Been following along here and there but haven’t waded into all the amazing videos and articles yet. I’d love to jump into this conversation if ya’ll don’t mind!
We’ve been on our place for going on 3 years. Prior to that, I had a little suburban yard on which I planted for wildlife habitat, a small collection of fruit trees, some ornamentals, and garden beds— All organically managed and pretty successful, all things considered. Our current place is 20 acres total, about 15 in pasture, 4 of woodlot, and the 1 acre yard, on which we also have a small orchard and garden. The garden is mostly a nicely fenced weed bed right now, since the animals and children seem to take up all my time, and I rarely get around to tending the garden! On the pasture and woods, we currently have 4 head of cattle, 9 boer goats, and 2 horses. We also have a single beehive, and we have guineas who help with breaking up manure & pest management. Occasionally, we let our two Kunekune hogs into the pasture. Our turkeys and chickens occasionally venture into the pasture, but they mostly hang out in the yard. We have one mobile chicken coop that gets moved around the orchard for fertilizer & pest control. The big stationary chicken coop is situated near the barn to encourage the birds to visit the barnyard and pick through manure dropped there. Generally speaking, it all works pretty well, and I love having our own little ecosystem here offsetting the need for synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and such! We are not fully organic, as we judiciously use chemical dewormers and antibiotics/meds on the animals when needed, but we don’t spray at all, nor have we used synthetic fertilizers.
The folks here before us also managed the place holistically, which was a major factor in our choosing to buy this farm. They also installed a pasture irrigation system and left some reels of poly wire and such to get us going with a rotational grazing system. We were pretty much able to pick up right where they left off, and we’re slowly incorporating new animals/infrastructure/methods that work for us. 😍
I know I’m not the only Texan on this thread- One question I have for you all is, what do you do about shade when you’re rotating your animals in the heat of the summer? I struggle with this! Most of our pasture is pretty open. We have a few scattered trees here and there and no permanent structures other than the barn. With only 20 acres & the limited number of animals we have, we really need to make each paddock quite small in order to get the full benefit of MIRG, but without shade throughout the pasture, I can‘t quite figure out how to do this. I usually end up just advancing the front wire a bit every couple days but not blocking access to the shade in the paddocks behind the animals so that they can retreat there when it gets so hot. As a result, they do get fresh grass, but I worry that the plants in the “shady” paddocks will get overgrazed since they have continuous access to those for a week or longer, until we reach the next area of shade. Thoughts?
My second concern is irrigation. We have a very nice (albeit labor-intensive) system of moveable sprinklers throughout the pasture. I *could* water every day of the week if I had the druthers to do it. However, I want to balance the ability to water with holding off on watering in order to allow more drought-tolerant grasses to become fully established. I‘m concerned that if I water constantly, I’ll swing the pendulum in favor of the more fragile, thirsty plants out there. Any ideas how to balance this in order to keep the desired grasses growing without favoring the needier species?
agrilifeextension.tamu.edu
That is so exciting!! I am so happy for you, it will be work and take time, but you certainly are no stranger to that! Are you taking pictures??
Both to document what it looks like before and after but also to document what it should return to if they do their jobs right, as far as the road and recovery of landing site goes. 
Had to cool his jets and get him to understand a contract was and is expected. Who doesn't get a contract nowadays???? He was supposed to come and bring the contract this afternoon but didn't show up, so despite him having all this high dollar equipment on the land, not another splinter will be cut here without that contract being discussed, developed and signed. 
