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Folks,
I guess I may have been uninformed, but I thought most all farming was
biological. After all, the plants we plant and graze or harvest use
basic biological processes: photosynthesis, respiration, crebbs citric
acid cycle, miosis, mitosis, etc. Likewise, the animals most of use
use to harvest our forages survive based on biological processes too.
If this is not true, I wish someone would tell me, since that would mean
that I am not biological either.. so.. I..must be.. an inorganic..
creation of some mad scientist, or a figment of my imagination since I
could not survive without biological processes.
Seroiusly folks, there is not much new under the sun. It is just
repackaged and recycled with a new spin. Many of us graze-l'ers who
have stuck it out for lo' these many years have heard it many times
before. Shucks, I've posted bunches of sound bites my self:
All the processes that make up your farm's ecosystems are inter-related.
When you do something to one, it has an effect on every other one.
You can spend your way out of a problem with purchased inputs or you can
manage your way out.
Bert Smith and I walked my pastures some years ago, we looked at the
amount of clover in the stand, dug up a slice of soil with a pocket
knife and smelled it's earthy odor, and checked some earthworms' health.
Didn't cost me anything, just fed Bert and Martha a few meals. Bert
and I knew the same thing....you are your own best consultant. You just
need to get out on the land and look, observe, sit for a while with your
stock. EVERYDAY!!! Watch the biological processes at work on your
land, in your plants and in your animals. You can sit in room and listen
to an extension agent, or a consultant, or a motivational speaker with
lots of charisma talk for hours and present their ideas, sell their
books and their hidden agendas. Or you can sit on your horse, or your
four-wheeler, or a stump on a south facing slope out of the wind on a
winter day and feel the biological processes rumbling beneath your seat,
getting ready to explode one warm spring day in March.
I just saved a bunch of you a bunch of money.
You are welcome.
Kindest Regards
Steve
Steve Lucas
Mountain View Farm
Louisa, Virginia
www.ibiblio.org/farming-connection/ruralwri/lucas/home.htm
