Bredbo Valley View farm - providing quality education in Permaculture and sustainable living practices.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Going along


It was very foggy out this morning, a good morning to remain indoors I think. The Cook trailed in another four piglets this morning. They must be getting nudged out by the older ones and aren’t doing as well. After a couple of weeks feeding they should be fine again.

The small growers have been venturing out to the front paddocks to graze the past few days. It is very green out on the paddock after we had 5mm of rain over the weekend. The black pigs against the green field is a great sight, I’ll have to take time to get a shot of that one day.

Archer has started nicking off to the Pancake Parlour again, he’s had to be dragged back twice from there in the past couple of weeks. I think he fancies the female Golden Lab they have in their yard – wait until Shadow finds out.

Nature is looking after itself out in our back paddocks, while I was digging holes I noticed a number of healthy signs which surprised me given the season we’ve had. Firstly the springs in the gullies have all started to flow again and there is more water out there then I had imagined, the river has also increased its subterranean flows. There are well defined layers in the soil in some parts of the paddocks. A lot have a clay layer about 40cm down which separates the moist earth from the dry, and the dry is very dry. In some holes the soil was so dry it was like talc powder. The upper layers showed more promise and we found a variety of earth worms and grubs inhabiting the layer.

Once this fence is complete I can look at extending the pig paddocks down into an area between the railroad and the conservation areas. The soil in this part was very good and will be our truffle area once the pigs have turned things over and removed the African Love Grass. I plan to keep our barrow growers down there to fatten on the grass, we’ll also be able to plant some nice short term pasture grasses down in that area for them.

No comments: