So people who know me know my motto in word or deed is this: There’s a creative solution to every problem. Being a former math specialist, I gotta say, problems are a good thing.
Dilemmas are meant to be considered and approached from different angles, and if not solved on stroke one, guess what? You now know what doesn’t work which is important information to hone your perspective and make a new plan of attack.
The dilemma we face sometimes on the farm is food supply for the animals. Being a hobby farm, I tell people it’s like any other hobby – you shell out money to do it. However, an even bigger hobby for me is cutting costs. It’s a game I learned from my dad. Why pay for something when with a little ingenuity, you can create it yourself? When it came to reduce, reuse, recycle, my dad focused on reusing. Many things can serve more than one purpose.
Take, for instance, your typical lawn. It’s a great place to play, beautiful to look at, and a source of exercise when you have to cut it, unless, of course, you’re sitting down. In the 18th century, beautiful lawns were a way to show the world that you could afford being wasteful, that you had extra land that didn’t need to be used for agriculture, and you had the extra hands to perpetuate this extravagance. And somehow, this notion that this is a good thing has carried on.
That’s why when my gears got turning a few summers ago when we faced having to purchase hay in July due to drought conditions, I felt my own shift move rigidly against tense resistance. My husband was lamenting the stiff scrabble out in the pastures as he headed out to cut the grass in the yard. I thought, how ridiculous is this when we’re buying hay? “Let the sheep do the work,” I said.
But it’s the yard…
And it’s nutritious.
But they’ll poop everywhere….
And you can’t buy better fertilizer.
But they’ll eat other plants….
Thus adding to their nutritional intake.
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| Never too young to start learning |
Plus, I added, the couple hours he was about to waste could be reclaimed. That was the clincher.
So we let them in, and watched them go to work like machines. I could see how much they preferred lush green grass that survived better under shade than what had been gnawed to the ground in the full sun or the subsequent hay bought and thrown out to them. Yes, they do make a slight mess, but all the better to add to the garden and turn you off chocolate chip cookies for the rest of your life. Plus, like deer, it’s pebbly and quickly adds itself to soil content, adding incredible nutrients to support more growth. It’s a cycle people, and it’s a good one, backed 100% by nature.
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| WWI Occupation |
So now, our yard is another pasture dutifully clipped and hedged by a team of power mowers. I much prefer the sound of their munching to the drone of lawn mowers out there. Plus, as I work in the garden, I can see them just outside my fence offering more time for me to concentrate on growing my own food as they enjoy theirs. I toss them a few carrot tops or crop thinnings as a way of saying thanks, you wooly wonders, for working with me.
