Hindsight is a bitch

When I bought this place the pastures were in mediocre condition. The middle and back pasture were dominated by 10 ft tall sunflowers, ragweed, tumbleweed, and careless weeds. The back one had one large patch of bermuda, and another large section of switchgrass. In the winter, both of them covered up in rye. Overgrazed to be sure, but not destroyed. I figured by running the goats on them, it'd eradicate the weeds and give the grass time to come back. I didn't understand the concept of rotational grazing or the real causes of overgrazing at the time.

The other day I went out and walked the middle pasture and took a long hard look at bad it's gotten in the last 10 years. As expected, the ragweed is completely gone, along with the tumbleweeds, and the careless weeds and sunflowers are following suit. However, there was not a single blade of grass of any sort in the center pasture. Instead, thick carpets of purple nightshade, thistle, cockleburr, and buffalo burr coat the majority of the pasture. It's a complete wreck out there, and I can only blame myself for it.

I'm marking out new fencing for the center pasture now, 4 paddocks 100 ft wide and 400 ft deep, with hooks to subdivide them via temp electric fencing down to 20 ft wide sections. Spent yesterday afternoon spraying the worst patches of buffalo burr and thistle, will order grass seed this weekend to start putting down. I'm thinking if I rotate them once a week, that will give each section a solid trampling down and then a month to rest before being regrazed. That plus running some irrigation lines along the fence should help to bring this one back.

The back pasture needs to be shredded and seeded. It's got a bad patch or two of nightshade but still has a lot of native grasses in it. I'll figure out how to divide it up after I get the center one done.

If I'd done this 10 years ago, when I was making twice what I make now, I'd not be looking at this mess of prickly poisonous weeds taking over. File that in the Too Late Now folder I guess.