Sky Fountains (Cumulus colapsis)

Flying Icelandic ram

Burning out at the farm.

With all the old grass and who knows what underneath, we felt the best way was a fresh start of those areas that we would be working this year. That means FIRE! By using danger mower to make fire lines and clearing those lines to some degree with a rake, we were able to keep the fire fairly well contained with just a hand full of people. 

Now this is very important. If you have never set a grass fire before, DON'T. Grass fires can get away from you very easy and preparation is more important than prevention. In this case I took a couple of short cuts and was lucky that everyone helping was able to be where they needed to be to keep it contained. Had I planned better we would have just watched the fire and drank beer. 

When the fire burns into the wind it advances slowly and can be watched carefully. By planning well you can do precision burning and prevent unwanted burning of things you may like. The tree in the middle of the above picture was not touched by the fire but the ground around it was burned virtually clean.

Now we are waiting for the rains foretasted this week to start knocking the ash down. We have already discovered lots of old branches, rocks and mounds that would trip up equipment with the old grass that was there. We also killed a few weed seeds and likely raised the soil pH a little but a one off fire will not have long standing effects on soil properties. 

Visitors at Sweet Joy Farm

Trying to get a handle on what wanders around while I'm not there. These are done with an older trail camera but it at least gives me an idea about night happenings. I will try to move the cameras around a little to capture all the micro-ecosystems out there.

Things to find out at the farm.

Welcome to the Blog

We are a month into the new year and have owned the farm for two months now. Wendy and I had a discussion and decided to keep going with the Sweet Joy brand and name the farm Sweet Joy Acres or something like that. We will continue to review the naming options for a bit.

 We have added some equipment to the farm including a 2-wheel walk behind tractor, The POS 4x4 and DANGER mower. Danger mower recently had a brake down that may make it beyond use, as enough of the deck has collapsed that the wheels collapsed.