Kinne Brook Farm

09/04/2026

The farming year is a cycle of herd management - essentially who can be or should be with the bull (cows to be bred and steers) and who can’t (cows who shouldn’t be bred, including heifers).

After a brief intro period with just three cows, our new bull Gomez now has a more reasonably sized group, with ten cows. A couple more will be added over the next few weeks, but then the herds will be set until it’s time to reshuffle. Since we want to ensure that no calves are born after Sept/Oct, we’ll leave him with either steers or cows that we know are pregnant for the late winter and spring.

Here’s his group at the moment, moving to some amazing forage for this time of year.

09/03/2026

The goldenrod is in full bloom, and the bees are busy!

[Videographer’s note to self: just because you aren’t messing with them, and usually they’re totally fine with the paparazzi, doesn’t mean that they won’t be able to smell that you just checked in the honey settling in the honey room in the barn and notice that you’re wearing black like a bear. You shouldn’t be surprised to be stung twice! At least they waited until the filmed wrapped, so no one could witness the yelling and running.]

09/03/2026

Two calves have joined us in the last month - been too busy to post!

Welcome Quaramel, daughter of Mini, and Quick, son of May.

So happy to have so many healthy and happy babies on the ground!

08/09/2026

My mother loved this farm. When we moved here 45 years ago, she settled into the life she loved - animals, hard work, and the beauty of the land.

She was with me today, her 87th birthday, as we enjoyed all three.

See the comments for videos of the flocks of goldfinches in the field, and the moving of the herds.

08/04/2026

We are so happy and proud to have this opportunity to share our grazing and soil management practices with folks who are trying (as we all are) to do the right thing by their soil and their animals.

Building Better Pastures and Hay Fields: Soil Health, Grazing, and Forage Improvement
Date: Tuesday, August 25th, 3-6:30 PM

Location: Kinne Brook Farm, 481 Kinne Brook Rd, Worthington

Join staff from American Farmland Trust and the Hampden-Hampshire Conservation District at Kinne Brook Farm to learn strategies for improving pasture and hay field productivity. We will learn how to evaluate the health and productivity of pasture and hay fields and address common challenges such as soil pH imbalances, biology limitations, compaction, and undesirable plant species. We will cover approaches to reseeding and overseeding pastures, planning rotational grazing systems, managing rest periods, and using soil and forage testing to make informed management decisions, and will discuss the USDA NRCS Pasture Condition Score (PCS) system.

Kinne Brook Farm is a diversified family farm that raises Highland cattle for beef and focuses on regenerative land stewardship and implementing management-intensive rotational grazing and silvopasture practices.

Food and beverages will be provided. Please register so that we know how many people to expect. We look forward to seeing you there!

Link: https://bit.ly/4h4KK35

08/02/2026

I would like to introduce our new bull, LEA Gomez, who will be the father of our calves for the next three years or so.

Welcome, Gomez!

07/22/2026

The sacrificial paddock isn’t pretty, but it is tasty!

Every livestock farmer in the north needs to have a place where the animals can spend the winter eating hay, processing it into manure, and compacting the soil with their feet and weight. This is the sacrificial paddock.

We have two of them, one for what we call the heifer herd and one for the bull herd. And they are a mess when spring arrives. To capture the excess fertility, create more forage, and hopefully loosen up the soil, we have been experimenting with using a no-till drill to plant various crops into the sod. Summer Sudan grass was amazing and grew 12’ tall a few years ago, and made amazing hay. This year we tried millet.

As you can see, it was no match for the lambs quarters, ragweed and other weeds! It’s there, but the cows are thrilled with their buffet of weeds, and will strip it all down in a day, and then we can plant something else.

I do feel for the calves, who must find the jungle a little overwhelming!

[See comments for videos]

07/18/2026

Yesterday’s move.

I love seeing the cows’ understanding of where they need to go, without trying to explore new places.

When I was a kid we used to move our herd of Herefords from one side of the farm to the other, up the paved road and down the dirt road, 3/4 of a mile, and they would invariably end up on the neighbors’ lawn.

Now we have fencing and gates that allow us to only cross the paved road in one place, and the dirt road in one place, and the neighbors’ lawns are unscathed.