mountain cattle

I saw a few head of cattle on the mountain hikes that I went on north of Dushanbe, these cows were in fair shape because they had a good growth of grass to eat at least where there weren't rocks and because of more moisture in this area and fewer cows in the herd.

horsemen in Tajikistan

Tajikistan has cowboys on horseback as we do in America, however most of the herding I saw was done on foot.  I thought the difference in tack (the saddle) was dramatic, I might not be a good enough rider to stay in this saddle.  This horse was stabled in a large barn left from a large collective  farm of the Soviet days.

livestock roundup

This is late afternoon in Tajikistan and time to bring the village herd home from a day of grazing in the desert, although within walking distance there was very little grass left to eat.  As the herd enters the village, livestock peel off the herd and head down the street to each of their houseyards.  This must be the ultimate in low stress livestock (cattle, goats, sheep) handling.  Arden spent a couple of weeks in the country as a train the trainers volunteer, The trainers will then train the farmers in improved ways to produce meat with the resources that they have.  Unfortunately the resources are very limited and/or restricted for the livestock numbers that they have.

We installed our 3rd 24' livestock water tank this week on the ranch.  It will hold 8400 gallons of water--this replaces 5 smaller old tanks that held a total of 6700 gallons of water.  However 2 of the old tanks were completely disintegrated and 2 others leaked quite badly inspite of our efforts to seal them.  So we only had about 2000 gallons of effective water storage at this mill.  Our rotational grazing system that we now practice requires running large groups of cattle for short periods of time in a pasture, so this increased water supply will allow us to get by when the wind doesn't blow for several days to pump water.

bulls to pasture

Tom and Blake (the one with the hat) are taking the bulls to the pasture where the cows are.  This timing will set the ranch up to start calving in mid April of 2012.  We did not have any problems getting the bulls to go to the pasture.

Prairie rats

The 100 plus acres that was destroyed by the rats the past few years finally was nearly restored this past year.  Alas I spoke to soon as they have invaded again, in another year this area will look as smooth and devoid of grass as a Walmart parking lot.  Once that happens the dirt will blow and horses will need to be careful not to break legs in the holes.  But aren't they cute.

many flowers

The above average amount of moisture the past 2 years has lead to incredable numbers of prairie wildflowers of many species in the pastures. This is 1 of 2 patches of wild Black-eyed Susans (10 acres each) on the ranch.