Now, how do I feel about it? I love it! Rain waters my grass. Managing the cows properly will also result in timely planting of future seed. Since my grass this year shot to the reproductive stage in May before I could graze it, a lot of grass went to seed. Utilizing high-density grazing, my first time through the paddocks with the cows resulted in a lot of grass seed being planting in moist soil with cattle hooves. As I’ve said before, I strive to organize the grazing paddocks so that the cows have enough to eat for one day or less plus trample at least half of the forage available. That trampling effect lays a layer of grass down as mulch and future organic matter, plus shakes loose all the grass seed ready to increase my grass sward.

I believe that years like this can help focus the debate. We grow way too much corn and soybeans in Iowa. We use way to much questionable hilly erodible ground for row crops, when those areas should be planted to grass or some long-term perennial that will hold the topsoil. The more grass we plant and the more focus we have in managing animals in such a way as to create more topsoil, the more water we’ll hold, the less floods we’ll have, as well as minimizing drought.

This year was one of the more challenging years for a while. The winter lasted much too long (mid-April), and spring was much too wet for too long. My market garden was 3 weeks late, and the harvest showed it. I found that onions do best planted as early as possible (but not too early to be heavily frosted). Squash needs to be replanted if there is a pounding downpour that heavily crusts the soil. Oats also do much better planted in March, not April. But, I don’t want to complain — even with vegetable setbacks the forage crops this year did quite well. I was one of the lucky (blessed) ones this year as I had no hay rained on — a miracle!! I know farmers that had every single hay crop rained on. I was able to store most of my winter needs in May and June, and sold the higher quality July/August cuttings to either neighbors or at the hay auction.

Animal health was fairly consistent this year. I havent’ wormed my sheep herd for 3 years now. I feel my brood herd is fairly resistant — the ones that lived are genetically  predisposed to parasite resistance. Although it seems cruel to let sheep die (without worming them), I had to do it to get the right genetics as I want to reduce my cost and labor in my sheep herd. I do not want to mollycoddle sheep, they need to be hardy. Saving sheep that probably should die and breeding them on produces offspring that are also weak. In the wild predators fulfil this function, in dometic settings the shepherd needs to step up into this role, in my opinion.