Waiting for the grass to grow!!!

Our little ranch of 80 acres is basically our yard, a pecan orchard (below left) , 2 stock tanks (below right) , 2 large fields and a smaller 'natural' grazing area where there are lots of mesquite trees, some natural grasses and weeds - and... fire ants. Our goal is to have producing pecan trees this year and 2 fields of grass worthy of baling for feed and for grazing for a small herd of cattle next year. Don't think it's an easy task to accomplish this!!! First you have to plow (disk) the field (below left) . Along with every hour or two of plowing goes 5 to 10 hours of repairing the equipment!!!! (below right is a broken rod) I think rocks grow in our fields! Mike had to return 2 or 3 times to pull rocks out from between the blades. Then after plowing, he retraces his steps with a cultipacker (equipment in foreground left) which breaks up the clods of dirt and smooths out the field for planting. Then you lay down fertilizer and then finally you lay in the grass seed and then pray for rain. If only the native grasses he planted will come up and proliferate this year, we'll be set because they're perennials. Our other field was planted about a month ago by 'sprigging' Coastal Bermuda. The sprigging procedure was interesting - instead of planting seeds, you plant roots and wait for them to take over. We now see some of the coastal up, but there are lots of thriving weeds to keep it company. The picture below shows the load of 'sprigs' and the machine on the right - plows a furrow, drops a sprig and the blades you see cover it up. You can see how many pieces of equipment we needed. Luckily most of the equipment was on loan and some we could rent. I cannot begin to tell you the cost, but this is no small undertaking as you can see. Now we have to keep the weeds mowed down until the grasses can take over and choke them out. Mike thought he was going to come down and spend his time watching the cows, but we don't have any!! Guess he'll have to watch the grass grow for now.