Introductions

Hi Folks: my name is Rod Hewitt. My wife and I farm in Rockingham Vt. Over the years we have grown Christmas trees, raised sheep and standard beef cattle types, have always had a big garden, honey bees, a few hens and seasonal turkeys and for a while a sawmill and solar wood dryer. I am a lifelong hobby woodworker and have a well-equipped woodshop in one of my barns, which gets used in the winter months.
Our present farm project is miniature cattle and to that end we raise a herd of about 50 Registered Austrailian Lowlines and registered Dexter cattle which we sell as breeding stock and/or freezer beef. The farm has close to 30 acres of improved pasture(our former hay fields) and 140 acres of wood land which we use for firewood and some saw logs. The pastures are subdivided into 20 paddocks in which we practice Management Intensive Grazing for our natural grass-fed meat products. We bale all our hay in round bales on sites off the farm.
Having been intrested in sustainable agriculture for many years, I am especially excited to see the recent surge in interest and enthusiasm spreading for this way of farming. We have recently acquired a trained team of young pulling steers and are hoping to find ways to intergrate them into our operation in a practical way as time passes. My hope is that I can re-train these steers to be rein driven from the back so I can ride while they walk ( they hoof along at a fast pace most of the time). Maybe someone here has some tips on how to go about this.
I look forward to the future exchanges on this forum and thank the originators for setting this up.

Rod Hewitt
http://www.dayspringfarm.com.