Here I am.
Almost 12 years post-Peace Corps.
I moved home to Montana. Met a boy. Fell in love. And here we are. With a 6, 4, and 2 year old. Inheriting the ranch my grandmother was born on. (My Great Granddad started managing this ranch in 1916).
And. Here I sit. Being continually reminded of the basics of sustainable agriculture that we extended to host-country counterparts in Senegal. Companion planting. Mulching. Sustainable practices. Agroforestry.
About a year and half ago, I followed up on what another Senegal RPCV kept talking about. Regenerative agriculture. Garrison had a small urban garden at his apartment building in NYC. And he kept talking about how "Dirt to Soil" by Gabe Brown was informing his work.
So. I read it. And I had the fortune to be able to see Gabe speak just 90 miles away. And I was shook. Here I had come back home and continued to think conventionally. But everything Gabe was talking about was touching on the sustainable ag outreach we (under USAID) were extending to Senegal during my service. Building soil. Taking depleted soil and adding organic matter. Utilizing animals and trees.
And here I was, back on the family ranch.
My Great Granddad started managing this ranch over 100 years ago. (My great aunt, who died at 105 last year, was born on this ranch...techincally now the next ranch over as it has divided). My Great Granddad was a visionary. He was a blacksmith. He was a mathematician and engineer. He was a farmer. Born to missionaries in Kansas, he primarily walked to Montana. He got a job because someone saw a pencil in his pocket and assumed he therefore was educated (he was). He had foresight and vision. He used that foresight and vision to (erroneously) dig up Central Montana with steam engines. He then reaped the consequences by going to the bank at the beginning of the Great Depression and withdrawing his money...a pencil for every $100 he had in the bank. But my Granddad had the misfortune to go from the Great Depression into WWII. His youngest daughter, born with developmental disabilities, died at the age of 20 in 1945. He second youngest child, the golden child, John, was supposed to inherit the ranch. John died of influenza on his way home from WWII almost exactly a year later. This ranch fell into a tailspin on grief and despair. My great-uncle George abandoned his engineering studies to take over the ranch. My Grandmother and her two sisters had been "Rosie Riveters". They all moved away from the ranch and married. My Great Uncle George enjoyed ranching, though it wasn't his passion. All the neighbors who remember him remember him as "larger than life", someone who worked hard and inspired others. My Great Granddad died in 1979 (after years in the nursing home with dementia), Uncle George died in 1980. My grandmother had moved back to her childhood home to care for her parents after being widowed in 1976. She enjoyed a few years of joyously working hand-in-hand with her brother before his untimely death. A neighbor told me last year how nice it was to see those siblings having fun and planting windbreak, etc. The ranch had been shrouded in grief for almost 40 years. And then. Following the deaths, my uncle unexpectedly inherited the ranch at a young age. It was never his dream. He treaded water and was able to keep the land in the family for almost 40 years. But, as a single (neurodivergent) person, he wasn't able to implement the grand plans and changes he imagined.
So. We walked onto this ranch, unexpectedly, to see an overgrazed chunk of land. The ranch had been leased out to 4 different people over the past 10-20 years. Leasers seldom treat lease land like they would their own. The land was overgrazed. Depleted. But, it was the money from leasers which had kept my uncle afloat.
But now here we are. 6 years later. Looking at how to make the future of this ranch such that our children will benefit. Streamline. Crunch numbers. Gabe Brown.
This year we were able to graze on pasture until the beginning of February. We sold 1/2 our herd in the beginning of 2022. 3+ years of cumulative drought forces a person to start making different decisions. Thankfully, we found that by selling half our herd, we didn't have to put up as much hay--much less buy hay.
This winter, without feeding, we realize how much money we're saving in fuel costs. We noticed we had happier cows. Happier cows who were fleshy, but not fat. Cows who are now in good condition for calving. Our first calf was born at -15 F...92#, unassisted. Mama had him licked off and up nursing right away. We brought him inside, but only to dry off his ears to hopefully save them from frostbite.
These first changes are inspiring. To keep changing and evolving.
Next up: butcher chickens, apple orchard, maybe a cattle-breed switch-up, a different way to market our cattle...and rebuilding soil.
American agriculture has been an extractive industry. Farmers and ranchers have mined the earth at the detriment of the future. Our grandparents farmed/ranched more productive soil than we do today. When land is first plowed, it releases a glut of nutrients, making those first harvests very productive. However, with continued plowing, continued artificial fertilizers, continued over grazing, we've taken all the strength and benefits from the soil. Our food today is less nutrient dense than it was 100 years ago...our soil is less nutrient dense than it was 100 years ago. We need to rebuild soil. We need to consume foods grown close to us. We need to eat fruits that are in season.
We need to reclaim our agricultural system from big-Ag. We need to shorten our food chain.
Join me to see how we go about doing it. It will be a challenge. But people have forged ahead of us. We need to widen the path so that more people will shift away from modern main-stream conventional agriculture and embrace growing with nature instead.
