Daydreams drifting toward summer, winter musings & answers to WHY?

In today’s edition of The Savvy Savage, we dream of flyballs and summer breezes, wax romantic about winter, shout out and quote our buddy Doug Duren & Aldo Leopold, and start to unpack the WHY? as to HOW we farm. Also, we end with a ridiculously simple pro tip for those opposed to pattying up ground meat! We also say happy birthday to my Mom!!! 68 years young today! That is how they say it when someone creeps towards seventy, right? I called her this morning with big, happy wishes for #68. “I’m 48, Nathan,” she said.

I said, “Nope. I’m almost 38 Mom, that’d be gross.”

“Oh yeah, I guess that would be weird,” she said, doing some quick math in her head. I laughed. Happy birthday Mom! And thank you for your part in a family farm legacy now spanning six generations!

Summer, right? That idyllic day, 80 degrees, passing clouds; that sweet kiss of a breeze… It’s definitely top of mind for a lot of folks right about now as we here in Wisconsin are mired in the depths of February’s style of winter. There is something about the tease of 50 plus degrees that sparks the imagination and the lust for things like baseball and hotdogs and bullfrogs and crickets and kites and shirtless day drinking, but such a day at this point is little more than a siren’s song; so sweet and intriguing that the calendar you’ve come to know and abide fades like a rusty memory into something foreign that you didn’t quite pay attention to in school. I was of those cursing that heatwave as I raced in my big red Ford to procure a snowmobile to tug the kiddos around if indeed that was the last of our beautiful and precious snow. Around 11AM in Ironton I saw a couple fellas in their underwear on their South facing deck drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, laughing as though they were skipping school, grinning like bastards as the world around them turned to mush in the premature heat.

Now, I won’t be the one to hate on dreamers or summertime in general. I’m nothing, if not a barefoot ballplayer who prefers to shower with a garden hose, but I am also a creature of transition and there’s a part of me that thrives while much of the natural world goes dormant. I want those tree buds and flower bulbs to stay put and wait for the promise of sustained heat and not be fooled into early arrival and all but certain death, but I put myself out into those elements on late season wood gathering treks and such adventures sometimes it seems, just for the thrill.

Maybe my appreciation of winter just boils down to the feeling of being needed. My kids almost constantly need socks or boots put on, snow pants and mittens and coat cuffs tucked to keep out the snow. The fire is always in a state of either needing or going-to-need wood. My diesels need to be plugged in if I want them to start without sounding like a moaning and groaning, dying robot. My cows, so self-sufficient in the lazy days of summer, actually need me. I bring them round bales and walk among them every day trying to stay ahead of any ailments that tend to come with the yo-yo temperatures that make up a Wisconsin winter these days. A well-timed stress tub, probiotics, garlic supplement or a ration of aloe pellets, can all make the difference. I ritually remove wet bedding and toss rock hard frozen turds out of the south facing shed where they like to sunbathe; sometimes three times a day. I recall complaining about the chore as a kid, always wanting to be up on the western sledding hill and far away from daily work; my dad’s simple reply was all I needed to hear to change my whiny tune… “Would you wanna sleep on a bunch of rocks?” Nope. Not at all. As the man of the farm now I try to keep my sunny loafing shed clean and dry enough so as it’s a place I would be comfortable taking a snooze.

A well-managed winter barnyard is one that is cleared of manure along with the old bedding a few times a week keeping waste bound in straw and hay material, and solid, not sloppy and prone to excessive runoff. Winter watering includes keeping pipes thawed and breaking ice in the creek. When Mother Nature is dormant, the natural farmer is busiest with his or her animals .In the summer my responsibilities fade quite simply into turning the water on and trying to remember to shut it off. Of course, there are the pasture rotation round ups that serve to keep the grass managed for its own good as well as that of the cow. A successful rotational grazing program will promote rich, healthy, nutritious grass and quality soil, as well as prevent hungry cattle from grazing low where the parasites hatch and live. Where barefoot summertime kiddos are like, “Hey Dad, I need a band aid, maybe some lemonade…” My cows are like, “Hey dude. Can you open that gate?”

There is certainly fencing, and harvesting work all summer long, but a lot more time for bovine proximity therapy in the winter. I’ll find myself on lazy winter days burning up the better part of an hour sitting amongst my cows in the sun. Maybe it’s weird, but it is a curious adventure to nest in the center of a bale feeder 2/3rds empty and look back at the big eyes gazing lazily in your direction. They eat slowly and thoroughly, teeth grinding sideways; the machinations of it all like the certainty of a small creek gristmill. It’s here sometimes I ponder the Why’s? In general, I feel you can’t count out insanity for a base question such as, Why do you farm? Sometimes though the answer is a simple, albeit gray, “Somebody has to.” To borrow a sentiment from my good buddy Doug Duren, some days the answer is bold and honest and humble, “This isn’t my farm, it’s just my turn…”

Maybe it’s not so much that somebody has to, it’s that somebody ought to try to do it right; that is with a certain passion that demands that we be more than landowners, rather stewards that answer the call to conservation that echoes from our not so distant past. Aldo Leopold says in A Sand County Almanac, “A dead Chinaman is of little import to us whose awareness of things Chinese is bounded by an occasional dish of chow mein. We grieve only for what we know.” I ask here what does the common man of today know about his or her general footprint? What is it that they truly understand about the wake they are cutting in this life? Causation besides fossil fuel emissions? Is this a full spectrum water filter, and why do I need this damn thing? Leopold’s work in 1949 pondered our collective humanoid path. “The Cro-Magnon who slew the last mammoth only thought of the steaks. The sportsman who shot the last pigeon thought only of his prowess. The sailor who clubbed the last auk thought of nothing at all.” What are we pondering today?

