Note: The text of this post was published in the Virginia Mercury on 9/1/2022. My wife and I are beef cattle farmers in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Two years ago, we enrolled in Virginia’s Agricultural Best Management Practice Cost-Share program. We used this state funding to fence our cattle...
Imagine paddling a canoe upstream forever. That’s my metaphor for environmental activism. Activists have been paddling against the current with the Clean Water Act on their backs ever since its passage 50 years ago. We have made a lot of progress, but it’s been against the current the whole time—and...
I love looking up the trunk of a 30-foot-tall Willow Oak that I planted in 2004.
The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay made a three-minute video of Jeanne, Val, and me working at Whiskey Creek Angus.
There is much to be thankful for on Earth Day 51—way too much for a blog post! But here are some significant and promising environmental developments that occurred recently. Environmental activism and the law are alive and well. Bald Eagle Nesting Pairs Quadrupled I look up from the greening pastures...
Adventure of a Lifetime Well, here we are at Whiskey Creek Angus. I’m 65 years old; Jeanne is 60. We sold our dream house of a lifetime, Meadowview, and bought a farm during the worst pandemic in a century. What’s up with that? Meadowview, located in Swoope, Virginia, was built...
The unnamed tributary. That little creek, or seep, or spring, or bog, or wetland without a name begins its life as surface water when it emerges from the ground. Most streams don’t have a name. In fact, about 60 percent of all streams are unnamed. I’ll bet you know of...
Virginia legislators and its governor are proposing a cattle exclusion mandate from all perennial streams by July 1, 2026.
Shepherdstown, WV: It used to be part of Virginia before our war against slavery. I’m here, standing on the southern bank of the Potomac River looking at the large windows and columns of the mansion of Ferry Hill Plantation on the northern, Maryland side of the river. I’m mesmerized, staring...
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