A watershed moment for the Shenandoah River and the Chesapeake Bay occurred on Tuesday the 23rd of April. Ownership of the former Virginia National Golf Course located on the banks of the Shenandoah River in Clark County was handed over to Shenandoah University . Dr. Tracy Fitzsimmons, President of the...
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation asked me to write several articles about farmers doing their part to improve the soil and water resources on their farms. These articles are designed to showcase how and why, these farmers installed Best Management Practices such as “stream-side fencing” to exclude livestock from streams.
Author preparing to plant a “bare-root” hardwood seedling into tall fescue sod. When converting grasslands to forest it has been a common practice to plant bare-root, hardwood tree seedlings directly into the sod. Most recently tree shelters have been used to increase the growth rate and survival of hardwood (not...
This week’s flood prompted this post on how we deal with floodwater from our river with our cattle. It was an out-of-bank flood event but it didn’t wash our cattle crossing out because we’ve learned to work with the river not against it.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), the Bay states, the District of Columbia, federal agencies and thousands of volunteers including teachers and farmers have
Note: This post is expressly written for public servants. I spent 31 years in public service. Yes, I was a bureaucrat. Just the mention of the “B” word makes a lot of people cringe – included myself. Many people and most politicians think of bureaucrats as lazy government employees on...
False Indigo Bush, Amorpha fruticosa This native, leguminous shrub is one of the best riparian plants for creating wildlife habitat and improving water quality. It is fast growing and deer don’t like to eat it, so if you want success in your shrub or wildlife plantings this is a winner....
Why don’t farmers just do it? I mean fence their cattle out of the streams. If farmers would do this one practice, at least in the Shenandoah River watershed, agriculture would probably be finished with its part of the Chesapeake Bay TMDL. Excluding livestock from streams is possibly the single...
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...
Yesterday I went to a farm in Northwest Augusta County to talk to the manager of a farm about fencing his cattle out of the most polluted river in the county – Middle River. The farmer was very receptive and expressed a need to fence them out not only to...
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