A Texas-sized storm
On Saturday night, June 10, 2023, our ranch experienced a doozy of a storm that only lasted about 20 minutes but left a lot of damage. At about 11:45 PM, straight-line winds in excess of 70 MPH, 2-inch hail, and a downpour of 1.25 inches of rain hit out of the blue.
It felt and sounded like the windows were going to shatter and the roof was going to cave in. All major infrastructure withstood the storm just fine, thanks to new roofs and new windows that made our homes secure. The animals all survived the storm and were happy to see us when we checked on them as the storm passed. Sadly, our market garden took the brunt of the damage. As you can see in the above photo, it looks like a giant sat on the hoop house. The tomatillos, tomatoes, basil, and calendula are still thriving, and we are hoping to be able to work inside the hoop house again soon, safely!
Sadly, the rest of the crops in our fields didn’t make it. The hail damage was so severe that the plants and fruits couldn’t survive. In fact, the irrigation lines received a good amount of damage, with punctures through many of the lines and PVC pipe severed completely in places from flying debris. We have a few plants we are waiting on to see if they recover, but for the most part, the garden is a total loss. You can see the extensive hail damage in the cucumber below. We are looking forward to bouncing back in time to grow a great harvest this fall!
We place incredible importance on having a holistic plan and multiple enterprises for such a time as this. Although the market garden is mostly a loss for this season, we will plant again for a thriving fall CSA and will be foregoing a summer garden to give time to recover well. We prefer not to put all of our “eggs in one basket” around here, so we take a diversified approach when building enterprises at Deeply Rooted Ranch for this exact reason. You just never know when one enterprise might need to pause or fails for a season for reasons beyond your control.
We have been building out our lamb operation over the last several months, which allows us to implement holistic planned grazing to care for the soil while simultaneously feeding our community nutrient-rich proteins from ruminant animals raised on pasture.
In order to prepare for the arrival of the sheep, we had first to take soil samples to gather baseline data in all of our pasture areas on our 120 acres. We then created a wildlife conservation plan to pair with our grazing plan to support the wildlife while raising proteins on pasture for our community. Next, we built our electric fences. After that, we chose the breed best suited to our needs for livestock guardian dogs and added 3 Akbash LGDs to the ranch. We bonded an initial eight sheep to our LGDs before adding 53 more sheep, and more are on the way. The original eight are affectionately called the “Famous Eight” around here and are as lovable and affectionate as a household pet. As with any flock or herd, there is always a leader, and we quickly learned who was going to take on the role and named her Queenie! The original eight have set the tone for the rest of the flock, and we are enjoying watching them rotate through the pasture, converting the energy from the native grasses into healthy animals that will breed healthy food for you to eat in 2024.
So far, we have two dogs who care for and protect the sheep - Junebug and Benji. They are so incredible! The night of the storm, they protected the sheep and made sure they were safe even though the electricity was out overnight, which meant our electric fences were not hot. The dogs and sheep had been trained to the hot fence, so they didn’t know it wasn’t hot, and they all stayed inside their area with no problem overnight.
Our third dog, Buttercup, has chicken duty. She is responsible for keeping raccoons, foxes, and other animals from getting close to the chickens overnight. She will be getting a furry friend this fall to join her, another Akbash, and we know she can’t wait! The dogs are our lifeline when we can’t be present with our animals. Gratefulness runs high, and we love them so much.
This fall, we will ramp up our egg-laying operation and broiler chicken operation to round out our production enterprises on the ranch. Healthy, local food will be a nearly one-stop shop for our neighbors with the ability to pick up lamb, poultry, eggs, fruits, and veggies from the ranch soon.
We enjoy teaching youth and adults how to grow healthy food in living soil. Another way we diversify incomes is through our educational programs like homeschool semesters, field trips, summer camps, homesteading classes, farm-to-table dinners, and farm tours. This also allows us to connect with our community, filling our hearts with joy! Be sure to sign up to receive our newsletter so you can be looped in when we announce available garden goodies, proteins, new educational programs and events on the ranch. Hope to meet you soon!
