Have you ever wanted to tell somebody something that you thought was important but your choice of words might fall short? Well that’s where I find myself right now. Trying to create a picture in the mind of others on how Mother Nature would like us humans to care for her planet Earth.

First, I believe we can no longer think of our planet Earth as if it were a slave that can be bought and sold with absolutely no regard for its health and well-being. To think there will be no consequence for constantly adding billions of new people to our population, and growing the world’s economy at 2 or3% forever is wrong. But the people of the world demand this. So we elect the kind of representative who will promise that we will do the impossible by keeping the status quo. I can just see Mother Nature roll her eyes and give out with a sigh of disbelief.

I don’t know if we are in a natural or man-made period of global change but whatever the case I think any caring person has to at least say “I’m part of the problem and I’m willing to be part of the solution.”

This brings me to my contribution which says, “I will no longer believe that this good Earth is my slave and I have every right to rape and pillage as I see fit, after all, I do pay the taxes on it.”

Now I know that I’m getting into that zone where human emotions dwell, where the rednecks, religious zealots that use their religion to justify their hates, the animal rights wackos, the environmental do-gooders who many times don’t know how to do good, the “don’t bother me I’ve got to go play golf on a beautiful green turf in the middle of the desert” men, politicians headed by our Governor Brown that want to build a bullet train to go from San Francisco to Los Angeles all get worked up.

The problem with these single minded people is their single mindedness binds them to their agendas so tightly that there way is the only way. Well these people obviously have no consideration about how their actions might affect the whole. I believe that for our planet to survive we must give more consideration to the whole when making decisions. I know that change is usually uncomfortable, but without it new solutions to old problems are impossible. My problem that held me back for many years was my belief that I was a cattleman that raised cattle for a living and took the grass that they ate for granted. But with my new found religion ( a belief system called Holistic Management) I was able to see that cattle were just a part of the whole that I had to grow grass for my cattle to eat first. This process is just a small part of the whole. My question to myself was: how on a family ranch such as ours does one start to construct a whole that will be around for a long time so all the critters that call our ranch home won’t find themselves homeless?

Our ranch is one giant 20,000 acre solar panel that gathers sunlight through the leaves colored green by chlorophyl. Add some water and carbon dioxide and you will change this sunlight into sugar for green growing things that become food for all grazing animals. For humans this process is most necessary because it produces what we breathe every day: oxygen.

What are the management practices that over time will heal my past mistakes? The first decision that affects the productivity of the ranch is to make the rain that falls on the land stay as long as possible. Mother Nature does it by putting up obsticles to slow the movement of water in a number of different ways. Having the soil surface covered with grass, trees and brush slows water significantly. Now enter our grazing animals cattle, horses, goats, sheep and all the wild grazers… they are all an absolutely necessary part of our ranch environment as they can convert grasses and other plants into salable meat while fertilizing and rejuvenating the soil.

I believe that into each life a little rain must fall. But joy, love, giving, and caring must also fall so why not create a place where this can happen? To the people that live in our cities but have always had a yearning to be outside with horses and cattle, trees and grass, we welcome you.

See Ya,

Jack