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A Picture Worth 789 Words

Earlier this month marked 3 months that I’ve been at Rock Hills Ranch. I’ve learned a lot and I can’t wait to see what else I will learn.

 

I was going through my photos the other day and realized that I have lots of photos of grass now. Luke made the comment that we take care of the grass; and this is true, but it has also taken care of the breed of humans who are called cowboys. We are just about done cutting hay here at RHR and normally I listen to a country music stations as the Twins game have an extremely annoying squeal. I was cutting hay down on the flats and I heard a couple songs that inspired this journal.

Jason Aldean’s song “Fly Over States” has always been a favorite of mine, but especially the line that says “Feel that freedom on your face, breathe in all that open space.” Jamey Johnson sings “In Color” which is the story of a Grandfather explaining all of his black and white photos to a grandson and he states “They say a pictures worth a thousand words, but you can’t see what those shades of gray keep covered, you should have seen it in color.”   Lately I’ve been trying to get a lot of work done during the day light hours so I can take the dusk time to go check cattle when it is cooler and there is more activity. I sat there on Elmer (one of the horses here) and I saw a pretty nice sunset- if you like cows and hills and grass like I do. I’ll see if I can paint the picture for you.

The golden sun was almost done with its descent down the western half of the sky, about 45 minutes from dropping behind the top of the ridge covered in grasses and forbs and sedges and other plants. There were wispy clouds piercing through the baby blue sky and at times covering the sun and negating the warmth for a few seconds.

The air was still for a few minutes and the sound of the mature cows munching grass and calling to their calves, who were about 100 feet away running and jumping and fighting their herd mates, filled the air. Across the valley you could hear the bulls bellowing to establishing their rank on the totem pole for the remainder of the breeding season. The air was still enough and my perch atop Elmer was just right that you could feel the vibrations from the low sound waves coming from the bellies of the bulls.

The grass is more tan than green this time of year; it’s dry here. – We are very grateful of every drop of water that we get. – The Kentucky bluegrass has headed out and is maturing to a tan color and the brome grass is hanging onto every ounce of green pigmentation that it has. A light, light green appears every now and then in a patch of wormwood. The only really green patches are the buck brush leaves and just up stream from dugouts.

I sit atop of a sorrel (kind of a reddish color) gelding with a white blaze on his face and 3 white socks on his legs. My striped brown saddle pad and my big Hereford saddle cover his back. The sun is just right to blind me by the glare that comes off my spurs and I think “man, that’s bright”. I look up at the western horizon and determine that it’s time to head back into the yard. I signal for Elmer to move and cue him to start long trotting most of the 3-mile journey home. I had things a little backwards from the typical cowboy and sunset picture, as I was riding southeast and the sunsets in the west southwest. There I am, long trotting a sorrel gelding through grass that almost reached his belly and my cinch, my spurs jingling and the leather squeaking. It was like I had rode right out of a John Wayne Movie.

I am very fortunate to be spending this time here. There’s just something about the wide-open spaces that help a young man sort through all the things on his mind. The rolling hills, the rocks bigger than my car, the ocean of grass. Rock Hills Ranch has numerous places that you can look out from the top of a hill and see what freedom looks like. I wanted all of you readers to try to paint that picture in your mind before you got to a picture I snapped while on my way back in to the yard earlier this summer.

So I Described my ride on a reddish horse at sunset, but I like this picture better.
So I Described my ride on a reddish horse at sunset, but I like this picture better.

Keep your cinches pulled tight everyone.

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Thoughts from the Tractor Cab

Our regular readers were probably wondering, “When is that Rob kid going to post again?” Well folks, I’m back. And yes, Luke asked me how my journal post was coming along as an extra driving aid to get this journal done. To be honest, I had a pretty difficult time brainstorming ideas for this journal; and yes, I followed my high school English teachers’ suggestions of writing the intro last. I’ve been spending a fair amount of time in the tractor recently, and most of this was thought out in the cab while cutting or raking hay. So I hope this is enjoyable for you guys to read.

 

I’ve spent almost two and a half months here at Rock Hills Ranch now, and it would take me several journal posts to write and start explaining everything that I’ve learned and observed here. I’ve learned about range monitoring, different ways to plan out grazing systems, and a more. I wrote a whole journal post on observations, and there’s more than what I wrote about then. Some of the things have been brand new to me and some are good refreshers to my mind.

I was cutting hay down in what we call the flats-I told Luke and Lyle it’s more like you’re in a boat on the water with how the tractor rides-and I thought to myself “ What would the old time cowboys think about all the stuff we do here? I mean, what would they think of cross fencing, rotational grazing, how we run around to the different herds on 4 wheelers instead of horses, range monitoring and everything else we do?” and that made me sit and think. Why do we do all this stuff? So here’s Rob’s explanation of why we do what we do.

