need healing. We need resolution and we need prayer.
Bree, our five week old baby horse, continues to grow and learn. Her training amounts to simple lessons, kept short and always ending on a high note. She will join her mom at work soon. She will walk along beside and learn all sorts of things.
We were getting swarmed by wood boring carpenter bees. I hate to spray poison around. My wife read somewhere that a paper bag hung up will mimic a hornet’s nest and keep the bees away. I humored her and hung up the bag. To my amazement, I haven’t seen even one bee since hanging it up! I don’t know if it is because of this bag or not, but I’m not taking it down! (Thank you honey)
Yesterday, I hauled many loads of composted manure and applied it to last year’s corn field. Today, I worked up that field. I disced it up, then broadcast sorghum/Sudan grass and some rape seed. The seed will provide summer grazing for our sheep flock. The grass grows quickly and rank. The rape is a forage that the sheep love too. The combination can be grazed off and on all summer long. It is a warm season grass that winter kills. I will however, plow it down in very late summer. This field will be planted to speltz in very early autumn.
We rushed to beat tonight’s coming rain. I was pleased to get it in. Sam the border collie kept me company. Now we wait and watch for new growth in the days ahead.
RicelandMeadows 