Virginia legislators and its governor are proposing a cattle exclusion mandate from all perennial streams by July 1, 2026. This is a bold move by the Virginia democrats who now control both houses of the general assembly and the governor's mansion. Virginia Senate bill SB704 and House bill HB1422 have...
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...
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 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...
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....
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...
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....
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...
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