Frozen Water in the Livestock Trough
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...
Ruminations – Swoope Almanac November 2017
Riparian Buffer Management – Control Invasives, Encourage Natives
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...
America’s Largest Conservation Program on Hold
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...
Cattle Destroy Streams
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....
Trees Remove E. Coli Pollution From Streams
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...
Holy Cross Abbey’s Sustainability Journey
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....
Fueling Stations for Monarchs – Swoope Almanac September 2016
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...
Biosecurity and Stream Exclusion
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...
“I read every one of Bobby’s blog posts. They keep me informed on everything from their cattle farm operation to their best management practices in action. His blog always features relevant information on keeping our waters clean, our soil out of the runoff, and other environmental issues of our time.”
