Whether or not you celebrate the U.S. holiday Thanksgiving, I wish you all joy during this time of gratitude.

I am most thankful for each and every person on this listserve for all you do to improve the health of our soil, the health of our animals, and the health and support for those making decisions at the soil surface.

I am thankful for Holistic Management and the focus it has provided toward our common challenge of healing our planet. I am thankful to my friends, acquaintances, and colleagues who have stepped up to make a difference at the soil surface.

As we move toward regenerative communities, economies, and land, I remember and appreciate what each of you brought to our collective table. The potential for regeneration hinges on our ability to honor our relationships. Relationships with our fellow decision-makers, our crew, our customers, our finances, our animals, our plants, and our soil are imperative for regeneration to happen.

Take a look at this blog and take some time to rethink the power of a grazing plan.

For those of you that would like to learn or delve into holistic grazing planning more deeply, we are thrilled to announce our social distancing virtual planned grazing seminar starting January 31st.

In appreciation,

Tony

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The nature of flags seems to divide. My political party vs. yours, my country vs. yours, my state vs. yours. This flag? “We are Earthlings.”

Two years ago I posted this blog Fire & Brimstone. At the time, I thought the fire season couldn’t get any worse. Our hearts go out to all of those who have lost so much. Now is the time more than ever that we start acting like Earthlings and care for our one ecosystem.

Read on…

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It's been years in the making. My book is ready to publish. It's about overgrazing and recovery, disturbance, simplicity and complexity, diversity and homogeneity, life and death. And that's just the people. I also talk about land management, soil health, and finances. The story wraps around events and experiences unique to me, but the message touches all who live at, benefit from, or support those making decisions at the soil surface. In other words, everyone.

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Forty years ago, at 8:32 AM, May 18, 1980, Mt. St. Helens leveled 230 square miles in the wake of its blast. Fifty-seven people, 7,000 big game animals, and countless fish and birds perished in the plume of death. In addition, 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles of railway, and 185 miles of highway destroyed.

A few hours earlier, and one-thousand miles away, my family was emotionally flattened when my dad died of a massive heart attack at 50 years of age. Mt. St. Helens spewed 540 million tons of ash over 22,000 square miles. Two hundred miles east of the volcano, ash-covered grass, so livestock owners had to feed hay. As the mourners filed out of the funeral home in Lander, WY, they had to turn on their wipers to clear the cinders from the windshield. I remember my aunt Sally wiping the memorabilia off the hood of her car and into a quart jar.

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Paralysis, a reset, and restart allow us to see what we always thought to be true, differently. After looking at the nature of markets, I went to a Bud Williams marketing seminar. With my cleared brain, his perspective was brilliant. We don’t have to buy low and sell high to make money with our livestock. He explained that we are merely trading inventory. We sell an animal that will not add value and use that money to buy an animal that will add value. We are simply downloading animals that can best utilize the inventory of feed we have available. We learn that we buy our profit and make money on our grass, whether we are in an up market or a down market.

Getting a benefit from a threat takes a shift in perspective and focusing on what we are doing.

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The Juliana River, whose name is now diminished to Little Creek was released from prison for a week this spring. A log jam plugged an irrigation diversion and pushed the churning, angry, water out across the relic flood plain. As it spread, the agitation calmed, the anger released, and the grass screened the sediment and embraced the nutrients before the river softly slipped back in the channel before reaching the City of Union's residential section, right above Edwin Baird's house. 

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