Cross fencing. If you ask just about any person my age what their least favorite part about cows is, 95% would say fencing. Fencing can be no fun at times. It’s hot, you’re swinging a post pounder driving in posts trying not to hit a subsurface rock, and you only have half mile more of posts every 20 feet apart. Old wire is brittle and doesn’t bend the right way, the new wire is a spring ready to go everywhere if you don’t take it off the spool the right way. I look at it as “if you’re gonna have cows, you’re gonna have fencing to do.” Here at RHR, I’ve been told that we have somewhere around 60 miles of fence and almost half is interior cross fencing. Why? Part of it is previous owners who divided it into smaller pastures and a big reason is so that we can keep the cattle in a certain area so that we can have a better utilization of the grass. On the other side of that thought is that we can keep cattle out of certain areas for different reasons.

Rotational Grazing. Luke and I move groups of cattle every week. Out of one area and into the next. Why? Grass. We move the cattle through the different pastures at different times for the grass. We know that certain species are more palatable at certain times of the growing phase. We run the cows in a big enough group that they shouldn’t be able to pick and choose what grasses to eat, instead they have to get a mouth full of everything out there. This is better for the grass because then one species isn’t taking all the abuse. In one of my range classes with Dr. Sandy Smart at SDSU, he compared and contrasted rotational grazing to season long(turn cows out in spring and don’t move them until fall) using two circles drawn on the white board. Both circles were divided into half, and on one side of both circles, Sandy wrote leave. He then explained how many land managers use a “take half, leave half” approach. Leaving half of the grass that is available allows the grass to have a chance to regrow healthily, provide habitat to ground nesting birds and small animals and a few other reasons. He then went to the season long grazed circle and drew a line dividing the half into two quarters. In the top quarter he wrote “trampled” meaning that of the half of grass you take, half of it will be stepped on, lay on, anything but ate. The last quarter he wrote “throat” meaning that only 25% of what grass was available, was actually eaten. The rotational grazing circle the 50% that was taken was divided into two unequal parts. For an example, we’ll say that instead of 25% being ate, you can increase it to 35-40%! This is because the cows aren’t allowed to be picky about which grass to eat; another 10-15% could be a lot of grass depending on the ground!   Rotational grazing also helps cows with more consistent weight gains, keeps nutrition more equal which plays into reproductive performance. The number one reason of why cows leave the farm is reproductive status according to university studies. There are more benefits to rotational grazing, but I’m just going to highlight a few.

4 wheelers and range monitoring. Anyone who knows me knows that I would pick a horse over a 4 wheeler just like the old time cowboys. The truth is, sometimes I have to get 5 miles down the road right now to get to the hay field. I also know that when we take mineral and salt to the cows, I’ve had several hundred pounds of it strapped to the ATV, or when we move cows, we pull a salt and mineral feeder sled behind the ATV and they can weigh a lot. And blah blah blah.. Enough on 4 wheelers, and more on Range monitoring. Each time we move cows, we do range monitoring. We use our handy dandy grazing yardstick, and head out. We try to find a place that is a good uniform representation of the whole pasture and take a picture. We then use the grazing stick to measure the height of the key species in the pasture-this is where Rob struggles because is this Kentucky Bluegrass? Is it Green Needle Grass? Side Oats Gramma? I’m getting better though!- We take these pictures and use them for record keeping. These records are used in grazing recording and planning, it is used in conservation programs that we do, and it helps them know what condition they have left the range in. We care a lot about the land and we want to make sure we aren’t abusing the resource we have.

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Why do we do what we do? We do it to take care of the land. When we take care of the land, it takes care of us. Lyle and Garnet have taken care of the land so that Luke and Naomi can be here. I know that they are doing their best to take care of the land so that the kids can have a chance at taking care of the land. That’s what everyone involved in family ag operations do. They take care of the land for the next generation.

Why do we do what we do?

It’s not for us, it’s for them.

 

Keep your cinch pulled tight.

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Robservations and Toilet Seats

When I was a child, my family drove to the Black Hills to pick my  older sisters up from bible camp. It was a full day’s drive across the state, which seemed like an eternity to my brother and younger sister. I remember that we were driving through Western South Dakota and I asked my parents: “Why do the people have big grain bins in their yard? All I see out the car window is pastures, cows and hay bales.” My parents explained that the fields were far enough off the road than what we could see, but that that was a very good observation for an 8 year old boy. Since then, I’ve always liked observing things around me.  The rest of this journal is going to explain some of the “Robservations” I’ve made around Rock Hills Ranch and don’t you worry; the toilet seat part of the title is where we’ll start.

