A Walk Around the Farm
Since this blog is going to be mostly about the animals and plants I see on walks around our farm, I thought I would orient you to where we are.
The farm is a long skinny rectangle, made of two L-shaped parts. One of the L’s is forested, and the other, upside-down L, is a pasture we lease out for raising hay. In the forested part there is a nice pond that attracts lots of wildlife.
Artist’s rendering.
Texas has ten big ecological regions, and we are right on the edges of two of them, the Pineywoods, and the Blackland Prairies. So we have the tall spindly loblolly pines, we also have some big hardwood trees like sweetgum and oak.
Almost every day I walk around the property with my little flock of sheep and a goat, and two dogs.
We start from the old barn, go south to the tree line, check on the creek, and make a stop at the fallen tree that is perfect for scratching sheep backs. Then we travel three sides of the little hay pasture, meander through the woods around the back side of the property, and stop by the pond on the way home. This route maximizes the “edge” areas, the places where the trees and open spaces meet, which is the kind of place wildlife prefers.
These pictures of our route are from July 2015, right after the hay had been cut. We had a very wet spring, but then a very dry summer.
We start from our old barn, looking southeast.
Walking alongside the sheep pen, looking south to the trees.
Going into the trees a little bit, we can look down on the creek.
The sheep stop and scratch their backs at their favorite fallen tree.
Sometimes we make a little side trip to see my favorite tree, a tupelo.
We look south into the little hay pasture. Often there are a few deer there.
After walking around three sides of the little hay field, we head east through the woods along the long south border of the farm.
From the same place as the last picture, but turning north to look through the trees.
Still in the woods.
Coming out of the woods and looking towards the pond.
Looking south across the pond.
Every time I walk this route, I notice something new, and I hope to share those discoveries with you.
