The July afternoon suspends thick, golden haze drifting from the wildfires out west. I heft a 50-pound bag of cattle mineral from the tailgate of my Dodge Dakota to the front rack of a Kawasaki Prairie four-wheeler. Then, I step swiftly onto the footrest and straddle the seat, driving straight from the barnyard to the pasture known as Hillside Field on my family’s Indiana farm.
I putter along the ridge through lush stands of Queen Anne’s lace, thistle, daisy fleabane, and ragweed. Butterflies alight on red clover. Reaching the six-strand high-tensile fence that divides this pasture from the next, I turn right, checking the wild blackberries and raspberries that grow along the fence line for ripeness. On my left, the land tumbles away toward Creekside, a field in Rush Creek’s flood plain. As I approach the tree line at the back of Hillside, I find black-eyed Susans, one of my favorite flowers, brilliant yellows ablaze within clover and timothy grass greens.
We haven’t pastured livestock here for at least a year. The abundant wildflowers and five-foot-tall weeds indicate the soil below is recovering from one tough rainy winter when cows with newborn calves grazed the hillside and left their hoof imprints in the silt loam.
Now, wildlife loves this pasture, with its abundant cover for possums, raccoons, coyotes, and foxes. Red-winged blackbirds, woodpeckers, crows and chimney swifts hop from tree to tree overhead. It’s the life of a farm sharing abundance with nature.
I’m loathe to mow this. I tilt down the slope along the tree line toward Rush Creek. But I need to.
I want my sheep to graze this pasture; their lighter weight bodies won’t pressure the soil like the cattle did. If I didn’t mow, the sheep could eat the daisy fleabane and red clover, though they wouldn’t like the thistle. But the plants are so tall the sheep won’t want to venture into the forage – there’s a chance of danger hiding. And as a wool producer, I want the fleeces to stay as clean as possible; thick vegetative matter would contaminate the wool.
These considerations are the push and pull of farming.
Do I mow the pasture and reduce its diversity so I can grow an even stand of feed for the sheep, or do I leave the pasture alone and feed the sheep another way?
I zip through a set of double gates leading away from Hillside and into the woods. Walnut and oak arc over me as I follow the path to the creek crossing. Shifting the four-wheeler into low, I guide the machine across the water, rocks clicking beneath the wheels. No cows are standing in the creek today; surprisingly, the temperature is only in the 80s, a break from the usual intense July heat.
Here is more push and pull: the best practice for protecting soil and water quality is to fence the cows out of Rush Creek. But winding banks, thick woods and topography limit the ability to construct a physical fence. Virtual fence, which uses GPS and collars to control where animals go (similar to an invisible fence for pets), is a compelling idea, but the innovation’s cost is prohibitive.
Fencing the cattle out of the creek would limit their water access in the winter, too. In the summer, I use self-regulating water tanks, which are connected to a hydrant by a hose threaded into the bottom of the tank. A plastic float shuts the water off when the tank is full. But this system can’t be used in the winter; with no power source nearby to heat the pipes, the hose and hydrant would freeze and break. Frost-free waterers like those used in northern U.S. states could work, but they can cost thousands of dollars to purchase and install.
“It’s hard to be green when you’re in the red,” a shepherd in New Zealand told me when I lived and worked there. The phrase made a lot of sense, and not only economically. I want to improve the soil and help the environment, but if my animals need feed and water first, farm improvements and implementing new conservation practices are the last things on my mind.
The four-wheeler roars as I steer it up the opposite bank, zip across a flat meadow, and climb another incline. At the top of the incline is a wide pasture surrounded by woods. Cows and calves gather under the trees around the self-regulating water tank.
This pasture presents a different picture from Hillside. Stands of ironweed wave over my head as I drive past the cattle toward the mineral feeder: my destination. The good grass is almost all gone. The ironweed, a plant our cattle won’t eat, has plenty of room to grow.
Ideally, I would graze sheep here next. The grass would improve as they ate plants the cattle didn’t. But the eight-strand fence that holds cattle in without an electric charge will not hold or protect sheep. The woolly creatures would slip easily through the wires and roam the countryside, exposed to predators and potentially trampling the neighbors’ gardens.
Push and pull.
Now the task I came for: I pour mineral into a round orange plastic feeder topped by a rubber mat. This specialized mineral contains a substance that repels flies from a cow’s skin. I make sure the herd has a constant supply of mineral so that it doesn’t have trouble with flies, which are prevalent in this wooded area.
I fold the empty bag and tuck it under the metal back rack. Then, I stand on the footrest to count cows and calves. They chew cud as they stand close together beneath the trees.
With everyone accounted for, I drive back across Rush Creek and start the climb back up Hillside, passing the black-eyed Susan and the fence covered in wild raspberries. I return to the barn and park the four-wheeler just inside the south bay door. The sheep, who are gathering under the lean-to on the west side of the pole barn, protest when I leave. “I’ll be back,” I tell them. Their bleats follow me out the north bay door and to my truck.
My husband meets me as I pull onto the main blacktop, and we visit a next-door neighbor to pick up some first-cutting hay. We load it onto the Dakota, and back at the barn, my husband throws flakes in for the lambs and ewes. They scramble for the feeder, and I watch them munch contentedly.
A month later, my uncle mows Hillside. He tells me about it before I see it. I brace myself, and when I pull by the barn, I sit in the truck to take in the new landscape. The thistles and ragweed are gone, but so too are the daisy fleabane, black-eyed Susans and butterflies. The lush greenery has diminished into browns and yellowish greens of stubby grass and weeds baked by the sun.
But the soil works its magic, and two weeks after that, red clover blooms again.
Learn more about Elise on the Contributors page.
(Photo: Pretty People/flickr.com/ CC BY 2.0)
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- Black-Eyed Susans Versus Thistles by Elise Koning - August 10, 2023