Blog

Frozen Water in the Trough A frozen livestock water trough is a nightmare for farmers.  Thousands of “frost-free” watering troughs have been installed as an alternative to allowing livestock access to the streams and rivers. Livestock farmers have been excluding livestock from streams and rivers for decades.  It’s one of the most effective practices for […]

As summer moves closer to autumn it seems there are more native plants in the various riparian buffers we have around the farm.  Butterfly weed, jewelweed, wingstem, purpletop, and many other plants are in bloom now.  However; there are many invasive, non-native plants in bloom as well. Invasive Species Control – Vital to Riparian Buffer […]

America’s Most Successful and Largest Conservation Program on HOLD. The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) – America’s most successful and largest conservation program on private, “working” lands is on hold, except for CREP (but not in Virginia, I’ll explain later).  Earlier this month USDA instructed its county offices to process only those applications dated prior to […]

The downstream and upstream pictures in this post were published by the Bay Journal in William Funk’s article “Virginia Faulted for Handling of Cattle Pollution in Shenandoah“. Cattle Destroy Streams and the Aquatic Ecosystem. Livestock that have access to streams and rivers pollute the water with their manure and urine.  But perhaps even worse, when […]

This blog post was modified to become an oped piece for the Bay Journal News Service.  They distributed it on March 7, 2017.  USA Today published it on March 17th as “Want a cleaner river? Keep cow pies out, plant trees”. E. Coli Cut By One Third One of the most polluted rivers in Virginia flows […]

Want To Know What Sustainability Is? The Cistercian monks of the Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia are on a journey to maintain the monastery, their way of life and a 1,200-acre farm on the Shenandoah River.  Saving Place Saving Grace is a documentary about a community on a path to sustainability.  You can stream the 57-minute […]

I had to stop and smell the Marigolds, the native ones in our riparian buffers called Bur Marigolds.  As I was putting up a new solar fence charger for one of our livestock exclusion areas, I had to just stop to watch.  What froze me in my tracks was the sight of so many Monarch […]

Beef cattle biosecurity and stream exclusion are very important to this large animal veterinarian. His First Week on the Job On his first week on the job as a veterinarian back in 1993, Scott Nordstrom treated a case that would stick with him the rest of his life. Shockingly, half of a herd of cattle […]

Two events were held in the Shenandoah Valley for Chesapeake Bay Awareness Week.  One on David Surratt’s farm in Fishersville, VA and another on Jeanne Hoffman’s farm in Swoope.  Both venues are in the Middle River watershed. Surratt Farm Event Mr. Surratt and his family excluded their cattle from five tributaries of Long Meadow.  They […]