A return to grazing
May 17, 2012 § Leave a comment
It’s happening. Slowly. Because some of us stand behind it. Those who have learned by experience and those who are convinced by others’ experiences combined with ecological evidence. It needs to happen.
Let’s get down to this business of replacing cornfields with pasture, instead of the other way around. Let’s be putting ruminants out on that pasture where they belong. Okay?
Remember when I went to visit my friend Mae Rose at the ranch where she’s working in Nebraska?
Here’s the article that came out of the experience: Learning Mob Grazing on the Nebraska Sandhills.
It has a few opinions in it. We are of the opinionated sort. But I hope you read, learn, think, and enjoy it just a little.
Robert Frost’s great-grandson’s cattle
February 13, 2012 § Leave a comment
Two roads diverge in the U.S. beef industry. Americans are buying more alternatively raised meat — organic, natural, grass-fed and the like – but most large-scale cattle producers in the Midwest are not cashing in on the trend.
Prescott Frost, however, owns a 6,000-acre operation in the sand hills of northern Nebraska, and he’s betting on alternatively raised beef. Frost is a former stock broker from Connecticut who sold his family’s farmland in Illinois two years ago to come to Nebraska and raise certified organic grass-fed beef. He has about 600 cattle.
The link for the rest of the article is below. I caution you to ignore the comment about change needing to come from “educated people from the city.” I disagree. While I understand what he’s getting at, this is the kind of overgeneralization that smacks of inaccuracy and quite honestly, offends. Still, the rest of the piece is worth a read. Robert Frost wasn’t all that joyful a farmer, but farming appears to have stayed in the genes.
Taking the grass-fed road less traveled | Harvest Public Media.
Herding dog
February 13, 2012 § Leave a comment
Meet Muñeca.
Muñeca is my friend Mae Rose’s canine companion at the ranch when she goes out to see to the sheep. The 8-month-old border collie could scarcely hold herself back as we approached the herd – though, good girl, she stayed with us on the four-wheeler until bid otherwise. This is the look she gets on her face: sheer determination. To her, sheep must be herded, and by golly, she is the one who should do it.
Want to see her at work?
At the ranch
February 7, 2012 § 3 Comments
Two-thirds of the way through Nebraska I stopped to visit my friend Mae Rose. We know each other because we studied in the same program at Iowa State University. It is so fun to look around and see what all my former classmates are doing these days.
Mae Rose is currently interning as assistant ranch manager at the Peterson Ranch near Newport, NE. This area is part of the unique geographic region known as the Sandhills, where mixed-grass prairie grows on stabilized sand dunes. Nearly all of the plant species here are native, as plants must be well-adapted to survive such a landscape and climate. This is grazing country, and you’ll find Scottish Highland cattle and Dorper sheep on this particular ranch.
My friend let me tag along with her for a few days to see what’s happening on her stretch of the plains.
We explored.
She fed and worked cattle.
We discussed animals, plants, agriculture, and ecosystems.
And drove tractors down roads, over sand, through many grasses.
There is more to tell about what’s going on here. Intricate things on a seemingly simple landscape. But that will be shared, or linked to, another time. Stay tuned!
Kinds of Honey 