I first got goats three years ago, in the Spring. Pete (Shan's son), up on the ridge, was getting rid of his goats and I was just wanting to get some of my own. He gave me three goats, one was in milk - that was Gretta the "Queen Bitch", an Oberhausli with some Nubian crossed in. The other two were pregnant and due to kid out some time between April and late June, in other words, it was not really known when they had been bred. One was named Peaches; a smaller goat, a Kinder - which is a x number of generations of two different breeds back and fourth or some thing like that, never was too sure about that one - never the less, she was definitely a grandma and a grandma with a 10 inch goat-tee. She was old, she knew it, and she didn't take crap from any of the goats - not that she needed to be the top of the herd , she just really felt that she deserved some respect around here. The third goat Ganges, formally know as Ganja, was a some what ill-tempered goat that held very little respect for the other goats and the semblance of a herd that they were. She was a loner, basically - except that whenever she jumped out of the enclosed pen or the portable electified netting, all the others followed suit. She taught bad habits.
If I remember correctly I brought the goats back from Pete's in the back of my small Toyota pick-up truck; tethered together and anchored by a lead rope through the back window of my truck to the head rest of the passenger seat. Economy. The plan was to have the goats where we lived. We was myself and Vince, later to be followed by three more interns: Kate, Danny, and Tommy, oh yeah, and Teeney, who was only there for 6 weeks of the summer. This was the farm site on Wet Hill Rd. It was the first year there so everything was new. The field was freshly tilled, the outside summer kitchen was recently constructed (just having been gutted from the remodel at In The Kitchen and transported to Wet Hill), the solar hot water shower was not quite warm yet, and we had no area prepared for the goats - no fencing, no cover, and virtually no experience caring for goats. I did know how to milk, however.
Well, the goats were here now, so we better construct a pen for 'em. We had a stockpile of used, used, and used again fencing up at the Jacobson's on Cement Hill Rd, Bluebird Farm, so we made a trip up there after tethering the goats to a long line and some willow where they could browse at their convenience. 15 minutes later we were back with a few roles of four feet high old rusted "livestock" fence. We had already decided to construct the penn towards the back of the property where there was lots of forage for them; willow, blackberries, vinca, hawthorne, some wild iris, and a couple wild rose. It was thick - so thick that we couldn't see all the way through it or even hack our way to the other side. There was some old fencing already set up down there, long ago over-grown by the jungle, but we thought it would at least keep them at bay for a while - until they ate their way into the impenetrable. We set up the "new" fencing on the open side next to the pathway using state of the art fence-building skills we didn't have. T-posts, light weight baling wire, yeah, that was all. For the first week the goats got out at least 6 times per day. After that it was down to one or two as we made the already visually-unpleasing fence more so by the addition of sticks, small sections of more fencing, and the colorful array of yellow, blue, and orange baling twine zig-zagging across the gaps in the fence.
Gradually, over the course of the summer, the area we had enclosed was revealed to us; in part due to the goats, but mostly because of my extra-curricular machete work. We're talking about an area at least thirty by fifty so densely over-grown with willows and blackberries that I could put in a good two hours in the evening hacking away and barely notice a difference. It was a bit perplexing to me at the time, that this 25ft tall thicket was mostly filled with dead wood - minus the fresh green tips swaying high above my head that the goats devoured as quickly as they fell. Bit by bit the area was cleared; the old fence became exposed, its sagging form hardly able to pass for a fence. We cut out the old wire; rolling it up for the next trip to the dump, and pulled out the T-posts, all of which were of a make no longer in common circulation. By this time the Fall was upon us. The ground was wet again and the area we had cleared was especially boggy. It was a drainage, some what naturally, but at some point in the past there had been some major earth-moving in the area and so now instead of allowing the water to flow the area acted as a relatively flat catchment; intercepting the incoming wtaer, diffusing it over the entire area, and allowing only an ooze to exit.
One of the owners of the properties (the Wet Hill Farm Site is actually composed of two separate parcels), Allan, had recently paid Mitch Mitchel to have some tractor work done to improve drainage in front of his house so I quickly took advante of the close proximity of this incredible machine. In about an hour Mitch trenched a shallow canal through the boggy area, immediatly creating better drainage. In the mean time we had decided to build a small goat/chicken barn on some of the dryer recently-exposed ground. Winter was right around the corner and those goats needed some protection! We threw it up in a couple of days. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but it didn't cost much and it was a dry space. Being that I have a hyper-awareness for the improper expose of soil to the elements, I made sure to seed the mucky ground now lacking all the cover from the dead willows with various grasses and some clovers and to cover it with straw.
For the next year I made several attempts to establish different grasses and clovers so as to create a pasture for the goats to graze. The chickens, being that their coup was right next door, kept getting through my barriers and scratching away the freshly germinated seed. This pasture just was not meant to be! And so it was that a few months ago I was struck with the brilliant idea to plant willow in the area! Of course! I spent all that time clearing the dead wood out and so logically it was time to now plant it back! Huh, really? As I mentioned earlier, goats love willow and it's really good for them. The problem is, however, that as the willow grows taller and taller it becomes out or reach to the goats. Being that goats can eat things totally impalitable to humans such as bark, the goat then starts to scrape the bark off the lower trunk of the tree, eventually girdling the tree and killing it. This is neither good for the tree or the goat.
