The Bovine Bugle

A new fence means a new paddock for the cows

After chores this morning my brother-in-law, Marty, wanted to know what he could help me tackle. He had worked pretty hard for me yesterday, tearing down old barbed wire fence and doing some mowing in the Christmas trees. I said let's rebuild that fence so that the older heifers and steers would have some fresh pasture, and then we could finish in the Christmas trees.

We ran a second strand of barbed wire on the posts where Marty and Steve worked yesterday, and then tightened up both strands. By the time we were done, Marty was a pretty well-trained fence builder. We opened up the gate to the new paddock and the happy heifers and steers ran in and started munching happily.

With the fencing done, we headed to the Christmas trees to finish mowing the grass growing between the rows of trees. We chose several years ago, even before becoming organic dairy producers, to stop using herbicides to control the grass growing around the Christmas trees. This means we have to be a little more diligent with our mowing and we have to do hand trimming with a hand sickle up close to the young trees. This keeps the grasses, goldenrod, and vetch from smothering the young trees and killing them. Marty and I took turns running the DR Fieldmower that we use to mow between the trees. Even though the mower is self-propelled and has several forward gears, it still gives you a good work out walking up and down between the rows and manuevering it around the trees. It does look nice once the mowing is done. The trees are beautiful this time of year with all the new, lush growth.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont