Summer Forage Sunflowers

This spring we planted iron/clay cowpeas, Laredo forage soybeans, Koto buckwheat, and Tifleaf 3 millet.  And in a couple of fields, for fun, we added in some Peredovik sunflowers. Overall, the cowpeas were the best forage performers with the buckwheat putting on a nice early display of white flowers. The soybeans grew, but did not do well compared to the cowpeas. The millet was kind of problematic, in some fields it germinated well and grew well, in others it did not seem to germinate very well and there were very few millet plants. I bought untreated millet seed and wonder if that was part of the problem somehow. The sunflowers were the showiest, especially in the the west blueberry field.

I added sunflowers to the mix in two fields: the Coast Electric field and the west blueberry field. Coast Electric field is a new area that we are just getting fenced in and it has very poor soil. In this field everything germinated and has grown minimally well. The sunflowers are flowering at about a foot and a half high.

The growth in the west blueberry field has been phenomenal, with sunflowers flowering at heights of 4, 5 and 6 feet. For years the west blueberry field has been a lambing and sheep wintering area. Sheep being fed hay and grain, sheep camping out, stomping around and pooing everywhere. Except for all the sheep business, I never added any fertilizer or lime to the west blueberry field. In fact it was a rather weedy field with lots of smut grass throughout (as the name implies, a nasty and invasive grass the sheep don't eat) and I didn't mind applying herbicide to the whole field prior to planting. But, the soil in this field must be spectacular and I look at it as an example of what the soil can be like in many of the other fields on the farm, just given the right care. What follow are a series of pictures showing the sunflowers and other forage that grew in the west blueberry field.

I caught this tiger swallowtail butterfly, Papilio glaucus, flying from one sunflower to another.

Jackie caught this spicebush swallowtail butterfly, Papilio troilus, on a sunflower.  We see many of this butterflies on the sunflowers as well as the flowers in Joy's garden.

There are a few lambs from the spring lambing with the Georgia rams.  We separated them into two groups (ewe lambs and ram lambs) and put them in their own section of cowpeas/sunflower forage.  They are not as voracious as the moms, that flock of 220 ewes strips all the leaves off a half acre of cowpeas 2 to 3-foot tall within a few hours.  The number of lambs is such that cowpeas have time to regrow.  However, the lambs like the sunflower leaves the best, I think, striping them off the stalk as high as they can reach.

A ram lamb in the cowpeas with sunflowers.

Some of the ram lambs eating some supplemental grain. I feed them just a little to get them in the habit of coming up where I can check on them.

The ewe lambs.

Comet Neowise

While there are certainly better pictures of comet Neowise on the net, I did see the comet and was able to take a picture of it with my hand-held cell phone.  There is a night-time setting on the phone camera that allows longer duration shots.  Their advice was to hold the camera steady, although I imagine there must be some image stabilization algorithms at work as well.

In the picture, one can see the comet a bit above the treeline shadow and well below the two end stars of the cup of the big-dipper constellation.

Below is a blowup of the above image, just focusing on the comet in the center of the picture.

The comet is faint in the pictures, but a bright head with a streaming tail is certainly discernible.

Last Clip

For over a year Jeffrey and I have worked, on and off, putting up a fence around the Coast Electric Field.  Area contained by the fence is almost 19 acres, with a perimeter fence line of 4,200 feet and a cross fence of 620 feet.  Yesterday I attached the final T-post clip.  The fence is finished.

The south line is a very long run, with several intermediate brace post assemblies. This photo looks to the west from the hill top at Gravel Pit Road.  Jeffrey cleared the fence line with the bulldozer blade on the International.  We've done additional mowing and brush clearing, but this is also the right-of-way for the electric line that brings power to Jeffrey's and Jackie's house.  

Turning around, this photo looks to the east along the south line.  The Gator is in front of the brace post to the cross fence that goes along Gravel Pit Road.

Here is a view of the cross fence with Gravel Pit Road on the left and the field planted in cowpeas, soybeans, buckwheat and millet.  A few sunflowers also.  The plants will have a rough go of it, but this is a cover crop to start building the soil in this area.

At the entrance to Gravel Pit Road is the north end of the cross fence and a space set aside to put in a concrete pad for a water facility and a cattle panel trap area to contain sheep and control access between the two sides of the Coast Electric Field.

Turning around is the western part of the Coast Electric Field, with our driveway on the right.  The driveway has a name, but we are inclined to change that.  Unfortunately, that name is already registered within Google Maps and probably with the county.  So it will be more difficult than just implementing our whim.

 

Further along to the west, at the top of the hill, the fence continues with the driveway on the right.  The cover crop seems to be doing better on this side of the field.

This was a major project for us, now quite a relief for this phase of it to be completed.  Next will be trenching in a water line from Jeffrey's and Jackie's house and pouring two 20-foot by 20-foot concrete slabs on which to place the water tubs for the sheep.  The concrete slab is designated a Heavy Use Area and is to protect the area from becoming a mud pit and erosion problem from the sheep traffic.  And of course we need to start building the soil with cover crops and grass plantings.

Livestock Guardian Dogs

The sheep guard dogs just got new tags with our phone number on their collar.   Here they are. 

Jack:

Zeus:

Niobe:

Whitie:

Heidi:

Hero: