Grazing our land

When we bought our property, it was severely over-grazed, the land nothing but earth and a sporadic blade of grass or two. Now, after two years of resting, the grass is waste-deep and thick again. It's time to reintroduce animals...

We don't yet have any grazing animals, not until our pond fills up this rain season, so we are borrowing our neighbor's cows. His land could use a break, and ours needs mowing.

Grazing makes the grass's roots spread out and you end up with thicker, more lush pasture. The trick is not to leave the cows in any one place for too long, as that will damage the roots. You want to try and imitate nature's herds, which move as one and keep moving.

With that in mind, we divided the southern part of our property into various paddocks, using electric fencing. We will rotate the cows each week, and then move them to the northern part of the land.

Our grass will be trimmed, fertilized and ready for the rains.

For more photos, click here.