Homestead mailing list

[Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>]

SISU! wrote:

> Bill Jones wrote:
>
>  
>
> > So everything will be all right, and my productivity won't decline,
> > if only the _grasses_ turn brown and stop growing?
> >    
>
> Most pasture weeds will survive two months of drought.  Sometimes my
> pasture would be so brown I thought the sheep were eating rocks.  But
> there were weeds/forage plants out there that sustained them and I had
> healthy sheep without ever really tossing feed/grain to them.  I NEVER
> hayed them. They wouldn't really even eat what I tried to feed-only my
> ram knew what a feed bucket was, and that's because he was born on
> another farm.
> As for productivity, that's relative.  No, neither your productivity or
> mine would rival some lamb outfits in New Zealand, but for homestead
> purposes, I had good lambs and healthy ewes.  They may have had some
> lean times, but I suppose they had put on enough fat in the good times
> to see them through, as that's the way nature works.
>
> B
>  
I see the Ghoul of Garberville seized upon my mention of Bermuda grass, 
when the only point of that submission at all, of course, was the single 
line:

"Most grasses need 1-2 inches per week to maintain a good growth."

BTW, our weeds don't follow the same pattern in the west either.  Most of 
them sprout in the fall, and go to seed in early summer, like mustard, 
chickweed, and countless others.  This is the main reason I suspect that 
garlic mustard won't thrive that well as a weed here.

Extremely low productivity can be countered by having more land, in 
proportion to the amount of hay you can cut, if you're able.  We're stuck 
with our little piece that, appropriately, represents just about our share of 
the usable land on earth.

Bill
S. Oregon coast