Korea - Small Farms and Roadside Vegetable Patches

After attending one term of college at Utah State University, I worked towards going on a mission as many LDS young men did and do.  I did not know where I would go, but I completed the requisite work to submit the necessary paperwork to be considered for a mission.  I was called to serve in the Korea Pusan Mission.  Pusan is in the southern most part of South Korea.  In effect, the mission covered the bottom half of South Korea.

I did not go on a mission to learn new things about farming, but given my predisposition towards looking for things about farming to learn, I found that I learned much in Korea.  The things I learned related to such topics as solar greenhouses, small farms, kitchen gardens wherever there could be a garden, terraced farming, tractor alternatives, and new fruits and vegetables.

In the first city I lived in, Masan, we lived in a relatively tall apartment building.  I don't recall specifically, but I'd guess it was about 20 stories tall.  One of the very interesting things I saw there was that outside of the apartment building, along the sides of the roads, people that lived in the apartment building would till up any few little square feet of space they could find to plant vegetables.  They planted radishes, greens, garlic and other things.  The importance of fresh food was real.  Many of the people living in the apartment grew up in the country where fresh food was part of normal life.  They knew that what they could get at the market was not as fresh, nor as tasty.

Today in many places in the U. S. farmers markets are a big thing, a new thing.  In Korea, that was the order of the day.  If you wanted to buy food, there were no Albertsons, Safeway's, or Costco's.  There were basically open air markets where farmers brought in their products on a daily basis and sold them.  Refrigeration was still relatively rare where I lived, so daily purchases at the markets were in order.  In Masan we had a man who did our cooking and helped keep the apartment clean.  He would visit the market daily.  He cooked up some pretty fantasic Korean/American food, all from the daily market, which was effectively a farmer's market.

On occassion, when I would travel between cities, I would inevitably travel through the country.  During the cold winter months, I would see hoop houses, or solar greenhouses along the way.  When it was getting close to dark, I would see farmers unrolling what I presume were rice straw mats over the top of the greenhouse for a small amount of insulation at night.  Winter hardy vegetables were harvested all year long.  These included things like radishes, certain cabbages, carrots, etc.  These winter hardy vegetables were grown in the late summer and early fall.  The solar greenhouses basically acted as a way to hold the good quality vegetables in suspense over the course of the winter where they could be harvested and sold as needed through the winter months.  I thought it was very ingenious.

With small parcels of land, and limited budgets, Korean farmers relied on smaller scale technology.  For plowing, hauling, and other farming activities that U. S. farmers would use tractors for, the Koreans used what I called a "two-wheeled tractor."  These could be attached to implements and trailers.  I saw them being used as the family automobile, hauling the family to market in town in the trailer.  This too seemed like an approriate technology to me.  I learned that bigger was not always better.

As in most Asian countries, rice growing was king.  Rice is traditionally grown in a level terraced system.  Often these level terraces went up the mountainside.  These terraces were flooded for much of the growing season, primarily as a method of weed control.  Rice is tolerant of their roots being submerged.  Most other plants are not.  In Korea, the summer was the rainy season, so accessing water to keep the terraces submerged was not a big problem.  The paddies were drained at the end of August and in early September, the rice matured and was harvested.  The first rice was a big deal in Korea.  It was celebrated.  The Korean "Thanksgiving" revolved around the harvest of the first rice.  While not subsistence farming, the farming in Korea was close enough to subsistence farming to make me feel and understand the gratitude that they had for the food as the harvest was happening.

I certainly don't claim to have any expertise in Korean farming, the things I saw and learned made a life long impression on me.  I learned from their farming techniques and approaches as well as their attitude towards and gratitude for real food.

Off to College - Quitting Rawl's Farm after Eight Years

It was obvious to me.  Through my adolescent years, I knew that one day would arrive that I would have to tell Rawl that I would be leaving his farm to go off to college.  I didn't know if it was obvious to Rawl or to his wife, Virginia, or not.  I thought it was obvious, but even for a teen, relatively inexperienced in terms of understanding biases developed through life, I thought that he might not understand.  For a long time I had wanted to go to Utah State University, the Land Grant university in the state of Utah.

