Building Soil to Regenerate an Old Pasture with Hay

The soil conditions are so poor on this old pasture that cover crops are not helping as they can't get enough nutrients and moisture to grow. To solve this problem, my wife and I spread hay to add carbon and organic material to the soil and to act as a mulch to aid in germination of rye and buckwheat. We'll follow this up with the addition of several head of livestock to manure the ground and spread nutrients. It's going to be at least a three year intensive process followed by many more years of regenerative practices to help my sister bring this farm back to it's former productive glory.
Welcome to our self reliant homestead! Join us, Shawn and Dervla, as we create a resilient, abundant and sustainable ecosystem that feeds our families from the land in Ontario Canada. Using permaculture as our guide, we strive to become independent in water, food, energy and shelter, focused on beauty in form and efficiency in function.
Our Self Reliance is a life of compromise between my two daughters and my wife's preference for culture, comfort and formality, and I, with my love of chaotic and beautiful but challenging and often uncomfortable wilderness living. The resulting homesteads are an eclectic blend of modern with traditional, whimsical with practical, formal with informal, civilized with rustic.
Over the last five years, my wife and I designed and built our dream homesteads from scratch with very little outside help; from undeveloped, declining forest to a comfortable home and cabin with a prolific edible landscape for people and wildlife equally. For many years, we have strived to lessen our burden on others by taking full responsibility for the health and welfare of our immediate family while building a strong community around us, both online and offline. Now that the infrastructure is in place here, we will be spending more time working cooperatively with community members, including extended family, to collectively become more resilient while living a deeply satisfying and meaningful life. Thank you for being part of that!