I’ll reign it in here and answer some questions I’ve fielded lately about pasturing cattle & hogs and why it matters. There are some layers involved to a thorough answer and today I will start with the impact on the environment involving soil, air, and water quality. Grasslands have massive potential to play key roles in greenhouse gas mitigation and soil preservation. This is particularly true in terms of global carbon storage and further sequestration, and evenly so in the realm of natural water protection and filtration.

The paramount talking point when it comes to climate change has been what humans have done to cause, magnify, or speed up the happening; think factory & car exhaust or concentrated methane production from cows, but what makes the big picture all the more grim is what we are NOT doing to mitigate these undesirable inputs into our environment. Many of the world’s grasslands reside upon what is considered poor quality land with actually only 1/6th existing on what would be considered medium to high quality ground. The best ground worldwide is being farmed in a much different manner with methods contributing to the need for much higher inputs from fuel and tillage to fertilizer and widespread herbicide & pesticide use. What exacerbates this is that the majority of pastured grasslands are overgrazed and not allowing for quality root development which is not only the key to carbon sequestration in grasslands but also important in proper execution of natural water table filtration; furthermore, the gap between the sequestration value of grass vs. say, corn is astounding. While corn does actually absorb more CO2 per acre (roughly 36,000 lbs./acre) most of this is released upon consumption or degradation whereas the perennial grass (absorbing roughly 32,000 lbs./acre) actually sends the carbon into the soil keeping it out of the atmosphere. In a simple summation, from the angle of air & water quality, worldwide potential for general quality and sustainability is enormous; nearly incalculable and painfully, almost shamefully within our grasp. It’s like suffering a losing season with a healthy Aaron Rodgers riding the bench playing paper football with the equipment manager…

So what does that all mean? How does it work? Localized examples please?

I’ll assume you’ve seen or at least seen videos of the lagoons and tanks of the largest farms also known as CAFO’s or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. The rotting, bacteria laden swamps of liquid waste that will burn your eyeballs or even kill you if the clouds lie low and heavy enough on a given day are, in general, the major environmental consequence of the feedlot style of raising animals. It’s fast, it’s cheap, but only if you do not account for those pesky consequences such as: water pollution, air pollution, the effects on market pricing and the nutritional & health consequences which we will discuss down the road in the next edition of The Savvy Savage.

A hog on pasture will eat as much as you will let it. On grasses you can buzz them through and keep a quick moving rotation much like one would do with cattle. Another method is to plant grasses along with brassicas, legumes, and root vegetables. In all hog pasturing situations where the animals are allowed to rut, the fence lines will be defined by a wall of sod which allows for the retainment of solid waste within the pasture being that it is not subjected to unfettered runoff. This all allows a natural breakdown and efficient use of that matter during successive seedings.

Well managed cattle pasture is lush and lacks compaction and these attributes of successful grazing operations allow for outstanding absorption of water which simply put, is the opposite of runoff. Sauk county has a neat rainfall simulator you can read a little about here:

https://www.co.sauk.wi.us/sites/default/files/fileattachments/land_conservation/page/1992/fall_2018.pdf

You can also read more about what Sauk County is doing and learn about SSWIG, Sauk Soil & Water Improvement Group here:

https://www.co.sauk.wi.us/sites/default/files/fileattachments/land_conservation/page/1992/fall2019.pdf

If nothing else, they have a great acronym. SSWIG, water conservation… I love that kind of stuff. They’re actually working in connection with other similar organizations such as GGULP, SIPP & SSLURP… Anyway…

The ridiculously simple pro tip of the day:

Are you a lover of mini burgers or sausage patties, but also among those grossed out by pattying ground meat? Dislike how random the patties end up being?? Constantly doing headcounts to figure how many patties to make and trying honorably to create equal portions??? Not a fan of the messy hands and cutting boards???? You’ve come to the right place.

Step one: Do not thaw that stick of ground meat.

Step two: Find a sharp knife.

Step three: Sharpen a knife.

Step four: Slice frozen meat into ½”- 1/3” discs without cutting your fingers off.

Step five: Fry up your beautifully round patties without butter or oil because your Greener Grass Collective meat has plenty of healthy fats to do the job! (note: heat up pan slowly with meat in the pan and turn to medium as meat begins to sizzle)

We here at the Greener Grass Collective are committed to farmland conservation and the general mission of bettering and preserving the systems of which we are a part. We encourage you to not only shop locally, but think that way as well. Whether or not you are a landowner, we are all land users and lay claim either directly or indirectly to the land around us. Whether it is farmland, woodland, marshland, a path you walk in a natural area or a part of your yard with potential to be pollinator habitat, please have an open mind about it and a healthy attitude in regards to yourself and the greater world around you. Remember, as Buddy Doug says, “It’s not ours, it’s just our turn.”