Towards the end of my Junior year of high school, I determined that I needed to tell Rawl of my plans.  I knew that Rawl depended on me.  I knew that he had more cows in his herd because I was there the help him.  I wondered whether or not he might retire when I left.  I wondered if he would find someone else to take my place.  These were questions that I contemplated and weighed heavily on my mind.  Given the potential for life altering events for him, I felt I needed to give him a good year or so notice regarding what my intentions were.

In sort of an akward way, I asked Rawl and Virginia if I could take them to dinner.  I asked them if they wanted to pick a restaurant.  We went to a Chinese restaurant, somewhere in Layton.  I don't recall the name.  We hustled through evening chores so we could get home, clean up, and go out to eat before it was too late.

I don't recall the dinner being all that memorable in and of itself, but I told Rawl and Virginia that my plan was to leave Farmington in September of the following year and go to school in Logan.  Rawl had a fairly narrow window in mind of when I may leave, but he was imagining a different scenario.  Rather that going straight to college, he wondered whether or not I would work for him until I went on a mission sometime the following Spring.  That was not my plan, and he didn't work too hard to convince me otherwise.  All in all, both he and Virginia were appreciative of the heads up on my plan.

As time passed, Rawls intentions became clear.  He intended to sell his dairy herd when I left.  As my last summer working for him came, he began shopping around his cows and heifers.  Farmers from within 100 or so miles came to see his cows and to bargain with him.  Towards the end of the summer, Rawl had determined to sell his herd to a dairy farmer somewhere in the North Ogden area.  Before I went to school, he sold his heifers.  The rest of the cows would be sold over a few weeks.

I agreed with Rawl, that I would come home from Logan on the weekends and help him milk the cows and care for the remaining herd as long as he had them.  That went on about another four or five weeks.  I would hurry home to help milk the cows, while Rawl and his son put corn silage up in the pit silo.  On Sunday evening, I would drive back up to Logan for school.

It was a sad transition for me.  I was concerned that my leaving Rawl's farm would cause him to want to sell his dairy.  His dairy was a permanent fixture in my childhood life, recollections, and mind.  I felt a twinge of guilt, as if I were somehow responsible for the demise of his means of earning a living.

One weekend I came home, and all of the cows were gone.  The only stock remaining were the steers left over from previous calvings.  My heart hung low.  Rawl was happy though.  Ultimately, he thanked me for the timing.  There was a bubble on dairy cattle prices that summer that fell off towards the spring when he had hoped I would leave.  He also was able to get out of the dairy farm schedule rut that so many people detest.  He was able to ease into retirement in good health and reasonably financially secure.

It was an end of a very important era in my life.  I learned much from Rawl, his cows, and the experiences I had on his farm.  As I learned more in my later life, I came to realize just how forward thinking Rawl really was.  I owe a deep debt of gratitude to him.  He was not a parent to me, but very much like a second parent, or a very involved grandparent.

I still have dreams of working on Rawl's farm, to this day.  The experiences are permanently etched in my mind.

Park Valley Property - Preparing for the End of the World

When I was a teenager, perhaps about 14 years old, my parents investigated the idea of buying ten acres in Park Valley, Utah.  Note I did not say Park City, Utah, but Park Valley, Utah.  Most people that live in Utah have no idea where Park Valley is, let alone non-Utahns.  Park Valley is about five miles south of the Idaho border in northwest Utah.  The largest nearby down is probably Snowville.  Don't know where Snowville is?  You get the point.  Park Valley was in the middle of nowhere, so to speak.

This investigation occurred back in the mid 70's.  We had just weathered the OPEC oil embargo and the Cold War was in full swing.  The fact that we were located about 15 miles south of Hill Air Force Base, a perceived military target, didn't cause any great relief either.  The general tone of the time in my community was that we needed to be prepared to take care of ourselves in case of another oil embargo or in the case of a Soviet military attack on Hill Air Force Base, or even Salt Lake City.  The Church, ever warning of being prepared, grow your own food, store a year's supply of food, etc., helped inspire a preparedness attitude in the wake of the macro level uncertainties.

