Back from traveling two days ago – a productive trip, but an absolutely long and arduous journey. Happy to be back to farm base.
It’s only been a week, but the grass is noticeably greener. The quails have started crowing (signalling the abundance of eggs in forthcoming weeks). The dam and creek has started filling.
It’s been rough for farmers because of the drought last year. There’s a shortage of good quality hay and pasture. The recent rains haven’t come quick enough – the grass is still short.
My neighbour was telling me about his friend who had to truck hay down from NSW (not even the good stuff, he said) – at a cost of $14,000, just to tide their cows over for three weeks. It’s tough having to work with so many variables beyond one’s control – weather being the big one.
With help from my neighbour, I started work on fencing. He placed his cows to graze here since early this year in exchange for clearing acres of invasive gorse weed. Having the cows here benefits the land – decades of unused pasture left the soil compacted, biodiversity depleted and weed growth unchecked. He swears that in a year, their manure will significantly improve the soil and I’ll see noticeable difference in the grass over time – that cows are far more effective than sheep in regenerating soil. I guess we’ll have to wait and see – and compare with the sheep farm opposite mine.
The fencing is being put up to divide the land into smaller paddocks, making rotational grazing possible. Rotational grazing gives each paddock time to rest and regenerate, allowing healthier pastures. It’s a slow but deliberate process of land restoration – but infrastructure must first be in place (at a cost – time, labour and money).
Because I’m sectioning the land, it also means having to add another dam, so livestock will have access to water in each section.
Last summer, my only dam went completely dry. From memory, I think it’s been a streak of three drought years now. It never concerned me until this year, when there’s cows on the land. It’s almost a certainty we’ll run dry again this year. It’d be too late to be reactive by summer – better start digging now. The dam is being dug at the lowest end of my farm, to catch as much water as possible from the undulating land when it rains.
This is like playing Farm Simulator – but in real life. I wish I had an option to switch off disasters and weather conditions, with cheat code turned on for unlimited spending money to buy shiny tractors. 🚜
