What a jumble. Up until a few years ago, we hadn’t given much thought to our wooded areas. We harvest timber each winter for personal use, however that’s the only traffic these areas get. As a result, a mess of woody plants and briars have just about taken over. This provides wildlife habitat but I feel we need some balance and productivity to this part or our land.

This past December I revamped the grazing plan to include the cattle grazing, but mostly trampling, these unruly areas. The idea is to utilize these wooded areas in the early spring before too many evasive species leaf out. Nine head of cattle went in on five acres on April 26th and came out on April 30th. By running cattle alone, this improvement project is going to take a while. Could we have pushed them to look harder for palatable forage and therefore trample more? Yes. The cows are heavy with calves though. It’s better to stretch out the project rather than risk the health of the mamma cows and the calves they carry. The take away here, keep moving forward no matter the pace.