Notes from the ranch — what we're seeing, and why it matters.
Stories, explainers, and news from the ranch — each one built on the records we keep in the Farmer's Almanac. When an entry leans on a measurement or an observation, it links to the dated record it came from.
The introduction post: a seventh-generation family farm in Quebec's Eastern Townships, and a Year-0 measurement program that publishes its methods, its limits, and its misses in the open.
Read the entryFour field notes from the herd's first week on spring grass: a bridge bale the herd didn't need, a strip sized by eye and called wrong, an uninvited weed, dung beetles at work within hours, and a map that claimed more pasture than the cattle could find.
Read the entryOn the first pass across the north-west field we found wild chervil — an invasive in the carrot family. Here's the plan to graze it back, said out loud before we know whether it works.
Read the entryThe first dung beetles we've documented here were already at work in a pat only hours old. Why a beetle at a fresh pat is one of the clearest field-readable signs a pasture is healthy — and why the dewormers stay off the grass.
Read the entryA saying that came down to us about cattle — a cow shouldn't hear the same church bell twice — and the second-bite science that turns out to prove it right.
Read the entryWhat the herd and the land are teaching us, what the measurements show, and word when beef and honey are ready — no filler. The letter starts this season; a few issues a season after that. Until then, new journal entries land here.
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