Most of us know Hans Christian Anderson’s fable about the ugly duckling blossoming into a beautiful swan. This parable extends to an “unkept,” wooly 10 acres of my pasture system left after a quick grazing event. This rank, hideous wad of growth left behind prompted visitors to ask, “When ya gonna mow that? It looks ugly.”
Like the duckling, I’ve been questioned for leaving it and “wasting” grass in favor of my feathered friends and other grass-faring creatures living in the sward, but this fairy tale mosaic of messiness always has a happy ending (at least for our farm context).
I preface this story by telling my farming peers that this activity of land management for grassland bird habitat was actually planned and implemented as part of a long-term strategy to make or retain more economical, biological, environmental and social wealth for the farm.
My nutrient management plan tells me which fields are destined for the birds based on fertility levels, historical impacts, the grazing plan for this year and the rule of disruption (see understandingag.com/the-6-3-4tm-explained). This year in the Northeast, with ample snowfall, rain and an explosive April 12 week of 80º, pastures took off faster than I could get cattle to eat much of it.
This sward and soil building and allowing the plant roots the opportunity to go deeper for future resiliency just so happens to line up with regenerative rancher Steve Kenyon’s saying, “You leave behind as much as your bank account allows.” This confounds some folks looking over the fence while others are feverishly making hay.
The longer view starts in early April, by fixing and cleaning bird boxes with your grandchildren. The bluebirds, swallows and sparrows spar over territory and the best spots to raise a family, but all will contribute to eating pesky insects, including the turkeys and crows that peruse the understory.
The creation of wildlife habitat beyond the hand of man is poetry in motion and a sight to behold. At this point, one should revel in the day-to-day magic of ruminants transforming diverse forage into nesting habitat, litter and food – into an incubator for all sorts of critters. As the cool season plants turn into an ever-diverse prairie, the romper-room attracts a covey of grouse, bobolinks, red-winged blackbirds, yellow finches and the like to form a family dynamic.
The synergy also attracts deer and fawns, foxes and pups, woodchucks, rodents and really happy hawks. What makes this scene possible is the beasts of burden who provide the hoof-work, mowing and manure to feed the community. The best part is, I just sit back and watch it happen and enjoy the Kodak moments.
Traveling through a tall grassland, setting up portable fences can be an exhilarating and harrowing experience all in one. Insects and critters fly and scurry with every step. Studying the plant species, I find a very diverse, jungle-like phenomenon. I have the good things, like cool season grasses, legumes and important forbs, but also have the dreaded weeds of society which exhibit their flowering prowess, thumbing their leaves at this paltry human.
Those “weeds” with their showy colors and blossoms provide nectar for bees, habitat for beneficial insects and soon-to-be food for the soil life below. The plants I truly want are full of golden seeds with deep root systems packed with energy and minerals waving in the breeze, awaiting the return of their regenerative propagators, the cows.
The circle of life for this year’s grassland bird habitat nursery has rewards for soil fertility and water retention far into the future, especially with recent three-inch deluges. When the cows are turned into the golden sward, they bite off the seed heads full of the sun’s energy, rip the leaves off the understory, puncture the burdock’s fat ears and trample and trod what they don’t like into the soil substrate, exciting a cupful of biological life that dwarfs the human population.
For me, the true test of the plan is to go out after said rain and see the litter being consumed by earthworms, manure patties being dotted by dung beetles and the wisps of young plants pushing through the rotting organic matter.
I know I’m heading in the right direction when I watch the cattle graze dense, diverse, water-holding forage in the headwaters of the mighty Hudson River watershed, dropping biologically charged worm food behind them and enjoying the sight of young fledglings and empty-nesters picking flies off the faces of some happy bovines. I also realize less tugging on my purse strings by not buying expensive inputs. Now is this really that ugly?
“Even the Elder tree bent down its bows into the water before him, and the sun shone warm and bright. Then he rustled his feathers, curved his slender neck and cried joyfully, from the depths of his heart, ‘I never dreamed of such happiness as this, while I was an ugly duckling.’”
by Troy Bishopp, Northeast NatGLC Grazing Resource Manager
