Paradigm Farms Horse Retirement: Spring Fever, Spring Work

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Spring Fever, Spring Work

Two weeks ago it was beginning to feel like we were never going to be able to do any of our normal pasture prep work that we do in early spring. In mid to late February Jason overseeds some cool season grass seed in select areas of the pastures. He finally managed to get this done a week ago, a couple of weeks later than he would have preferred. What seemed to be interminable rain kept the pastures far too soggy and saturated to be able to do any kind of field work. Just putting hay out for the horses was wrecking the small parts of the pastures we had to drive in with the tractors.

Mother Nature decided finally decided to turn the tap off last week and give us a window to start doing fieldwork. Not only did it stop raining, but the sun also came out. I've never seen so much sun worshipping on the farm. Jason, Carter and I were finally getting to enjoy working outside each day. The horses played and sunbathed. Thanks to some medication I'm currently on that makes me sun sensitive, I got a sunburn. After 25 inches of rain in 2.5 months I had forgotten that sunscreen even existed during the first couple of sunny days.

Jason had purchased his grass seed more than a month previously and had sticker shock when he saw current seed prices. He had a few weeks to get used to the idea of spreading what, from the price, should have been tiny gold pellets all over the pastures. After 2.5 days of warm sun Jason spent a couple of days spreading our expensive grass spreed in the pastures.

Since the weather forecast was nice for this week as well, Jason ordered fertilizer and spent the last two days getting that spread. Yet again he was in for sticker shock when he went to pay for our fertilizer. Usually seed and fertilizer prices go up and down with fuel prices. Since fuel prices aren't particularly high right now we did not anticipate the high seed and fertilizer prices. We took a day to get used to the four figure number we would be spreading in our pastures for the second week in a row, and then Jason got to work.

I have no doubt that Jason will rest easier tonight knowing he has finally completed some key pasture work. We do a split fertilizer application each year, one in early spring for the cool season grasses, and another one in mid May when the warm season grasses start to grow. At this point if Mother Nature would carry on with the warm, sunny days punctuated by perfectly timed rains, we would be very happy. That's probably not her plan.

Jason spreading fertilizer