Yesterday we hit 101°F here in Eastern NC, with a heat index of 115°F. They keep saying 50% chance of rain but we've had zero in over three weeks now. These temps along with no rain have baked the ground. Most years, we start the spring with my father's pond overflowing with rain from the winter or at least near the top. After several years of drought, this is what it looks like. Its hard to see how low it is until you step inside. You can see the top "erosion" line where the water normally sits, and its down about 15 feet. That's a ton of water in a place thats not supposed to get dry. The pond is mostly fed through groundwater (vs surface water), and everything is just so dry that its seeping out into the surrounding soil vs seeping in. We're over a foot short of rainfall just this year alone. The pastures are in bad shape and we need slow soaking rain badly.

Woo hoo! Finally got the beef cows moved into the new pasture that we've shared so many posts about the fencing progress recently. Unfortunately, its not as lush of a grass that it was even a couple months ago when we had received a little rain. The last few months of high heat and no rain have really taken a toll on it. This is the first time its been grazed in the 2.5 years since we planted it. Last spring it was waist high with thick green leaves and clover that was 6-7 inches tall. Now its like standing hay with withered clover in it. Its something though and it accounts for days or weeks of not feeding hay. We need slow steady rain. Pop up thunderstorms that barely wet the top layer of sand wont cut it.

Check out the pictures of a single day in our grazing method from the ground and the air views. When I talk to a lot of farmers/ranchers about how we rotate paddocks in our adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) system , they think it's the same as how they rotationally graze. Its not. While admirable, most ranchers may rotate their pastures, but they don't do intensive grazing on small paddocks within those fields to force the cattle to graze/trample/deposit manure uniformly. Its also not the same as what shepherds did thousands of years ago for similar reasons. This AMP method is regenerative grazing that quickly adds value to worn out land and also keeps cattle from overgrazing their favorite forage. These cattle may be in a paddock for only a matter of hours before moving on to the next space. The sad part is that we have only received a few inches of rain so far this year, so the fescue and native grasses are very dry, but its helping us put off feeding hay a bit longer.

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A little glimpse of God in the everyday work. We're into our 4th week without a lawn mower. I had no idea how good our dairy cows would be at mowing the yard and also at trimming down over grown vines! I figured they'd go for the Bermuda grass first, but they love the vines! Thats great because I normally have to clean those off! It still amazes me that our beef and dairy cattle turn these plants into high quality food for us. How amazing is our creator? What a mighty God we serve!

The other day I top dressed the field were planting pumpkins for the fall in. Because pumpkins are such resource hogs, I used the manure spreader to put down composted horse manure thats been sitting for a year. The rich black compost contrast to the gray soil is stark. This farm was an over 200 year old crop farm until 3 years ago. The process is slow to regenerate the soil with animals but you can see the difference. I can already tell a difference in parts of the pastures that weve had animals in and have spread manure, and how much water they hold vs how much puddles up and runs off. The difference is wild.

Purchased a feeder to try out for the pigs. Its a small one but if it works, I may invest in a bigger one. These Osborne feeders (in theory) should prevent us from wasting as much food as the pigs self serve and don't dump as much on the ground. The feeder has a paddle that the pigs push with their nose that allows food to drop from the hopper. In theory it should keep the feed dry and waste a lot less. It should also save time as we can feed our pigs less frequently in bulk vs smaller daily rations.

I hear these are common out west where more pastured pig operations like ours are. However around here, you cant find any of these used and they are super expensive. One farmer I know drives from NC out to Iowa to pick up big versions of these in bulk. Obviously we can't pull that off being a small operation.

Anyone here use these or know a good source for used ones on the east coast? The larger ones are made of galvanized steel vs fiberglass like this one.

Weve recently had some rain in Eastern NC, which has been an absolute blessing. Still way behind for the year, but just getting some relief has helped dramatically in the short term. Even our livestock guardian dogs were happy to stand in the rain just to get wet vs going in their shelters. We had 2.25" in about 48 hours last week and then a day later we received another quarter inch in a pop up storm. You can see standing water in the pasture in the first picture but its all been soaked up by the second picture the next day. The organics weve been adding in the way of composted manure is definitely helping to reduce the standing water and runoff. Heavy storms used to pool up and stand for days or run straight into ditches due to the hard packed clay and sand in the pastures but slowly thats changing. The soils are holding more now and soaking in faster. The grass is staying green a little longer. Its incredible to watch.