Summer: A Time for Growing & Dreaming
Summer is one of our favorite seasons here at Meadow View Ranch. After a seemingly endless winter/spring of checking tank heaters, hauling in firewood, and bundling up into ten different layers just to go feed the critters, we are so ready for more enjoyable weather.
While there are always things in the works, summer is when we get the most excited about implementing our ideas for the year. We're always trying to create new, more efficient systems to help our homestead run as smoothly as possible—and we have a habit of adding new animals, too! So what changes have already happened this year, and what else do we have planned?
The Newest Additions to Meadow View Ranch
It's been ages since we've updated the blog, so I'll probably forget many of the changes that have happened here since our last post. But for starters, one of the most exciting updates is that we finally have our own tractor and brush hog.
John Deere Tractor & Brush Hog
Early this spring, after months of saving and constantly checking Facebook marketplace, we finally found a tractor to buy. Ford spent a lot of time deciding which makes and models of tractors would work for our goals on our property, so once we saw this one, we knew we had to have it.
Of course, once we had the tractor, we knew it was time to start adding implements to get much-needed work done around our property. Since we have about 24 acres to care for, a brush hog was the first item on our list.
Since we'd clearly already joined the John Deere Green club, we were delighted to find a used John Deere brush hog in good condition and at a great price. We were so excited, in fact, that we drove two hours over the Bighorn Mountains to Sheridan, Wyoming after we got off of work to make sure we got it before someone else beat us to it.
I think it was the very next day that we started trying to hook the brush hog up to the tractor. Of course, it required several trips to Murdochs to buy the right connections (buying used equipment means there's almost always something you have to change or repair before you can use it!) but once it was ready to rock and roll, it was a joy to see Ford fire up the tractor, turn on the PTO, and turn some greasewood into mulch.
Since then, Ford has put in plenty of work mowing down tamarisk (also called salt cedar, a terribly invasive plant that's prevalent on our place) near the creek in our pasture. For the first time, we're able to see sections of the creek from near our house. That may seem like no big deal, but it's something we've been wanting and working towards since we moved here over two years ago!
As wonderful as it has been adding machinery that helps us make forward progress towards our property goals, it pales in comparison to the latest addition so far this year: another family member!
A New Dog: Rocky!
We've always been happy with just having our two dogs, but when Ford saw a post on the Montana Pittie Project Facebook page in early March, he immediately sent it to me and told me that he wanted to adopt him. This adorable pitbull looked like a perfect combination of our existing dogs, Mooch and Phoenix, and his foster family's description made it abundantly clear that he was nothing short of an absolute angel. The only question was whether he'd get along with Mooch and Phoenix, who can both be dog-selective and a little hard to live with (but don't tell them that).
I've never been one to say no to more animals (I'm usually the one asking!), so we filled out the adoption application and had a brief interview with Montana Pittie Project's adoption team. That same night, they told us we'd been approved and asked when we'd like to pick him up!
At that time, Rocky was living about nine hours away with his foster family in northwest Montana. Thankfully, later that month a transporter was going to be coming through the Billings, Montana area which was much easier to fit into our busy schedules. On March 20th, I made the hour-and-a-half journey to pick him up. On the way home, as I happily sang along to the radio, Rocky gave me the most intense, loving gaze I could imagine... and I knew he was going to be ours forever!
Thankfully, Rocky is exceptionally well behaved and quickly fit into our family. In fact, Mooch and him are pretty much best friends... I've never seen Mooch be so happy and friendly with another dog! They love going on adventures with us, whether it's to see the wild horses on the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range or just hanging out on our property.
We feel so blessed by the additions we've made to Meadow View Ranch so far this spring, but we're always planning for the next big thing. So what are we hoping to add in the near future?
Plans for 2024: What's Coming to Meadow View Ranch Next
Spring and summer are seasons filled with new life. Grasses, shrubs, and trees wake up from their long winter slumber and start to turn the world a vibrant shade of green. Deer, rabbits, and birds bring their young into the world. Everywhere you look, something new and exciting is happening in the spring... and it's no different here! We have exciting plans for the summer of 2024 at Meadow View Ranch.
Ducklings (Hopefully!)
Last year, we had one duck, Nutmeg, go broody. She successfully hatched out a duckling who we named Cheep Cheep. And this spring, Nutmeg has once again gone broody. Adorably, her daughter has gone broody as well. There also seems to be a third duck who's joined the broody momma club. We are hoping for ducklings to hatch any day now.
Our experience last year with Nutmeg was definitely an an experiment in trial and error. We did our best to create a specialized environment for Nutmeg so that she could be unbothered by the other ducks. We also regularly candled the eggs and obsessively checked in on the nest.
