Blue Skies

It has been cloudy and overcast all day. It rained a bit in the morning. Other than a heavy morning fog now and then, it was the first precipitation in more than thirty days.




We have been here for almost four years. But this is the first time I have paid so much attention to the weather. We have our sheep confined to paddocks now. They no longer roam free over the eastern meadow. The idea is to get them to utilize the forage in any given area more effectively. It is a good idea.

The main grass in our meadow is Aegilops or jointed goat grass. In the North, this is considered a bad grass because it has barbs that can lodge in the eye of the grazing animal and harm them. Our Aegilops does not have these barbs and when it is young, the sheep relish it. The problem is that Aegilops is an annual grass. As it completes its life cycle, it becomes tough, dry and of less food value. Eventually it dies and is of no more value to the sheep than yellow straw.



There are many forage plants in the paddocks in addition to Aegilops. But the hungry sheep consume them all in a surprisingly short time. When we built the first paddock we hoped that it would feed the sheep for a week. Within two days were were desperately building the second paddock, this time twice as large as the first. During this time we were cutting and carrying grass and wild bean plants to them.



The second paddock lasted less than a week before we were carrying food to the paddock. After an exhausting drive to get the third paddock completed we moved them to there. The third paddock is slightly larger than the first two combined. It has fed them for about a week, and has food yet to go, but the grasses, and the vine legumes are all gone now. There are some tree legumes left, and some jungle vines which are sustaining the sheep now.



There is one grass left in the current paddock. It is Aragua, an African grass that was at one time intentionally brought to Belize. It was thought it would be good for cattle. It probably was, but the cattle pull it out by the roots and kill it. It ought to be good for sheep. Only my sheep, as of yet, will not eat it. I have no doubt that they will eat it soon. It takes sheep a bit of time to adapt to a new grass. The bacteria in the rumen have to adapt and prior to that happening, a new grass is not really food for the sheep.



In the mean time they eat every green thing that their rumen bacteria are accustomed to. Including, much to my dismay, banana trees.



The fourth paddock will have a bit more for them to eat, including some large patches of wild beans.



As they leave a paddock, we quickly plant a different kind of grass there. We are planting a grass called Guinea grass, or Panicum maximum or panic max. This grows wild in the meadow, and we are moving it around. We are digging up the bunches of panic max, breaking them up into little pieces and sticking these into holes we make with the digging bar. We water these for a few days until they "catch".



Panic max is important to use because it is a perennial grass and it does not die during the dry season. Further, it actually is able to draw sufficient moisture either from the fog or from the soil to continue to grow without receiving rain. And panic max is supposedly more nutritious than most grasses.





In addition to the Panicum maximum we are planting several wild beans that we collect from other parts of the meadow. The most promising one is Centrosema, a genus of both annual and perennial beans that both produce nitrogen for the soil as well as reasonably nutritious leafy growth for the sheep to eat.

We have a vast variety of wild legumes both trees and vines. Most we are unable to identify as anything more specific than some kind of fabaceae. Some of the ones we have identified are either anti-nutritive or outright toxic, such as Canavalia. We are using a identification tool that we found here:
http://nt.ars-grin.gov/sbmlweb/OnlineResources/Fabaceae/

I am anxious to see how the rain affects the plants in the paddocks. Meanwhile our sheep drink a lot of water and eat a lot of salt. They knock down and consume the bush, leaving pretty little sheep droppings all over the paddocks.



Our egret or rather the sheep's egret examines progress on the chicken coop.



And I notice with sorrow, a patch of blue sky appearing in the East.