I know the ideas that I have found to be valid come from my ever-stronger belief in Mother Nature’s management style. I want to give my thoughts on the direction the V6 should be traveling in the future as I find myself in a position philosophically where I no longer own the ranch but the V6 owns me. With this new understanding as to who’s in charge, I find myself becoming the spokesperson for the V6 and how best to keep its future solvent while meeting its human demands and how best to keep its natural resources moving in a regenerative direction

So what have I got to work with? I think I must first catalog the ranch assets that are to be found in my mind and are subjective in nature and most surely more important than how many tractors and trucks I have.

• First, natural beauty, prettiest ranch anywhere.

• Second, home to many species of wildlife, soil life, and all the green growing things.

• Third, the ranch is one to four hours driving time from 30,000,000 people with lots of Blue Sky.

• Fourth, the V6 Ranch is off the beaten path with zoning that will help to keep it this way.

• Fifth, the V6 owns the headwaters of several watersheds which allows us to make regenerative corrections and not have to worry that another landowner with different priorities might nullify our good works.

• Sixth, A look at our surrounding mountains with no lights and no other signs of man’s heavy hand is a rare sight these days.

• Seventh, the V6 is a wonderful livestock ranch.

Liabilities I don’t see any except the will of my offspring in distant generations, keeping the ranch profitable, and regenerative might tire their spirits and be sold. This writing then is about how to keep a ranch seeking regenerative ways to manage and sustainable ways to keep a ranch financially sound.

Listing in order of importance, these are the things I believe Mother Nature does in order to give the V6 a healthy way to live:

1. All rain that falls on the ranch will be kept on the ranch for as long as possible using all matter of obstacles to slow its journey.

2. Bare ground will be kept to a bare minimum as bare ground will raise soil temperature increasing evaporation thus changing the makeup of soil life and at the end of summer the more evaporation the more rainfall it takes the following winter to fill all the underground aquifers.

3. Creating an environment where the ranch collects as much of the Sun’s energy through the process of Photosynthesis.

4. That the top foot of soil life can’t be disregarded for it’s as important to the ranch sustainability as the part we live on, walk on and see every day from our footprints to the Stratosphere.

5. All rangeland needs to be grazed but it must be done so the livestock and the grass they eat both prosper. Knowing that, then driving my cattle to different parts of the ranch to graze will be done In a planned way but with a randomness factor built in that allows for a variety of times cattle can spend grazing in one area before moving on.

Okay, we now have a ranch that is for the most part “in tune with Nature”, so what are the least controversial things that the V6 can do to make Nature and the public at large both happy? Why it’s recreation, and John and Barbara Varian have accepted the challenge with their many horse-related programs that are meant for those who want a horseback experience. The most detrimental use and little known to the general public is Dry Farming. A way of mining the soil to produce grain crops. Between these two boundaries, everything that we do on the V6 will be controversial to someone.

Being the spokesperson for the V6 at this moment in time I can thumb my nose at the public and hide behind our trespass laws. But remember those 30,000,000 people within one to four hours driving time, that can be turned away from a national park when full, where do they go? Their need to feel the breeze of open space, like it or not, will eventually be felt on private property. So how will it be filled? I hope with different kinds of recreation venues supplied by ranchers that like people and are willing to share Nature’s blessings and at the same time of this sharing, it also helps keep the ranch fiscally stable.

Grazing cattle and horses is something we have always done and I believe we should continue to do. For there have always been grazing animals on the land as a necessary part of a smoothly operating environment. So the question becomes not if we should graze, but rather how we should graze?

Hunting is much more controversial as it involves guns and killing other animals but we have been killing to feed our families for eons as it has only been in the last couple of hundred years that we didn’t have to hunt to survive. I believe that for those that like the sport of hunting, that’s their right just like playing Tennis or going on a hike. And if the public still wants to do away with hunting, then we will have destroyed the economic value of hunting. As a result their lives will become more precarious when care and a place to live, for many landowners, is no longer a priority. That leaves the wildlife to make it on their own which may not work.

There are many more kinds of recreation that are ranch-friendly like stargazing, birdwatching, studying the ranch geology, photography and the list goes on.

And as open space becomes more important to the health of the human spirit the people who care for these special places will find economic rewards but more importantly they will find it’s a rewarding way to live a life, chasing after Mother Nature’s guiding light.

See Ya,

Jack