What would you like to be famous for?

I have a subscription to Story Worth that sends me suggestions of topics that I might want to write about. Their latest suggestion is what would you want to be famous for? Hmm, well it goes without saying that my family will always be at the top of the chart. So what could be second? I just received in my email that Holistic Management would like to honor The V6 Ranch as Outstanding demonstration site of Holistic Management. This award I will always cherish as it was this organization that in 1991 saved my tattered and torn spirit from a bankrupt way of managing a ranch.

A friend of mine, George Work, invited me to go with him to a three day seminar put on by a fellow by the name of Allan Savory who was from Zimbabwe, Africa and had immigrated to the U.S. with a bag full of new ideas about how I could make better decisions when managing the family cattle ranch. The first day of the seminar his thoughts were so foreign to me that I thought “this is hog wash.” The second day he gave me permission to think for myself and the third day he opened my “now receptive” mind to using a Holistic Approach as a better way when making my daily ranching decisions . First he said, you have to assume that the decision you are about to make is wrong because if you assume that it is right then you will never change it!  Wow, that was kind of scary, what would the neighbors think?

They were all watching as I started discarding so many traditional practices. Like, no more dryland farming. I realized I wasn’t farming, I was mining the soil so I could sell a bale of hay. I thought Jack, you're going to have to replace that lost income with something else. That something else happened after seeing the movie City Slickers in 1994. What a great idea, Cattle Drives for people that wanted that feeling of living on the cowboy or cowgirl side of life for three days. It would help me pay some bills and was certainly easy on the land.

Next, slowing the rainfall that falls each winter on The V6 by constructing more water ponds for my livestock and all the other wildlife that needs a drink. These water retainment basins also leak so that a winter deluge of rainfall brought to a temporary stop can now meander down to help recharge the Little Cholame Creek underground aquifer. And now with the installation of a Poly Pipe water distribution system for all the critters that need a drink I’m light years ahead “of it’s only a mile to water.” Slowing down water has become another way to help me make better informed decisions. Slow is good, fast is bad. This saying has become another piece of the mosaic that has changed the V6 Ranch into an evolving vision of a place where people, everything that grows green, and all the critters that live here have a chance to prosper. 

I’m going to keep on following the path of change. It can be scary at times, it can be inconvenient, it could possibly lead to a costly mistake. But you will have lots to talk about with your new Holistic friends. So what have I learned from my years at the helm of the V6? That without flexible change, a working family ranch will eventually cease to exist. 

This last spring at my son in law and daughter Lilly’s calf branding, my age grabbed a hold of my roping hand and the rope made it only halfway to a calf that needed branding. I dearly love corral roping, the camaraderie and knowing that it’s a necessary way to quickly brand to show ownership and vaccinate a calf for a host of diseases that takes but a minute or two and then the calf is back at his or her mothers side. So where does a retired springtime calf branding addict find rejuvenation? 

This takes me back to 1995 where we had a wet winter followed by one of those springtime periods when every green growing thing was on photosynthetic steroids. When June arrived, the land had turned golden as our annual grasses died. They left a seed for the next season and all the trees glisten with new leaves exhibiting their good health. And then came summer but I vowed that this summer would be different. Care of the Little Cholame Creek would be my first priority by telling all livestock that were thinking about staying for another summer, that you are no longer welcome to spend the summer lazing in the shade of one of our old Oak or Cottonwood trees. There hasn’t been but a handful of trees that have survived the past 150 years of livestock grazing the creek, when anything green in the summer was certainly better than old dry grass so rejuvenation has been on hold for 150 years. I can't change the past but I can certainly change the future.

From 1995 till now, I have made a conscious effort to make the Little Cholame Creek livestock free in the summer and all are welcome in the winter, a time when it’s too cold and grass that gets lots of sun tastes much better than grass in a shaded creek so all my livestock leave voluntarily. Next year, it will be 30 years of putting the welcome mat out in the winter and the No Trespassing sign up for the summer, making life for a new Cottonwood, Oak or Willow have a much greater chance of success. This, along with any green growing plant that would love to call The Little Cholame Creek home are now finding their niche in helping to further armor plate the creek banks. Because there will come a time again when the normally placid Little Cholame Creek will turn into a tumultuous raging torrent like in 1969 when the creek was devoid of any bank protection. It’s five miles from my house to Parkfield and there are four bridges to cross. A very wet winter washed away three of the four bridges and sent tens of thousands of tons of my best topsoil to my neighbors downstream, something I don’t want to have happen again.

I still have a few places where the creek bank is vertically raw for three or four feet that need my “big bale treatment.” These bales are made from the leftover rice straw after the rice kernels have been harvested in Northern California where burning the straw after harvest is no longer allowed. These bales weigh about 1000 pounds and are tied together with 6 long lasting strings that will last possibly 5 or 6 years and in that time several young Willows or Cottonwood’s hopefully will get a start before the bale dissolves. Their job will be to gently tap the creek in a new direction to where the creek bank is more protected by all the new trees and perennial bushes. 

The Little Cholame today is probably 90% back to normal “pre cattle and plow,” so I have turned my attention to a new perennial grass that goes by the name of “Perla Grass.” I don’t know what its scientific name is but I understand that it comes from Morocco, Africa. Since adopting Holistic Management as my way to befriend Mother Nature, I have been looking for a perennial grass that would outcompete all of our annual grasses and I have found only one that might get it done in a hundred years. Perla Grass to the rescue. It’s high in food value when green, very palatable again when green, very drought tolerant and creates an erosion resistant mat that is very tough and resilient under the weight of a hoove clad chewing grazing animal like a cow.  

I just wrote a blog about helping my son John tear down an old barn that had a pallet full of transplant trays. Each tray had 231 little cubicles almost one inch by one inch. This past summer I harvested 30 pounds of Perla seed. There are 267,000 seeds per pound and my small seed drill can only calibrate down to a half a pound per acre so my Perla seed wouldn’t do but 60 acres. So here's where many in the family and community “roll their eyes” and ask what have you been smoking? 

New chapter, why not take ten of these trays and fill each tray with a different soil type from different parts of the ranch and put these ten trays on empty plastic cattle supplement tubs, so I don’t have to bend over so far to water them, then plant the Perla seeds by taking my index finger and touch it to my tongue then touching a cup of Perla Grass seed five or six seeds stick to my finger and the old roping hand can plant a cubicle with those seeds and if successful that Perla seed can now be transplanted. The tray is labeled as to where it was obtained so I will know which kinds of soil the Perla Grass likes best. As each tray starts to sprout or not I will also have a good idea of the percentage that germinate and I’ll be happy even if the germination percentage is low because what Perla comes will be better than the poor quality annual grasses that presently grow on these inferior soil’s. I’m waiting for December and then after a good rain I can transplant these one inch cubes of the future and with some luck they will become an important part of the V6 ranch's grazing future.

I’ve been most fortunate in my ranching life because of a good family, good luck, a good deal of innovations. Come what may, I show up each new day. 

                      See Ya, 

                         Jack