 

Our story starts in the Brookings, South Dakota Runnings Farm and Fleet store, where I worked in college, in the middle of February. It was a Saturday Morning, and I had just gotten out of the office with my boss. He told me that I needed to make sure I said hello to any customer who came within 15 feet of me and not get “tunnel vision” about my task at hand. I returned to the electric fence aisle where I was putting away insulators for attaching the wire to steel fence posts and mumbled to myself “Why are we starting to stock this? Fencing season isn’t for another several months.” That’s when I made the observation that a gentleman was pushing a cart at the end of my aisle and he appeared to be looking for something. That was the very first time I met the man named Lyle Perman. I walked up and said “Hi, can I help you find something?” Lyle said he was looking for the plumbing aisle and Rob laughed “We have 6 plumbing aisles, what specifically are you looking for?” You guessed it. I led Lyle over to the toilet seats, he said thank you and turned to look at the selection. That’s when Rob made the observation that started his adventure. “Excuse me sir, but is that the name of your operation and your brand on your hat?” Lyle turned back to me with a smile and said “Yes, my son and his wife ranch with my wife and me. Why do you ask?” I then explained that my family is neighbors with the Kopriva family who won the South Dakota Leopold Conservation Award in 2012, and that I looked up the award and I knew that the Permans had won it in 2014. Lyle’s smile got even bigger and we began to talk about what I was going to school for and what I wanted to do in my life and Lyle said “You should apply for our ranch internship. I want you to apply. This afternoon since our deadline was earlier this week. I’ll call Luke and tell him to watch for your application.” I said that I would and we parted ways… for 20 minutes. Lyle came back into the store and tracked me down and handed me a business card with Luke’s phone number hand written on the back and said “My son is waiting for you to call him this afternoon.” The rest is history because here I am now!

Ok, so now that we got the toilet seat part out of the way, I can write about what I wanted to focus on what I really wanted to elaborate on: observations.

 

I’ve been here a month now, and a lot has gone on; we’ve has had numerous chances to observe. I’ll highlight some of the observations the gang has made. If I made a list of every one of them, my friends would call me shaggy- more on this in the list.

1. During one of our quick “check in with each other” meetings, Luke was explaining how he wanted me to use the grazing stick and he made the comment, “The cows take care of themselves for the most part, yes we occasionally have to step in and help by giving vaccinations or doctor something, but they take care of themselves. We take care of the grass.” Since then, I’ve observed that the tasks on my weekly to do lists are focusing on the grass. They range from doing rangeland observations where we measure the grass before and after grazing to tasks such as cross fencing pastures so the cows use the grass more efficiently.

2. Isaac and Ella are super observant. The first time they saw me after I shaved for the first time in several weeks they right away said “Mr. Rob, your face looks different.”  Garnet has observed that Rob is really good at saying he will try to be in at 12:30-because that’s when he was told food would be ready- and not actually showing up until 1. Thank goodness she always saves me some food!!

3. When we move cattle into their new pastures, we measure the grass with the grazing stick and take photos at observation points(a big rock or other landmark that won’t move) and we use the information from these observation points in our record keeping. We also go to the same observation points after cattle have left and we can use the information together to determine how much we took.

4. I’ve observed that there’s something in the water here at Rock Hills Ranch. Luke and Naomi have 2 sets of twins, the family that lived here before them had a set of twins, when entering the calving records into the computer I noticed a fair number of twins. I learned that I’m not the first intern to give themselves a hair cut. Something in the water makes families have twins and makes the interns cut their own hair…. Don’t worry mom, I didn’t cut my ear off and it grows back and I’m always wearing a hat anyway!

 

I may have just graduated from college, but my learning is never going to be done. Observation is one of the oldest ways of learning, and we all learn from observation; whether we realize it or not.  There are many more things to observe in my time here at Rock Hills Ranch, and for the rest of my life. I challenge any of you readers out there to stop and think about something you observed today.

 

I hope you guys found the story of how I got to Rock Hills Ranch interesting, funny, and agree that someone with more power than Rob played a role in the meeting with Lyle. It just goes to show that you never know who you’ll meet and never know when. It also shows how much it pays off to be observant.

 

As promised, I’d find a unique way to end my posts; ’til next time pardner, keep your cinch pulled tight.

Polywire cross fences are one way we take care of the grass.
Polywire cross fences are one way we take care of the grass.