With that as a backdrop, my parents started the evaluation of the Park Valley property with  my enthusiastic participation.  Park Valley was in the middle of the desert, with annual rainfall of probably about 10 inches.  We drove out to Park Valley and looked at a couple of pieces of property.  We asked about wells.  We looked at photographs of gardens people were able to grow on the mineral rich, organic matter poor, desert soils.  We considered what it would take to build a house and raise our own food.  We thought of the goodness about living away from Hill Air Force Base and from the main population centers in Utah.  We thought of having livestock and hunting in the Sawtooth Mountains for part of our food.  We thought about heating with wood and what it would take to be self-sufficient.  These were all part of the deliberation and imaginative process leading up to a decision about the property.

The sales person was persistent and persuasive.  Eventually we decided to buy the property.  I pitched in a small amount of money for the down payment as I wanted to be part of the investment and the potential activity.

After we purchased the property, we went camping on the property, which was a very memorable experience for me.  There was an owl that lived in a juniper tree on the property.  The owl made its very noticeable "Hoo, hoo, hoo" call through the night.  Two of my brothers and I slept outside under a juniper tree looking at the stars.  I saw more stars that night than I have ever seen since then.  Located about 50 miles from any sizeable city, the light pollution was non-existent.  The stars were brilliant, enchanting, and mesmerizing.  The air was fresh.  There was no road noise, no people noises.  It was near silent, except for the owl and occassional rustling brush in the wind.

I wanted this property to be a bastion of self sufficiency.  My Dad investigated the possibility of work in the two room school house in town.  We determined that it would not be feasible to move there.  I plotted and planned how I could build a house there and make a living.  What could I do from home?  Could I do a mail order business?  Remember, this was well before the internet and e-commerce.  Could I do gunsmithing?  Could I raise and sell food?  My imagination went wild, but I never reallly concluded on anything.

Although the Park Valley property never really turned into that bastion of self-sufficiency, it inspired a great deal of thinking about what it would take to be self-sufficient and what it would take to grow my own food and provide fuel for heating and cooking.  Acquiring the property and thinking through options and ideas were very influential in the formative period of my life as I planned the future farm in my life.

I haven't been to the Park Valley property for many years.  I could not find it if I drove there today.  I would probably need a surveyor to help me find it.  At this point in my life, I have no real interest in pursuing the property as a farm.  I sometimes do wonder about a little cabin on the property, and the potential of seeing those stars again, and maybe hearing the owl call "Hoo, hoo, hoo" in the brilliant darkness of night.

The Mother Earth News

Way back in the 70's, my parents occassionally subscribed to new magazine, The Mother Earth News.  This was kind of a countercultural, back to the land movement sort of magazine for aging (30 something) hippies.  My parents didn't fit that description, but they were both frugal of mind and heart and the idea of doing things for themselves, raising their own food, and supporting themselves fit very well within their way of thinking.

As a teen, I would read selected articles out of The Mother Earth News.  I would read about how to build low cost structures like rammed-earth homes, adobe, straw bale, log cabins, underground houses, stone root cellars, etc.  I would learn about how to build a low-cost wind generator, or water turbine as well as installing solar electricity.  I would learn about heating with passive solar, wood, geothermal, etc.  I would learn about heating water through a copper coil on the back of a wood stove, or running a hose through a heating compost pile, or passive solar heating.  I would learn about baking bread, raising heritage breed chickens, and the different breeds of draft horses.  The Mother Earth News has a lot to offer to an imaginative, self-sufficient farmer wannabe.

One of the articles that stuck in my mind was the evaluation of the different breeds of draft horses.  I learned that you could certainly tread lightly on the land with draft horses and meet all of your motive power for farming.  You could minimize soil compaction with horses, compared to tractors.  Horses could gather (pasture) or raise (hay and grain) their own feed.  Different breeds had different advantages and disadvantages.  The beautiful Clydesdales (of Budweiser fame) were magestic beasts, with feathering at the tops of their hoofs (like the Shires as well).  Belgians were popular with the Amish and were the most numerous and most available breed.  The Suffolk Punches really caught my eye because they were the only breed that were specifically bred for farm work.  They were a tad smaller than the other breeds, but had body conformation and temperment that made them especially suitable for farm work.  I put my eye on the Suffolk Punches for my farm because of The Mother Earth News.

