It is important to us that we do things that cause our neighbors to crane their necks as they drive slowly past. Yes, the cows are in the yard. As the world works today, If people don’t think we are weird then we are doing something wrong. I don’t want to be normal in a world of chemical agriculture and chemical lawn maintenance.
I had to give a very large area to the cows because the grass was short. The girls are also doing a good job of smoothing out some rough places left over from some trenching that we had done in the spring.
We have grazed the slope in three sections from bottom to top. I prefer to start at the bottom so rain doesn’t wash manure onto upcoming forage. We just follow the keylines around the farm as much as possible. The fence pictured above does not follow the keyline so we just have to work with what we’ve got.
The fun part was when I lit the fire this morning in the back room. I heard a weird noise…like a burp or something…and looked to my right. Ms. White was looking in the window at me. Kinda funny. Ever have a cow looking in your window? Maybe you had to be there.
Chism Heritage Farm 
Cows grazing yards – what a concept. What a good use of grass, I say! Around here, the vast expanses of “yard” that folks spend hours and hours and gallons of fuel mowing, could raise quite the beef herd, but it just sucks up time and energy and looks nice (to them, not me). Now that I have lead-trained horses, I’ll be walking them down the hill and temp fencing them around the house next growing season – will surely cut down on the time I have to spend mowing and deliver manure right to my house compost pile, to boot. Well, I’ll have to fork it into a wheelbarrow but that’s just fine by me. That’s a pretty picture, your cows grazing around your house.
You know I’m fascinated by your horses. You are actually going to “work” them? Wow. Dad has horses but we just use them to magically turn hay into manure. Sometimes, when our nerve is up, we’ll go for a spirited ride but mostly…manure.
Very practical. I think there’s a quip in one of the Salatin books to the effect that Theresa makes Joel fence the cattle a little away from the entrance to the house – she doesn’t appreciate the cow pies right where people will step in them :).
Yup. I was more than half tempted to fence around the front of the house, leaving one small pathway out but I would really only gain a 10×20 area…and cow patties on the sidewalk.
Hey, saves mowing the grass with a horrible loud machine. I would much rather hear a cow burp;) Neighbours think we are weird as well!
Lol
Awesome. Wonderful. Love this post.
This is a golden quote:
“It is important to us that we do things that cause our neighbors to crane their necks as they drive slowly past.”
And the bit at the end of the cow looking in the window. Classic.
keep up the good work and keep those necks a cranein’!
ps. we got the first three requests from the library back on Life of Fred .. and my son is loving it. He’s on the apples one now. thanks again for that rec. Priceless.