It’s taken a while – a touch over a year after we bought the property, but we are now the proud owners of 14 cows (pregnant cows at that)!
Cattle!!!
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Category Archives: General
Slasher & Ripper
I’ve been considering slashers for a long time, and have finally ordered and taken delivery of a 6′ FieldQuip Sabre 1800. It’s the base model from FieldQuip, but they are made locally in Australia – about 1 hr drive from the farm! I won’t be into slashing pasture much – that’s not the main purpose for it in my case. I’m more interested in slashing lantana, to minimise the use of herbicide. My neighbour John reckons lantana will cark it if slashed a number of times. Its a fairly large model for my tractor, but isn’t overly heavy (like a very heavy duty one this size would be). Considering my place isn’t smooth I’d prefer to have a wide slasher and drive slow as required, rather than narrow and fast.
Also purchased a Clark Ripper with a pipe layer attachment. Its a medium size, and the layer will do 50mm pipe fine (perhaps a little bigger, but I won’t be needing anything more). Should be useful for breaking up clay, to improve moisture penetration, without turning over and tilling the soil.
First Anniversary!
Wow, we’ve been farmers for a year now! Yet it is such an integral part of our lives that it is difficult to remember what life was like before the property settled one year ago!
It has been a great experience. I never tire of heading up to the plateau on a Saturday arvo and looking at the view – you can feel the stress of the week melt away. Its a pity at how poorly a small pic on a screen conveys the feeling of actually being there!
When I stop and think about what we’ve learnt and done in this time, its hard to believe it has only been one year. Here’s what comes to mind:
Continue readingGully Erosion Control
I’ve spent time the last couple of weekends on erosion control. Reinforced a few small gully heads in the valley with hardwood, and a significant gully besides the main road with rocks. Also collapsed and evened out a tunnel in the western slope (still several more of them to go!).
Idea behind blocking up the erosion face is simply to stop progression of the head by providing some support to the existing face and any soil that collapses from it.
Fencing Issues
Daniel and I were riding the quads around Saturday on arrival at the farm, checking out the lower areas, and got a txt message from Jonathan who was out walking to say that there were cows up top. Sure enough, two cows and their calves were up on the plateau excitedly munching away at all the fresh grass. Not as bad as the 60 or so we had from Johns a few months ago, when they got in whilst he was away!
Continue readingRainforest (?) out back
Weekend before last I explored one of the few areas I hadn’t yet been to on the property – the south facing treed area to the south of the Western Ledge. (see map here)
Not as steep as I had anticipated, and quite nice. No huge trees though, so perhaps logged and now recovering? This would be called rainforest I would think?
Stick raking lantana
Not being able to walk much, thanks to an injured calf muscle from futsal, time at the farm this weekend was spent pretty well wholly on the tractor. Working in the western ledge.
Here’s some photos and video from Sat arvo:
Labelled Map
Planting a Winter Crop
Activities on the farm the last couple of months have been busy with two main activities – sowing a winter seed mix, and spraying lantana whilst it is flowering.
Bare soil is the antithesis of regenerative farming. The sun beats down onto bare soil, drying it out, heating it up, and generally messing up soil microbiome processes. Rain also impacts the surface in a way that doesn’t occur on covered soil, and soil erosion is more likely to occur. Weeds take hold. The lack of living plants also means the soil microbiome isn’t being fed.
Anyone who has done biology would know about photosynthesis; it is via photosynthesis that plants produce energy to live and grow from light, CO2 and water.
Continue readingAbout the property – pics!
144 hectares (~355 acres) of lantana, scrub and pasture – its our little spot of paradise! The closest we could get to that anyway…. Located in QLD about 1 hour north of the major regional city Toowoomba, and 25 minutes north of the small town of Crows Nest.
Continue reading