May has been a beautiful month – with sunny autumn weeks making it a pleasant task to work around the farm.
Our farm improvements continue with a new trough plumbed up to a tank. That’s always the issue with creating paddocks – each one needs to have water in it somehow. Multiple paddocks are crucial for managing pasture by allowing palatable grasses to regrow and compete. Rotational grazing is where you move stock from paddock to paddock allowing one paddock to rest while the next one is grazed. With enough paddocks, you can rotate quickly in which the stock just eat the tops off the grass, meaning it regrows quickly and vigorously. Too slow a rotation and you overgraze paddocks, meaning they take a lot longer to recover. It is a delicate balance and involves making some tough decisions, especially if Mother Nature has decided to not play nicely.
Fencing season is upon us once again. Last May, Justin broke his leg making our 2016 fencing season very limited. We are currently cleaning out a line for a new fence along the creek. This is the last of our Melbourne Water funded fencing that we have to do. The “cleaning” consists of cutting down overhanging limbs, moving rocks and working out the easiest line. Bonfires are a great help in disappearing the removed sticks and branches. The larger limbs are cut into smaller pieces and left to dry for a year or so, after which we burn them in our wood heater.