FINALLY – the grass has grown enough that Mike could let the dairy cows out on pasture today, May 1st. Last year, we had them out on April 9th. Always interesting to compare dates from year to year! 🙂

Here they are still inside the barnyard, just after we finished milking this morning.

Now they’ve noticed Mike is at the outer gate…

I took a video of the girls walking/running through the gate, but couldn’t figure out (in a reasonable amount of time) how to upload the video from my phone to the blog without having to buy an app. Sooo, [sigh] that’ll have to be something I investigate at a later date. (Or I welcome any advice from cyberspace!)

Here are some “still” photos of our girls eating – LOVE seeing cows grazing!! 🙂

Now begins the “domino effect” of moving animals at our farm. Over the next few weeks, Mike will work on moving the bull yearlings out of our vegetable garden area so we can get our garden ready for planting. They’ll most likely hang with the 2013 beef herd until that herd leaves us at the end of June. Then they’ll become the 2014 beef herd. Next, Mike will decide on a good, secluded area of fence for the 4 yearling girls to graze through, because they won’t be ready for breeding until next year, so we want to keep them away from any bulls. Once the yearling girls are out of the bigger part of Green Dragon, the calves from this year can move from the barnyard side of Green Dragon & have more room to stretch their legs.

When the rainfall is consistent & the grasses grow well, there is a beautiful harmony in rotating the different groups of animals around the farm. 🙂

Guess I’ll end this post with Reesecup – she just wouldn’t leave me alone today, lol!! 🙂