Fall Rain

This is the sort of weather that sets an off-duty pasture back to work. For weeks the grass has been in suspended animation, the cow has been grubbing for tiny scraps of green, and I’ve been reluctantly feeding some of this coming winters’ hay store to fill the gap. But now rain has arrived, finally, in these pleasantly warm days and cool nights of early fall, creating the perfect conditions for growing grass.

36 hours earlier the rain-filled weather report sent us rushing outdoors to fling new pasture seed onto our long dry ground, with hopes for a landscape like that pictured—sultry and full, saturated with water. So it came, and if the rain holds and the dry trend reverses, we will enjoy not only a productive fall grazing season, but a jump-started spring pasture as well.