When my mom was a child, there were cows and pigs on our property and chicken coops, and barns to explore. But by the time she and my dad built their house “in the cow pasture between the brook and the cedars” - and filled it with five kids, the cows were long gone. I think with all of us in tow, my dad figured that he had more than enough livestock to care for, and there was no need to add to the chaos.

The cows never returned, and the field stopped being grazed. Where he mowed twice a year, it remained an open field, but the rougher areas that couldn’t be mowed immediately became a battle ground for invasives. At first, it was the bittersweet and honeysuckle, later came barberry and multiflora rose. He spent much of his free time maintaining it all by hand, trying to stay ahead of the ever-encroaching vines, brush, and brambles.

He used a walk-behind sickle bar, brush cutter, chainsaw, mattock, and clippers. When we got older, he paid us to dig the roots out, but it never worked. Pieces of roots were invariably left behind, and the plants always came back in the spring with a vengeance. It was, at best, a losing battle. Each year, as he got a little older, he cleared a little less and at some point, he just gave up. After that, the old cow pasture quickly became an impenetrable thicket of brush.

Our pigs and sheep, though, have happily reclaimed it all. They love grazing the open field with its thick stand of grass and clover but each summer we gave them an additional 10-foot strip of invasive brush to clear, in an effort to push back the unruly frontier. The sheep repeatedly grazed the tops of the invasives, and the pigs attacked the roots, trying to get at the corn we’d purposefully scatter on the ground.

This year they finished their last 10-foot strip along the fence, and the invasives have finally been banished to the other side of the property line. As the bare ground gives way to grass, the pasture is beginning to look the way it did before the cows left, I only wish my dad was still around to see it.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clatterridgefarm.substack.com