Everyone is out on pasture, and it is SUMMER in New Hampshire!
It is hard to believe that tomorrow is August 1st! The summer seems like one of the fastest ever to us, perhaps partly because it started so late in the year.
Interestingly, the anomalously cold and wet spring that lingered through May and into early June broke, and in its place an abnormally warm and dry pattern took over! We have had 13 days of 90⁰ plus weather so far in summer of 2025, with above average humidity and below average precipitation through July, and no change to that pattern in sight. Thankfully, as I write this tonight, we are getting about 1 inch of rainfall, which is very welcomed and needed. The pastures and soils will benefit from it greatly!
Summer is in full swing here in New Hampshire. All of the animals are out of their pens and on pasture; enjoying fresh air, warm sun, clean water and the nutrients that can only be provided by eating healthy forage growth.
The turkeys are not out just yet, as they are not old enough to go out on pasture until next week, but they are in their mobile coop and out of the brooder pens, which is the first step! The days are long, and during the warm sunny hours, you can hear the cicadas buzzing in the fields and woods – a classic sound of summer in New England! When the wind is right, you can smell the sweetness of the silage bale stack as it warms in the sun.
We are having a nice break from haying, as we are between 1stand 2nd cuts. There are some minor repairs to equipment that need to be finished before we start haying again, but we have been too busy to get to them so far! We managed to get the field we are working to improve for future hay cropping (Unity) flail mowed and fertilized early in July, and if you want to see how that went, please click here!
The animals are all doing well. The chickens got new rollout nesting boxes (see this YouTube video for details). We added our final calf of 2025 season to the farm as well, his name is Calvin and he is a Jersey Angus cross. He is adorably cute and very friendly, healthy and doing great! If you want to see a video of him, we posted a short here.
What is next for the farm as we head into the second half of summer?
We will focus on care and rotational grazing of the animals, and maintaining the fields and pastures around them. We are hopeful that second cut hay is as successful as the first, and we will likely start in on that around mid August and be done by September. Depending on volume, I do not foresee a third cut this year, and we will likely mow down and pasture off whatever growth remains into fall, thus returning that organic matter to the soil before winter. Firewood is also on our “to do” list – usually that is one the first tasks completed in the spring, but weather prohibited us from accomplishing it until after first cut hay!
