I like Julie. She gave me some good ideas and I
expanded her knowledge of dairy goats, something she’s been wanting to
learn about. Several weeks after her visit, we received a nice report in
the mail from her including a topographic map, a soils map and
corresponding soil chart, and two aerial maps - one from two years ago
and one from ten years ago. There are also flyers about the different
varieties of Bermuda grass, one on prescribed grazing, one on pest
management using planted clover to choke out weeds since I expressed our
desire to do as little with poisons as possible, two on pasture and hay
land planting (guides for using the different Bermudas), and a flyer on
purchase and installation of ram pumps (both hydro powered and solar
powered) to move water into water tanks keeping livestock out of the
creek.
Now, most all the farms around here
that want high
yields of fine quality hay will plant, fertilize, and cut Bermuda grass.
The small niggling unease I feel about Bermuda grass is that it’s not
native and horrendously invasive.
My next call will be to the Texas Parks and
Wildlife Dept. biologist. Like my new friend Julie, the T.P.W.D. biologist
will come out free of charge. They have programs to restore NATIVE
grasses as well as forbs for pasture and hay management that include the
lending of special ‘no till’ planters to minimize erosion. I’m
thinking that since I’m mostly feeding goats (who are browsers, not
grazers) that having a mixture of things, even in the hay, would be a
good thing. I believe that they will also be able to give me a better
idea of ‘edge’ type native plants to keep erosion at bay on my creek
banks, and hopefully some guidance for what to plant/nurture/harvest in
our spring rich wetlands area.
As purty as a field of bright green Bermuda hay is
waving in the breeze, I’ll be willing to bet that a meadow of wild
grasses and flowers would not only be purtier, but actually easier to
maintain without a lot of human or chemical input. There’s an appeal to
restoring an area to natural health and I’m excited at the prospect of
both helping wildlife and sustaining ourselves
simultaneously.
Of course I don’t know for a fact it’ll work that
way, but we’re fixin’ to find out.
Read Earth Stewardship 102
