• Day: Friday
• Sign: The Loins
• Moon: Waxing               

The land was about 64 degrees on the porch this morning, and felt fine doing my morning chores. Very still air throughout the day, and the high seemed to be 82 at the house. Overall, it felt very comfortable for the day.

I have noticed an uptick in bird activity around the front yard and in dragonfly activity around the pond. The pearl millet is doing really well in the 2/10ths acre that I sectioned off from the wooded area. I ran the gilts through the area over the winter rotating them every couple weeks and it seems to have added to the fertility of the soil. I also went up on the ridge this afternoon to check on the corn that I planted on Monday and I already have shoots coming out of the ground which is encouraging. I should have a little over 300 corn plants from this patch once thinned, potentially offering me about 300lbs of dry corn by the end of the season not to mention fodder and green feed. Cow peas are coming up nicely everywhere from my broadcast – in the areas that she doesn’t go to, I will cut these by hand to hopefully manage any regrowth and take them to Esse in the cow yard. The ground still appears to be retaining moisture well from our rainy event over the last weekend.

The corn is coming in well in our garden patch for the house. I need to plant our pole beans when the signs is right as most of the corn is high enough to handle the vines. I do not think I will plant as densely as I originally thought. The shelling beans are coming in well, but I am concerned over the development of the okra, I fear that the shelling beans may overpower and shade out the okra. I also believe that I have lost my tomato, chile and cabbage seed to the drought and may need to by starts of these so I am not starting over. I also plan to plant  pole among the cows corn patch, and will do this with another corn patch once I’ve established a location.

Esse is still not showing any signs of returning to heat, at least today. This is encouraging considering that she came in to her heat window yesterday. She continues to eat, stay calm and I am seeing improvements in her being put on lead without grain as well as her calling continue to become less frequent. She continues to be chewing her cud in the shade as I arrive home from work in the afternoon. Overall, I’m greatly impressed with her learning the new system, as well as he now not having the sheep around. I am working toward being her social anchor, but training her to regulate herself emotionally and she seems to be making great progress for a young heifer.

I am beginning to see how I might work this land, and how it might feed us. I am diving into older traditions of raising a family cow on much less land, and asking older folks in my family or in the community that remember a family cow being raised a small acreage, or a small holding. This land has been abused, and exploited – once for a loblolly pine and then by the gas company who in their attempts of efficiency have not thought about soil health nor usable pasture.

I am becoming more and more grateful that I found this land – so that maybe we might benefit one another in some far off day.