Junior Recital

All who know our precious Jack have seen the handiwork of God's Promises for those who believe..

Our meistro with girlfriend, Amanda.

Our Meistro

Jack surprised us in the Percussion enseble concert at Colorado Mesa University. He conducted one of the pieces. I don't know why the pic is so small......

More about pasture management

Horses are particular. Green doesn't mean they will eat it. They like timothy and orchard grass, alfalfa, clover and will graze on spring dandelions, chicory, fescue and a few other things. There is some kind of swamp grass in our lower field that they will eat the early tender sprouts in spring but will not eat it once it has gotten tough or dry. I mowed tons of that down yesterday and will gather up what I can and use it for mulch in the potato patch.

David cut out a bunch of Russian Olive trees. If you don't kill them out every year you will have fields of new ones cropping up. Same for the Chinese Elms. If you only cut them they will grow back. Elms can be killed with a brushing of toradon before it makes a scab over the cut trunk. Spray olives after they start to come up from the stump or a new tree will grow in the same place.

We planted the willow tree about 22 years ago. It is first to get spring leaves and the last to shed in the winter. The stream is low this time of year but it will get about 3 feet deep once the natural springs begin to bubble north of us and the ranches north of us begin to irrigate. Jack had trout in there for years. Then the cranes came and plucked them out!

Pasture Management

Even after nearly 25 years we still have pasture issues. The weeds never give up. I have sprayed, not sprayed. What I know for sure, however, is you have to spray. Nature won't appreciate your efforts at 'going green' by rewarding you with less weeds.

Depending on what your purpose is for fields you have different programs to work. In the case of horses, like we have, they let you know what they will eat and what they won't. I read that most livestock will eat this disgusting 'dock'. Not horses. They will make a big deal of dropping manure all around the weed and fertilizing it so that it spreads and grows big. My newest method is to use 2-4-D with some dish soap.

Dock weed is invasive, ugly and a nuisance but this milkweed is bad news. Noxious and deadly as well as invasive. I can see dried stands of it all over the place so I have to go after it.

Since this is early spring and only the dock is sprouting up I will focus on it but keep an eye out for the deadly milkweed to show it's scrawny leaves.

This is satisfying work. There is fence repair and ditch work and on it all goes until the end of fall. In the urban areas there is more strife, crowding, fighting, despair than I can deal with. I would not trade my battle with the weeds for a mansion in a concrete jungle.

just pictures

Welcome Spring

Spring is popping up all over the place here. Yippeee. So a pic of the stallion seems like a good idea. He is lovely. Maybe we will breed a few mares. I miss having foals.

Now that we are older we seem to have figured out things better. Like how to prep the garden and protect it from the deer. Like how to only paint part of the house instead of taking on a whole project. Like making the pastures grow lusher with a little more ditching, furrowing and spraying of noxious weeds.

Birds are out, ravens in their tippy top nest. I heard whistle pigs today and so did the dogs. They spent a lot of time looking into holes in the rock walls wanting to jump on one if it peeked out. The whistle pigs will scream at the dogs and the people all spring and summer until they go back into the rocks to hibernate.