Curiousfarmer is a Pollinator-Friendly, Carbon Sponge!
What the heck does that mean?
Our farm is covered year around with perennial plants, shrubs, and trees. Livestock are rotated around the farm, grazing plants near their peak, leaving about half, to speed regrowth.
Plants pull carbon out of the atomsphere and deposit into the soil. Plants managed well with rotational grazing are pulling near maximum carbon out of the atmosphere. And we do this year after year after year.
We care about pollinators, and manage some plants specifically for them. But even if we didn’t, rotational grazing perennial forages, without using herbicides or pesticides, results in many plants and flowers thriving which our beneficial to all the pollinators. The Monarch butterfly is an indicator species, and I’m happy to say I have never seen greater numbers.
This is all well and good, but I’m happy to say, we do this while producing delicious, nutritious, meat! I am unapologetically, humans first. I care about people, and people need to eat. And we can and do produce food in a holistic way that feeds people while capturing carbon.
An added benefit to capturing carbon and building organic matter is the added water holding capacity of healthy soil. The earth covered in healthy soil becomes more flood and drought proof.
We were just about ready to take the third cutting of hay in the middle of August when the heavens opened and for about three weeks we had the wettest period I can ever remember. Every day or every other day we received and inch to three inches of rain.
During this rainy period, other than the gravel driveway, I witnessed very little runoff of water. The more rain water our soil captures, the more is available for plants to use and then respire back into the atmosphere in the gentlest way possible.
This is the third cutting of hay we made this week. Phoebe, pictured above and below, is due to calve here in September. We should have plenty of hay to feed her and her baby this winter. The circle of life continues.
Curiousfarmer 