…but forgets to take a photo. Where you park a trailer of hay affects how easy it is to unload. The first time you park it you get something wrong and it is a pain to unload. This helps you get really motivated to improve things for the next time. With each successive trailer loadContinue reading "Farmer Brent learns about leverage"

The hay has been baled into 330kg round bales. It sat in the field for a couple of weeks to continue drying out in the sun. After baling, rain is no big deal. Round bales shed water well, especially those bound with netting. In fact French farm insurance requires you to leave the hay outContinue reading "View from the office–bringing in the hay bales"

Summer vacation means two months of four kids, all day, every day. I like this. It means I get to have some helpers when I‘m out laying water pipe or fencing. Here are Lucy Jean and Clémentine helping out in their best farming dresses. In the foreground below are 5kg of 1.8mm steel wire andContinue reading "My fencing crew"

Abe Collins on Tall Grazing. We’re trying this out and seeing how it works out here where the climate is a little dry. Greg Judy on Mob Grazing. We need more cows. We’re figuring out how we want to process cattle. Minimizing stress is a requirement – I’m not impressed with all the cow hittingContinue reading "Grazing and Bud links"

I have a little camera that I try to keep with me to snap random photos through the day. Here are some from the last week or so. First, cows eating lucerne by the woodshed. Michael, the neighborly Australian, and Munson, the neighborly malamute. A couple of girls in the Detroit paddock. The foreground isContinue reading "Cows, Neighbors and Chicks"

Our neighbors Tom and Peter breed Blonde d’Aquitaines for reproduction. This is a tricky business where you sell not the meat but the animals capable of breeding to produce meat animals. You sell mother cows, bulls and bull semen with the genetic qualities that Blonde farmers want. To promote their cows they use cattle shows.Continue reading "A prize Blond bull from across the road"

There are plenty of volunteer grape vines growing on the trees. They are likely ugni blanc grapes, but I’m no vigneron.   Sitting on the ‘road’ at the edge of the property are a couple of lines of cuttings from the adjacent vineyard. There’s a cool piece of machinery that runs through the vines pickingContinue reading "Grapes and Blondes"

The SAFER told us that a little two and a half hectare (six acres) parcel of land was for sale that adjoined our farm. It was messy, with a power line running through it, some old vine posts and lots of blackberries and young trees. This kept the price low at 3000 Euros a hectare.Continue reading "Buying a parcel of land"

With fancy three-spoke wheels. [From CapReform.]

When we were fencing back in March we used the old wooden vine posts that we’d recovered from the vineyards. Michael the sitcom neighbor walked around the vineyards with his dog Munson and pulled posts out of the ground. We’d gather them with the pickup truck. It was better than any gym.     ToContinue reading "Metal vine post, meet hard ground"