However, Nutmeg made it clear that she didn't enjoy the experience and we only ended up with one duckling surviving, so this year we are taking a different route: letting nature do its thing! Instead of trying to intervene, we are almost completely leaving the process up to the girls. It's so easy to try to step in and "improve" the situation, but this time we're committed to letting things play out as nature intends.
I have to admit that I've candled a few eggs once or twice throughout the past three weeks, and I moved one of our "coop cameras" to a spot where we can watch the mommas any time we want, but for the most part we have been completely hands-off with the process. So far, it seems to have made Nutmeg much more comfortable, so we're hoping for a more successful hatch this time around!
Continuing to Improve the Health of our Pastures/Woodlands
Restoring the natural ecosystems on our property is something we've been passionate about since we moved here. I don't think it can be overstated that the majority of the land we own was in very poor shape when we bought it. It's not necessarily anyone's fault—in the Bighorn Basin, the area of Wyoming where we live, the growing conditions are incredibly tough.
This area is believed to have once been an ocean (there's a town nearby called Shell named for the frequency in which seashells are found there). As the ocean water evaporated, the natural salts were all that remained. That means the saline levels in our soils are through the roof.
Soils with high salinity are notoriously hard to restore and revitalize. The salt makes it very difficult for plants to grow. It's also hard to eliminate the salt in the soil, so we can't just add nitrogen and suddenly have a thriving vegetable garden.
Two of the best ways we've learned to remedy the situation are to add biomass to the soil and remove plants that exacerbate the issues. While it may be difficult to remove the salt from the soil, we can essentially dilute it by adding much-needed biomass (think: plant matter) to the ground.
And some of our plants, like tamarisk, suck up the salt throughout the summer and drop it right back into the soil when the leaves drop in the fall. That means that eliminating those salt-cycle-perpetuating plants can effectively reduce the amount of salt damaging the delicate ecosystem.
So how do we go about adding biomass and removing pesky invasives? We can pretty much kill two birds with one stone by doing one simple thing: mowing. Now that we have a tractor and a brush hog, we can easily mow both the grasses in our pastures and shrubs like the salt cedar.
While using the tractor and brush hog to mow the property is certainly functional, there's something even better we can use to maintain the land once the shrubs have been cut down: animals! Our horse, Tavi, is a great weed eater. Not only can she eat weeds and mow the grass, she can also add her own biomass/fertilizer to the soil through her stool.
Horses are typically known as land destroyers when they have free access to large pastures, but I'm hoping to avoid that issue by rotationally grazing her throughout the summer. She'll be in a pretty small area for as long as it takes her to eat down the grass and weeds, and then she'll be moved to a new spot.
This will do two things: force her to eat things she might not normally prefer due to a limited supply of grasses, and also give the grazed areas plenty of time to rest. Ideally, she wouldn't be on the same piece of land for at least 30 days. Over time, this should decrease the presence of weeds in the pastures and increase the vitality of the grasses. All without having to fire up the tractor!
Cleaning Up the New Property
Last year, we purchased the property next to ours. It has around 5 acres of land and gives us more comprehensive ownership of and access to Sage Creek and a small pond bordering the properties. Also on the property when we bought it were a partially-finished shop, two old, dilapidated mobile homes, and literal tons of trash.
We have done so much work to clean up the place over the past year—we hauled off eight dump trailer loads of broken glass, concrete, and household trash; cleaned out the random bits and bobbles left behind in the shop; removed one of the two mobile homes on the property; and began clearing the way for the last mobile home to be removed.
This year, we're hoping to continue to make progress on cleaning up the property. We'd love to have the remaining mobile home removed and most of the trash gone too. It's a daunting task, but one we're excited to finish. It's already so much more enjoyable to spend time on the property with the hard work we've put in up to this point—I think it'll be a great hang out spot once we're finished!
While we're cleaning up the property, we also have hopes of finishing the construction of the shop. It's framed and has a roof, but everything else still needs to be done. We're hoping it will be a nice space for Ford to work on his many projects without being cramped in our small garage.
Here's to the Future at Meadow View Ranch
While both Ford and I are entering into very busy seasons in our lives and jobs, we are so excited to keep pushing towards the goals we have for our property. Sometimes the progress seems impossibly slow, but when I look back at what Meadow View Ranch looked like over two years ago and compare it to today, it becomes clear that we are moving in the right direction. The work is never done, but the journey is what makes the experience worthwhile... so here's to a great summer of learning, growing, and adapting!
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