Watching Grass Grow

Is there anything as beautiful as a naked sheep? (Don’t answer that.)

We were so happy to have all our sheep finally shorn - but now I’m impatiently waiting for our pastures to grow. The grass is green – but it needs to hurry up and grow.  Spring is like that for me - it tests my patience at every stage.

In late fall, we pull our animals off pasture and winter them over in a “sacrifice” paddock where we feed them hay. That area gets overgrazed and abused throughout the winter. It is, in essence, “sacrificed” for the benefit of the rest of the pastures. We won’t let the animals back out until the grass is 8 inches long. (If I can wait that long).

The grass has greened up, which means the chlorophyl is doing its thing. It’s turning sunshine, water, and carbon dioxide into the energy the grass uses to grow - and the oxygen we use to breathe.

As the soil warms up each spring, the roots begin to release some of the starch they stored last fall. The starch gets broken down inside the plants and produces energy in the form of glucose.  The stored fuel kickstarts the plant’s growth until it has enough exposed surface area to start collecting sunshine and creating its own fuel directly from the sun. The grass is essentially growing its own solar panels. Solar engineering at its best!

So, I guess, the answer to that rhetorical question is “yes”. Naked sheep may be beautiful, but naked sheep with a foot of grass in their pasture would be exquisite.