It’s black gold I tell ya!

Fall and winter prep has continued at full pace here over the past week. Not even the shearing off of the PTO shaft on our large manure spreader could slow our crew down for long. In fact as I write this, the pastures immediately around the Main Barn have been almost completely top-dressed with the lovely rich compost made up of last year’s bedding and manure. There’s gold on them thar hills! Though we have over the years built up the farm to a considerable size, it says something about the relatively small amount of poop these critters put out that even now we still don’t produce enough compost to cover all of our various pastures, conservatively some 35 acres in total. Too bad. Given that Mt. Ascutney is a long-dormant volcano, quality top soil is not really one of our farm’s main selling points. Needless to say the soils here can use all the added humus they can get!

We do the best we can though and have instituted a rotational plan where by over the course any given 24 month period all pastures will get at least one shot of the good life-giving black stuff. One of the first presenters I ever heard speak at the VT Grazing Conference some years ago, Jack Lazor of Butterworks Farm, talked about the application of composted manure and bedding in the fall as “feeding the little soil Gods.” I have to say that that idea still makes me smile whenever I think about it.

Meanwhile elsewhere on the farm we are now down to the final two females due for “this” birthing season, after our dear Juliet had a…oh, wait for it…white boy. I know that expecting a jet black female — oh come on, you never know — out of two white parents might have been a bit much but on the other hand the odds are apt to do something crazy eventually, right? In any case the final two due girls, Pearl and Cadenza, are happily ensconced in the safety of the warm room. With neither of them hitting their 11 month due date for a couple of weeks we are even allowing ourselves to pass on the 6AM baby check for a several days here. Funny how those late December/early January breedings seemed like a good idea at the time…live and learn.