Rotational grazing made easy, cool beans, and new farm critters

It's been a couple weeks and after some much needed R&R I'm back in the blogging saddle. We took a fabulous vacation but there was no time to waste when we got home getting caught up on the farm. How did we take a week away with farm critters to manage? We had a family friend farm sit for us and she did a fabulous job taking care of things while we were enjoying some sunshine and sand between our toes. Our days and evenings have been quite full since getting home and we are FINALLY inching towards completion of horse tasks, winding down the summer garden, setting up our rotational grazing pastures, and adding our fall chickens to the mix! 

Rotational Grazing

We have approximately 3 acres of pasture space fenced in for our horses and between their big appetites and little rain, the pasture is getting depleted pretty quickly. Setting up separate pastures and rotating the horses between them allows the grass and nutrients to replenish. To achieve this reasonably easily, we use step in posts and temporary poly rope to create separate spaces. Farmer Dave was getting pretty antsy about getting the fencing set up, so on Monday evening at 830pm I finally acquiesced and we fumbled through it in the dark using our side by side headlights. You simply take step in posts and you guessed it, step on them to install wherever you want. I was in charge of rolling out the electric poly rope and in about 30 minutes we were completely finished. Most importantly, I could stop hearing about the task needing done 😉

Run-in Shelter

We had to make sure the frame and roof were installed before we left for vacation but the walls still needed to be hung when we got home. As I mentioned previously, we opted for a wood type siding in lieu of metal because it was far less expensive. Installation was a two person job but not particularly difficult to do...except for hammering in the nails. The material flexed and created a bouncy surface for nailing. It was incredibly irritating...or maybe I was particularly annoyed with it because I was still mentally hanging out on the beach but either way, it wasn't exactly fun. You ***could*** use a nail gun which would have made the job faster and easier but we are cheap and spending $100 on a nail gun for a task you can do by hand wasn't justifiable for us. At any rate, the walls are up and all that's left to do is paint! Our horses LOVE their outdoor shelter and now we can leave them out at night if want/need to.

Garden Challenges and Cool Beans

It's been an extremely dry summer for us and between no rain and lack of time (see previous horse debacle posts), our garden hasn't been nearly as bountiful as we would have hoped. Our potato crop has done well, we got a great harvest of green beans, some onions, and a little bit of corn. My tomatoes were a real flop, my peppers stink, and I ended up with 2 small rows of carrots. We did, however, plant a new legume this year...pinto beans! They did FABULOUS, were very little work, and fun to harvest. We got confused early in the summer and accidentally harvest some of the beans while they were green thinking they were green beans...they were unusual but surprisingly tasty cooked in a little bit of olive oil and garlic. The correct way to harvest them is to allow them to dry on the plant and then simply shell them out of the papery outter covering.

Little Miss Emily and Farmer David really enjoyed shelling the beans which was incredibly helpful to us.

The Chicken Biz

It's already time for more meat chickens on the farm! Our business is gaining traction and we sold out of our fall batch already! 50 new Cornish Cross fluff nuggets and 35 heritage roosters (never say never because here we go again with these roosters) arrived yesterday. I completely forgot our chickens were set to arrive Tuesday and had already planned a visit with my dad several hours away before realizing the scheduling conflict. I called the post office Tuesday morning and she assured me the birds wouldn't be there until the next morning...20 minutes into my 2 hour trip the post office called to say the chicks were in 😭😭😭 Dave was in back to back meetings all day so the kids and I turned around, grabbed the birds from the post office, got them settled in at home and hit the road again.

My life is like spinning plates... sometimes while blind folded and with one hand tied behind my back 🤪 We had a fun visit at the county fair with Papa and the kids added 3 goldfish to our farm playing the fish bowl game. We needed a way to help keep the outdoor water trough clean of mosquitoes so Fred, Fiona, and Fin are now pasture pets...with a purpose.

That's a wrap for the Thursday recap! Lots of Roberts Family Farm fun yet to come as we prepare for Berkshire hogs, raising chickens into December, pasture dragging, rendering lard, and planting fall crops. See yinz next time!