Ozark Akerz Regenerative Farm
  • Home
  • About
  • Our Farm
    • Our Animals
    • Graze Against The Machine
    • News
    • Photos
    • Our Hot Sauce
  • Blog
  • Shop
  • Heritage Pineywoods Beef
    • Order Heritage Pineywoods Beef
    • What Customers Are Saying
  • Resources
    • Videos
    • For Educators
    • Get Creative
  • Subscribe To Our Newsletter
  • Contact
Ozark Akerz
regenerative farm

BLOG

Plants For Biodiversity and A Changing Climate

5/27/2023

3 Comments

 

Plants For Biodiversity and A Changing Climate

Two black swallowtail butterflies in mid-flight
Black Swallowtail butterflies, one of over 600 species at Ozark Akerz
One of the key measures of environmental health is biodiversity. As of June 2023, Ozark Akerz is home to over 600 species of plants, insects, reptiles, birds, fungi, mammals etc.
Our strategy for increasing biodiversity at Ozark Akerz has taken many forms. This includes but is not limited to:

  • Selectively mowing pastures to preserve Milkweed stands for Monarch Butterflies
  • Converting an old hay field to a Food & Medicine Forest
  • Improving Soil microbiome biodiversity by planting cover crops and amending the soil with raw milk to add Lactobacillus
  • Increasing Dung beetle population for healthy pastures and Pineywoods Cattle

In terms of labor, planting native perennial plants in the food and medicine forest has been the most intensive. We have planted 130+ trees, shrubs and other perennial plant, all of which require regular watering, weeding, and hand picking insects like Japanese Beetles every morning for 3-4 weeks during summer to ensure they have a fighting chance to grow. The increase in plant species has had a knock-on effect on the increase in insect, reptile and bird species.

Read More
3 Comments

Join The 2022 Graze Against The Machine Challenge

5/1/2022

2 Comments

 
2022 Graze Against The Machine Challenge
Join the GATM Challenge
8 days on 3 continents, over 300 species discovered! Join us in 2023 for the second annual Graze Against The Machine Biodiversity Challenge!

What you need to join
  1. A smart phone
  2. The free iNaturalist App
  3. Curiosity

What is the Graze Against The Machine® Challenge?

From May 7th to May 15th, we will be hosting a fun bioblitz to identify all the animals and plants in the areas that our growing Graze Against The Machine community lives, works and plays. You can sign-up any time before May 7th.

iNaturalist from National Geographic has helped us verify more than 550 species at Ozark Akerz. We've even discovered wild-growing food, medicinal plants and ingredients for brewing beer!

With iNaturalist you can take photos of plants, insects, mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, mollusks, amphibians or any other animal and upload to the iNaturalist App. You can also record sounds of birds, mammals, reptiles or insects directly in the app if you can’t get close enough for a photo or if it’s too dark. iNaturalist will help you identify the species from the photo or sound, if you’ve joined the Graze Against The Machine Challenge, it will automatically be added to the bioblitz.

Whether you have time to take one or one hundred photos, visit our 2022 Graze Against The Machine Challenge page on iNaturalist website and signup/login to join the challenge (or the Android app, for reason iNaturalist doesn't allow you to join on the iPhone app). Lets see how many species we can identify as a community in a week and how many locations we represent. Our observations will contribute to community science and are allowing us to better understand – and take care of – the nature that we farm in harmony with.

Who knows, you may find a member of the GATM community who lives near you!

Tips for using iNaturalist.
2 Comments

What Do Pineywoods Cattle Eat?

4/21/2022

1 Comment

 

What Do Pineywoods Cattle Eat?

Pineywoods Cattle eat locust, privet, black walnut and much more
Pineywoods Cattle have a bio-diverse diet, it is one of the reasons why we chose to raise them. Ozark Akerz is a mix of pastures and forests and the combination of grasses, trees, and shrubs is the perfect combination for them. In fact we stopped rotational grazing, allowing them to eat what they want, when they want (food and medicine), just like their ancestors did.

What do the Pineywoods Cattle herd eat at Ozark Akerz Regenerative Farm?  The answer is, all sorts, from Brambles to Walnut. We'll share what we've seen them eat, how they sometimes eat similar to Giraffes, and how our bull Rocky competes with farmer Sue to see who can pull the tastiest kudzu vine out of the trees for the cows. We'll also reveal how their appetite helps us meet some of our regenerative farming goals.

Read More
1 Comment
    Farmer Sue
    Farmer Sue
    Farmer Mike
    Farmer Mike

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Activism
    Anniversary
    Article
    BBQ
    Beef Jerky
    Biodiversity
    Bulls
    Calendar
    Carbon Capture
    Chefs
    Chickens
    Christmas
    Climate
    Conservation
    Country Living
    Dung Beetles
    Farm Animals
    Farming
    Farnhouse
    Food Forest
    Forest Management
    Gardening
    Gatmstreets
    Give The Power Back
    Graze Against The Machine
    Health
    Herbs
    Heritage Breeds
    History
    Holidays
    Hot Sauce
    Humor
    Hunger
    Indigenous
    Language
    Liver
    Livestock Conservancy
    Marinade
    Medicine
    Pasture Health
    Peppers
    Photography
    Pineywoods Beef
    Pineywoods Cattle
    Plants
    Poetry
    Possums
    Radishes
    Rage Against The Machine
    Recipes
    Regenerative Farming
    Roast
    Runes
    Soil
    Steak
    Stories
    Sustainable
    Tomatoes
    Trees
    Vegetables
    Video

    Archives

    March 2025
    October 2024
    September 2024
    April 2024
    February 2024
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    January 2023
    July 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    March 2020
    October 2018
    August 2018
    April 2016
    September 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014


    Check out our YouTube channel

    Copyright © Turboxark Inc 2014-2024 - Terms of Use
Copyright © Turbozark Inc 2014-2025 - Terms of Use
Turbozark Inc does not consent to any AI technology using our information or data on this website or any other platform.  This website contains our Intellectual Property, our labor and our data. We have never consented to Artificial Intelligence using it.

  • Home
  • About
  • Our Farm
    • Our Animals
    • Graze Against The Machine
    • News
    • Photos
    • Our Hot Sauce
  • Blog
  • Shop
  • Heritage Pineywoods Beef
    • Order Heritage Pineywoods Beef
    • What Customers Are Saying
  • Resources
    • Videos
    • For Educators
    • Get Creative
  • Subscribe To Our Newsletter
  • Contact