Blog

“Well-managed” farmland and other working “open-spaces” should not be taxed when they provide ecosystem services  exceeding the cost of  public services for the land. In many states including Virginia, local governments have a special way of collecting revenue from their constituents that have farmland or “open-space” called “land-use” taxation.  It’s a method of calculating a tax […]

Virginia Wildlife Magazine published my article “Fish Need Leaves” in their Jan/Feb 2015 issue.  More information about Virginia’s premier wildlife magazine can be found here: www.dgif.virginia.gov/virginia.wildlife Excluding livestock from streams is a first big step for agriculture in restoring water resources and complying with the law that the US Congress passed in 1972 – The Clean […]

It’s happening.  Throughout the 64,000 square miles of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, there are small watersheds being restored, one by one, slowly but surely.  We are going to achieve a restored Bay, one small watershed at a  time.

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 […]

Journal entry 11/15/16: Sipping Africa Charlottesville, VA: We ordered a bottle of Bayten, Sauvignon Blanc. It’s from the Constantia wine region in South Africa, the oldest wine region in the Southern Hemisphere.  It’s Cape Town’s wine region, at the Southern tip of the African continent. I raised my glass and gently swirled the soft golden […]

Chesapeake Bay TMDL Wins in Court Five years of court battles are over.  Today, a leap day that will never be forgotten in watershed restoration, the Chesapeake Bay, with over 10,000 streams and all its inhabitants won in the Chambers of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). Today the U.S. Supreme Court denied […]

Livestock Drinking Dirty Water is Not Good For Herd Health Humans don’t drink dirty water and neither should your livestock. Aristotle recognized the value of boiling water and burying feces to prevent disease back in 350BC. We’ve been learning ever since.  Just as with human health, herd health improves with abundant clean water. At Least […]

Middle River flows through our land.  Brook Trout, Virginia’s state fish, used to thrive in it.  They migrated or died long ago, environmental refugees from the sediment-laden waters of the river.  The river is slowly being restored and one day, we will re-introduce this native fish to the waters that flow through our farm. I walk […]