By Heather Retberg, Quills End Farm
It has not been many weeks since I wrote about making lemonade out of the drought and how the lack of pasture would be a chance to add fertility to places in need. I planned to roll out round bales of hay concentrating animal pressure (and their leave-behinds) where they would be the most useful–an expensive planting for the future, but lemonade nonetheless.
Since then, I hauled a load of round bales and quite cleverly placed them in the field at just the right intervals, and facing just the right way, so that rolling them out would be efficient and easy.
In the meantime, we received two plus inches of rain.
I know intellectually what happens in a dry spell in plants. The grasses and legumes triage. Energy gets stored in the roots for better times, the growth stops, and they brown above ground. And that did happen. What I had not experienced before was the release of that energy in real time. On a rainy Tuesday in August, when we received well over an inch of rain, Benjamin and I witnessed nearly four inches of new growth from morning to evening. Two days later…orchard grass with 6 to 8 inches of new growth.
It may stand to reason, with the pastures gaining, that one would not need to put a whole load of round bales, staged ever so conveniently, in the field. But that plan was in motion and stayed in motion.
Three days after I put 9 round bales, ever so cleverly, into the path of the oncoming bovines, they refused to eat hay. They much prefer green grass. I found myself moving the bales that, mind you, were ever so cleverly placed, out of their way. Then I set to picking up what they did not eat (not so efficient or easy) and putting it back in their way.
After all, how was the resiliency of nature going to get in the way of my clever plans? It is amazing what a cool drink of water can do to revive, well, anything.
Editor’s note: Phil continues to write “View from the Farm” while Heather recovers from her surgery. Send her a card/note at Quill’s End Farm, 192 Front Ridge Road, North Penobscot ME 04476
Heather and Phil Retberg together with their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Heather is Vice President of Halcyon Grange #345 and writes a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in her area and has generously given us permission to share some of her columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.