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| milkweed pod on the prairie |
I am still thinking about beef cows. Reading the “grass” chapters in The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan is not at all convincing me that it will be easy to raise cows, but it isn’t dislodging the idea from my brain either. Now that I’ve read that my old fellow Park Forest/Grinnellian friend Alison Hayes is living in North Carolina with three water buffalo and scything her own hay, I think even more that I might be able to do it. Or something like it. We’re in the exploratory stage here.
One thing you’d notice about Steve if you stayed here any amount of time is that he loves to walk around our property. He wanders around a lot, mostly looking at grasses and weeds and wildflowers. Probably also dreaming and planning.
If you’ve read my blog at all, you will know that I stay inside a lot. I am surprised that I’ve taken to gardening as much as I have, and that the gardening makes me walk outside and visit it. Even when there’s nothing to harvest (though I picked the very last of the spinach today– and some fresh dill that has sprung up– so harvesting has continued to the very end of October) I find myself going out there just to take a look at the soil, the boxes, pick up a few rocks and turn over the soil and compost, walk over and check out the new apple and pear trees, etc. I always think about how much I want more raised garden beds and looking at where I will extend the actual garden plot next year.
Today, after reading awhile, I put on some old shoes and went off to walk around on the property, looking for pastures, or what could become pastures if I got a cow.
The only time I usually walk around the property, except for the few times Steve and I have gone “walking with guns,” otherwise known as hoping for pheasants, is on snowshoes. I do love to tramp around in snowshoes. But for most of the year the land is full of plants, particularly thorny ones. After last week’s land hurricane, though, every tree and bush is bare, the grasses are dead and lying down, and it seemed possible.
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| This view shows the rows in the fescue in the commons that Steve and Tim have spent lots of time growing this fall and spots to be expanded to prairie. |