Stick Season and Sticker Burrs

by admin | November 28, 2025 1:55 pm

The leaves are fleeing the trees here at Three Geese Farm. Soon it will be stick season, as they call it in New England, the transitional period between fall and winter. The difference, of course, is that it is unlikely snow will soon be blanketing the ground her[1]e in Northeast Texas.

I spent a pleasant Saturday bushhogging the pasture where Pancho the Donkey hangs out, as well as the side pasture that Willie and Waylon, our longhorn steers, now call home. It is past time to plant winter ryegrass, but warm, dry weather well into November required me to wait.

My Beautiful Mystery Companion came in the other morning for the second time with a baggie full of sticker burrs that she had painstakingly pulled off Pancho’s tail and mane. After bushhogging, I decided to try to figure out where he was getting into them. I solved the mystery while clearing weeds from his corral. I pulled up one waist-high weed and instantly was covered with the same sticker burrs. It took a good 10 minutes to get them off my sweatshirt and pants. Further investigation showed similar plants ringing the pond.

For two hours, I used a weed-whacker and loppers to clear the pond, piling the weeds into the back of our ancient Mule. (Not to be confused with Pancho.) For good measure, I brought the tractor back out and bushhogged around the pond with the cutter set extra low. That should do it until next spring.

The next step was to unhook the bushhog, technically called a rotary cutter, and hook up the seeder. The tractor is new, a bright orange, mid-sized Kubota. This is the first time I have wrestled with its PTO. Swapping implements and hooking up the PTO and the 3-point hitch was a major pain with its predecessor, a fairly unreliable Mahindra, with which I finally lost patience and traded for Orange Crush.[2]

To my relief, the PTO shaft came off quickly. I had bought a quick-hitch accessory that makes attaching or disconnecting the 3-point much easier. It was time to hook up the seeder, which proved more challenging. I mastered it in about 30 minutes. Once the rain stops and the soil dries a bit, I can sow seed.

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Willie and Waylon have been at Three Geese Farm for about three months. My BMC has them practically eating out of her hand. They come running whenever either of us shakes the range cube bucket. Like all of our critters, she is their first choice. The other day, after she mentioned they had picked up a few ticks, I went to Horaney’s Feed for advice. I love visiting Horaney’s, saying hello to the indomitable Betty Horaney. I left with a jug of Ivermectin.

Remember Ivermectin from the COVID-19 pandemic? Some folks swore by its curative properties, something most medical experts still cast doubt upon, particularly the veterinary version of the drug. A handwritten sign  at Horaney’s, no doubt left over from the pandemic years, warns, “Ivermectin not for human use.”

We called the steers into their pen, which is where they get their cow candy. While my BMC kept them distracted by feeding them cubes and rubbing their heads (they don’t especially like it when I do that ), I was able to pull up the correct dosage for their weight and pour it on their spine from horns to tail.

For good measure, we dosed Pancho as well, while he munched on his usual breakfast fare of Cheerios, carrots, celery, and apple slices. That donkey eats well, as do any critters lucky enough to live here at Three Geese Farm.

That includes me, of course.

[3]I hope you and yours enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving. Despite the many travails of this past year, I am thankful for my many blessings. I hope that you can be as well.

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