All the April showers and thunderstorms gave me perpetually wet feet and therefore the wet foot wrinkles. Today was the first day in a long time I was dry all day while outside. For the month we had just under 11 inches of rain. This is about 7 inches more than normal. The rain should have helped the grass grow, but at times it was a bit too chilly even for the cool season grasses. The cattle, pigs, sheep and laying hens did not mind the rain, although the hens’ feathers were a bit bedraggled at times. The meat birds did not care for all the rain, they just wanted to stay in their shelter and not go out to eat grass and look for bugs.
The last 75 days have been ultra-busy. Caring for the animals during the big ice storm was more than a full time job and then just after the ice melted we opened a utility and cargo trailer dealership. I also started my four-year term on the local school board. That has meant plenty of evening meetings. I have a lot of passion about the potential of our community’s kids and can get pretty fired up about pushing to do our best for the students.
It is good to have all the animals out on fresh spring pastures, but along with that comes the work and time commitment to put up temporary fence and rotate all the differerent livestock groups from paddock to paddock. With the crazy, high price of purchased feed, the more the animals can harvest themselves the better. Plus it is more natural and sustainable that way. We are by no means perfect in being wholly self-contained, put every year we work to get better (even when Mother Nature sends drought, ice and then buckets of rain).