I was going to plant willow but I was going to manage the plants - that is, I was going to create willow bushes with many thicker, lower branches capable of creating abundant tender growth each year. I would then let the goats browse the willow growth when it reached a certain size. This would do a number of things. By maintaining the willows as bushes I would be providing the goats with a renewable food source while maintaining the longevity of the willow due to the tightly growing and thus impenetrable nature of the bush with its closely growing laterals. Of course, good animal husbandry and land management are both dependent on the vigilance of the person doing the managing and this would require that I, or whoever would be here after me, maintain a close eye on the growth of the willow as well as the duration of time that I allow the goats to graze the willows. If I let the willows grow too much without grazing I will soon have that thicket of dead willow I began with. But if I let the goats browse the willow for too long of a period I will soon find that the willow loses vigor and dies for lack of photosynthesis and even excessive girdling.
In effect my plan is to use the goats to simulate the effect that a wildfire (or a controlled fire) would have on a thicket of willow. A thicket full of dead willow would, eventually, under "natural" conditions, be caught by a fire, burn down, and regrow from the roots and debris of the old plants. Fire would clean out the tall, old wood and allow sunlight to stimulate the growth lower down. Because of our efforts at fire suppression the next fire on my farm might not be for a while. But is fire really the only thing that can bring the desired vigorous new growth to my patch of willow? Of course not! Goats will replace the effect of fire on my farm while providing the three M's - Milk, Meat, and Manure. Mmmmm.
Willow is an amazing plant because of its ability to root itself so easily. You will more than likely find willow in very wet areas - mine are on Wet Hill Rd - go figure. Because willow loves growing in water so much it makes sense that it would have developed the ability to send out roots from virtually all parts of the plant. Anywhere a leaf can emerge so can a root. One of the easiest plants to propagate! This is what I did:
In March right around the time the willow was just starting to bloom I took hundreds of 10 inch cuttings of the two the four year old growth from the many plants growing on the farm. This young growth is typically very green in color and is very vigorous and so it roots well in the moist soil. In areas that I wanted to revegetate (the especially wet areas) I stuck clusters of three sticks in the ground half way. This means five inches of willow cuttings were in the ground (for growing roots) and 5 inches were above ground (for growing leaves and photosynthesizing). I did clusters of three because my thought was that this would lead to even bushier plants - and this is what I was after - plants that could protect their "inners" from bark hungry goats.
Here is a close up of the "nodes" that will send out leaves or roots depending on if they are in contact with the soil or the air. The slightly red bumps along the sticks are where the new leaves will sprout.
This is the drainage I have been talking about. There are many clusters of willow planted and just starting to take root and leaf out. Over the next few years I will maintain close attention to the plants and form them into bushes four feet wide and four of five feed high.
Here is an example of the bush shape I'm going for in my plants. Notice how tight the lower branches are growing - this will provide protection to the plant from the goats by not allowing them to easily strip the bark. The willows in this picture have not yet leafed out.
Below is a shot of a typical willow stand that has not been managed by fire or proper browsing. Notice how the plants all seem to by laying in one direction. The plants compete with each other for light by reaching higher and higher for more sunlight. Eventually a snow storm comes and breaks branches and this creates a thick mat of dead and dying willow that blocks light from reaching lower parts of the plant, contributing to more die-off. This particular thicket of willow on the farm will be undergoing restoration through grazing, clearing, and some replanting, soon. More pictures to come!
And of course, some of the little goats themselves.
Born March 12th 2011
I've been planting tons of willow on the farm. I still have plenty of areas where it's all pasture but adding willow to fence edges or in areas unsuited to pasture is a great addition to the forage options for the goats - or sheep or cows for that matter. And why stop there? Hawthorne is another plant that easily takes root and can be maintained more as a bush that can provide nutritious and prolific forage in the spring, summer, and fall.
Through this experience of observing the landscape and the plants and animals I've really gained an appreciation for the process of time. If you look at things from a long term perspective you'll begin to notice the details. Consider this; all the hills around Nevada City were at one time, not too long ago, clear cut. All the growth of the forests that we see today is (for the most part) younger than 100 years old. The trees useful for lumber were harvested and milled up - this includes the firs, pines, and cedars. Some of the trees such as alder, blue oaks, black oaks, canyon oaks, live oaks, and cottonwoods were likely spared because they were not as useful for lumber. After the lumber trees were harvested more light was allowed to penetrate to the forest floor. This gave advantage to some of the riparian species such as alder and cottonwood which don't grow as tall. It also opened the door for a lot of non-native and invasive species such as blackberries, black and honey locust, scotch broom, etc. Now, after 80 or 90 years of regrowth the tall species are back at the top. If you look closely you'll notice that below the canopy of the firs and cedars, and pines are the dying species of these previously mentioned plants - the oaks, alder, cottonwoods willows as well as some of the invasive species which all require more light than they are now receiving. It's the story of the landscape that I'm striving to understand. The more I understand the better I can help create a landscape that's healthy for the diversity of plants, provides food value for our livestock and the wild species, and speaks to us through the vibrant new growth of every year.
I really believe in the need for stewardship and management of our lands. If we sit back and and think that by doing nothing we allowing nature to follow its best course we're practicing poor management. Humans have played a hugely significant role in shaping the plant and animal communities around us for ever. It's these communities that have supported us for generations and generations. We are in a unique situation right now where we really are not dependent on our local surrounds for our immediate support and so quality management practices have fallen to the way side and the knowledge of how to properly maintain the land has vanished. Through my farming I'm reconnecting to this source of support and striving to understand how to best steward the land and animals in one relationship.
