Baled Corn Stalks: Symbol of Agricultural Waste and Poverty
I drove onto a farm in Northern Virginia this week and noticed a row of baled up corn stalks. That’s a red flag for me…I have learned over the past 30 some years as a conservationist that when I am on a farm and see rolled up – baled, corn...
“Good Oak” Revisited 2012
Aldo Leopold wrote eloquently about an ancient log he placed on the andirons of his fire in A Sand County Almanac published in 1949. The chapter was “Good Oak”. Below is my lament for a log I placed on the andirons of a fire we had in the summer kitchen...
Harpers Ferry, John Brown and Sediment in the Shenandoah
“T” Stands For Tolerance
There has been a lot of talk about “T” these days because of the Chesapeake Bay TMDL. I hate jargon so here’s a quickie on these two terms. The TMDL is the agreed-upon pollution diet for the Bay; it stands for Total Maximum Daily Load. It’s the maximum amount of...
Mr. Farmer, What Compelled You To Do It?
Monday I went to see a farmer that was interested in fencing his cattle out of a stream on his farm. He operates one of those down-home, “buy your local meats here” farms. They raise beef cattle, “free range” turkeys and hogs. They sell all kinds of meats, from bacon...
World Population Reaches 7 Billion on Halloween
In the Great Age of Exploration, European countries took possession of foreign lands by force. Today rich countries and multi-national corporations are taking possession of foreign lands in a new way – they buy it. It’s called “The Great Land Grab”. China, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea lead the world...
Bare Ground in Dayton
Yesterday I was called out on a job in the Dayton area of Rockingham County, Virginia. This area is intensively farmed with livestock and crops. I was totally amazed at two things: the amount of bare ground and the number of fields farmed up and down the slope of the...
Our Pot of Gold…Is Our Water
If a one-gallon jug filled with water represented all the water in the world the amount of available freshwater would equal just over a tablespoon – less than one half of one percent of the total. The rest is salt water or unavailable such as the freshwater frozen in the...
October is National Kill Tall Fescue Month
October is a good time to kill Tall Fescue. I like killing Tall Fescue because it is perhaps the most invasive non-native plant in North America. In my opinion it is more invasive than Purple loosestrife and Phragmites yet why don’t we hear more about it? Not only is Tall...
