Ranchlands Today
In the Unknown Certainty of Tomorrow It is November 1999. I am standing in the Chico Basin ranch corrals, watching […]
Horses and Helicopters
There’s definitely certain situations where the helicopter shines. But cutting pairs, sorting cattle, you can’t do that in a helicopter or a bike, that’s a horse job. The interesting thing is that people think it’s one or the other, but in combination, you can’t beat it.
Self Selection
I was first introduced to the term “self-selection” in a barefoot trimming clinic in Australia about a year ago. The couple that were hosting the clinic, a trimmer and a vet, were starting a holistic rehab center in New South Wales in which one of the main focus points would be a Paddock-Paradise-style track system with a wide variety of planted herbs to provide the natural process of self-selection to their rehab horses. The thought behind this being that in the wild, horses (and other grazing animals) will seek out and choose to eat specific plants with medicinal properties to benefit their unique health, a process that most domestic horses don’t have access to, and which most horse owners compensate for by feeding an excess of supplements that blanket a wide variety of needs as a “cover all the bases” strategy.
Monitoring our Impact on the Land
There is more than one way to know a place. There is more than one way to see a landscape. There is more than one way to understand land health. And there is more than one way to sense if a landscape is healthy.
Spring Musings
I was thinking today about how different spring times can be from one year to the next.
Rock Climbers on the MP
Foraging up on rocky slopes is unusual for normal cows, but not surprising for our Beefmasters cows.
Invasive Species Control
When the invasive Russian olive, Chinese elm, and tamarisk trees were introduced to the Chico over 100 years ago by settlers, they served as both erosion control and decoration for the mostly barren high plains of the Front Range. Unfortunately, these species (although effective at their intended purpose) caused unforeseen problems to the surrounding ecosystem.
The Bison and the Rancher
How ranchers and the bison they manage might save each other from extinction.
Learning to Think Like a Mountain
Aldo Leopold, considered by many the father of wildlife conservation and the wilderness system in America, once wrote of watching a wolf die when he was young.