Springtime Homesteading Cleanup

Hey all,

It’s springtime on the homestead. This means, as all of you know, lots of young life, preparing and planting your garden. Oh, and in Oklahoma, brush fires. Yeah, that’s not such a fun part of spring. It’s a part of the maintenance on many places. Most of those fires stay under control. However, every once and again, they do get out of control and it can get scary.

This was a fire I saw about a week ago. It covered a lot of land and had friends of mine worried that their place might be next. I have to say, I was worried too. This thing was huge!

A prairie grass fire in northeastern Oklahoma

There are a few things that you can do to lessen the probability of a fire this big. That beautiful golden grass in the first picture in this blog is called Bromegrass. It’s highly flammable. This other picture with my colt, shows that gorgeous, photogenic bromegrass. It’s the tallest grass that grows out in our fields.

Surrounded by brome grass — Surrounded by bromegrass

Each year, about twice a year, we brush hog. Basically, we mow all the acreage we have. It’s actually not that bad if you have either a tractor or a riding mower. We use a riding mower.

Springtime homesteading cleanup - mowing the high grass — Springtime homesteading cleanup – mowing the high grass

Here, I have part of the field mowed and part of it still has that tall bromegrass. So, if you don’t want to burn your fields, mowing will help take down your weed count and make the grazing better for your animals. You can also take a soil sample and find out from your state what nutrients your soil lacks. That can make a difference in the types of weeds that your land will grow.

Do you have any other techniques for reducing fire hazard on the homestead? We’d love to hear them in the comments below.

Until next time,

Homestead In Health Ya’ll!

Emily

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