Dear Curiosity Journal,
Over the weekend, Rufus and I built another pasture for the Driftless Curiosity flock. We’ve added about ¾ acre of tall grass, a few mulberry trees, and diverse forage. Ideally, we would section this off into smaller paddocks to encourage them to graze all of the plants, rather than munching on their favorites and moving on. Our rotational grazing instructor, Nadia Alder, likened their eating patterns to college freshmen going through the cafeteria line, taking the pizzas and pies first. They’re not going to choose the kale unless they don’t have any other choice. Since we ran out of woven wire, it’s a pizza and pie free-for-all on this ¾ acre chunk. We’ve been foraging for fencing on the farmscape, finding remnants of the dairy days. We had to wrestle this particular stretch of woven wire from a quagmire of prickly ash and multiflora rose, so needless to say, we recovered what we could and narrowly escaped with most of our skin intact. Also, the dry soil makes digging holes and pounding posts significantly more laborious than springtime fence making. However, somehow, in my farmer brain, it’s worth it when I see the flock grazing in the tall meadow. The lambs leap up to peek over the grass line, and I just see their little heads bouncing across the new pasture. They graze until they’re content, then chew their cud in the shade. Rufus and I stand at the fence line with delectation, sensing the cheer of their pizza party, after being forced to eat kale.
~Joy
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