The Winter Pasture
Winter has a way of quieting the fields that only months ago held the bright urgency of summer grass. The farm shifts into a different rhythm now, one built on watching the weather, tending the bedded Pack Barn, spreading hay across frozen ground, and preparing for the seasons still to come. For Ed Pitcavage and the Land & Livestock team, this quieter time is never idle; it is a season of intention, observation, and care.
Last winter, we wrote about bale grazing and the early experiments that invited the cattle to spend more of the cold season out on the land. A year later, those experiments have grown into a steady practice. With all three barns full and the herd now at its natural carrying capacity for the land, winter feeding has become a choreography of movement.
“When conditions are right, they stay out almost entirely,” Ed says. “Cold weather, minimal ice, firm ground… those are the days we look for.” Less time inside means healthier cows, more distributed fertility across the landscape, and a more manageable workload for the livestock crew. When conditions cooperate the herd stays outside full-time, returning to barns mainly for water or safety during icy or especially cold spells like the ones we’ve had a few times already this winter.
For the first time, both the cattle herd and sheep flock have reached the scale the land can sustainably support. The cattle herd now holds steady at about 50 brood cows, a number carefully calibrated to the acreage, forage production, and long-term vision for grass-fed beef at the farm.
A Season of Adjustments
This year brought its share of surprises, including a breeding season that left half the herd open and the quiet reminder that even careful plans sometimes need to change. Our Red Devon bull, despite his strengths, was not able to fully impregnate the breeding herd, so two Red Angus bulls from a neighboring farm joined us to finish out the season as quickly as possible. These borrowed bulls are well suited to a grass-based system, finishing efficiently on forage alone and producing beef with the depth of flavor the team has been working toward.
Winter also offers space to reflect on the challenges of the past year. Coyotes, in particular, reshaped how the team thinks about calving. Ed is preparing for the season ahead with a new set of strategies: moving cow and calf pairs later in the afternoon to encourage daytime calving, keeping rumens full before nightfall, and selecting pastures with intention. “It is about aligning the animals’ natural cycles with the safest moments on the land,” he explains.
This coming year will bring new grazing experiments as well. In collaboration with UVM, the team will begin testing NoFence virtual fencing collars on 25 cow and calf pairs in mid-May. The technology has the potential to reshape how animals move across the landscape, but like all new tools here, it will be adopted slowly, season by season, guided by trial, error, and what the land reveals.
Sheep: A Subtle Shift
Iliad the guard llama
The sheep move through winter quietly, a dense and woolly contrast to the starkness of the fields. This year, a new guard llama named Iliad has taken up Odyssey’s old post, his voice carrying across the pasture in strange and expressive calls. Beneath that familiar routine, however, the breeding program has undergone one of its most significant evolutions in years.
A Texel ram joined the flock this fall, bringing genetics known for exceptional muscling and meat quality. He bred the majority of the ewes, while a smaller group was paired to maintain the Border Leicester and Romney cross that anchors the flock’s maternal line. Rex, our longtime Romney ram, has stepped out of his role, making room for a darker fleeced Border Leicester next season.
The flock remains at its ideal size for both land and market demand, producing around 80 to 100 lambs each spring.
Looking Toward Spring
There is a moment each year, usually in late February, when the light changes. The barns still hold the cold. The fields still rest beneath snow. But the animals and the people who care for them begin to shift toward the coming season.
Ed sees winter not as a pause, but as a turning point: a time when the farm’s herds have reached their natural size, when grass-fed quality is deepening, when new tools are being tested, and when each species, from cattle to sheep to chickens, feels more firmly rooted in a system that values health, flavor, ecology, and restraint. “We are in a good place,” he says. “The land is telling us what it can hold. The animals are showing us what works. Now it is about refining, not growing bigger but growing better.” And here, in the quiet months, that refinement begins: bale by bale and pasture by pasture.