The Mother Earth News introduced me to the idea of rare breeds or heritage breeds that were being lost due lack of use by "progressive, industrialized agriculture."  When it came to chickens, the Dominique really caught my eye.  It looked a lot like the black-and-white speckled Barred Plymouth Rock.  The Barred Plymouth Rock was long consided the small farm bird of choice.  The Barred Plymouth Rock was derived in part by crossing the Dominiques, with the white Plymouth Rock (I believe).  When reading the description of the Dominiques, I read that they were especially good foragers, meaning they found much if not most of their own food.  Some of the newer breeds liked to hang around the feeder waiting to be fed.  The Dominiques went out and rustled up their own grub.  They laid a moderate amount of eggs and produced meat to boot.  Another feature of the Dominique that I found attractive was that it was endangered.  There were few breeding birds left in the world.  I loved the idea of the Dominique as a contributing member of my own farm.

Through my adult years, I have subscribed to The Mother Earth News probably half of the time.  Sometimes it was a bit too much of a financial burden.  Sometimes I just loved having it come every month.  Sometimes I would subscribe and read it cover to cover.  Some months it would go unread.  Sometimes when I was not subscribing, I would pick up a copy and Barnes & Noble or New Seasons.

The magazine changed much over the years, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.  It changed ownership at least three times, I believe.  At a point about 15 years ago or so, it briefly went from a pragmatic, down to earth do-it-yourself magazine to kind of a new agey, earth spirit, self-proclaimed environmentalist magazine.  I think that bit lasted about four issues before it became clear it was an unmitigated disaster.  Don't get me wrong, The Mother Earth News has always had just a bit of that hippie based new agey, earth spirit, environmental magazine, but at its heart, it was always a down to earth magazine about how to live self-sufficiently and pragmatically, while enjoying and living a healthy country life style.

The Mother Earth News has helped me frame the way I think about living in the country and being self-sufficient.  Today, you will find it in a stack of magazine by my reading chair, adding additional insights and bits of information as I think about and plan for the farm.

Book from My Parents - How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty

Back in the "olden days" of 1979, my parents recognized my obsession with self-sufficiency and growing my own food, and fed the obsession with a book for my birthday.  The book was titled, How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty.  This book was not quite as influential on my thinking as The Have-More Plan, which I mentioned in an earlier post.  Yet it gave me an updated view on some of the things I could do to accomplish my goals.  The book is a dog-eared paper back, having been read several times and referenced many more times than that.

How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty was a key reference for me in my late high school, college, and early married years.  Particularly after high school, I had almost zero discretionary income.  While living in Logan, I would go the the local book store and drool over books related to gardening, livestock, farming, and self-sufficiency.  I succumbed once and bought a book on small livestock by Jerry Belanger for $5.95.  This book, How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty, along with The Have-More Plan, carried me through my thought experiments during my early adult years.

The Table of Contents discusses changing your lifestyle, growing vegetables and fruits, livestock, and even cooking.  Other than a relatively brief mention, The Have-More Plan did not discuss cooking.  I'd like to say that cooking is a foundational self-sufficiency skill.  If you don't know how to cook reasonably well, self-sufficiency could certainly be drudgery.  This book helped me to realize that.

I recall many times trying to figure the optimal way to raise hogs on a small scale.  I would read the chapter from The Have-More Plan, then the chapter from this book.  I would note the differences.  One would focus more on efficiency.  The other would focus more on raising more of the feed for the hogs yourself and purchasing less.  Each would recommend slightly different housing or access to pasture.

Chickens would be similar to the hogs.  One would recommend humane confined housing and the other would recommend free-range, with adequate protection from predators.  In one situation the eggs may abe easier to find than the other, but conversely, in the other, the feed costs would be lower and egg quality higher.

The varied reading and different ideas and ideals challenged my own thinking.  There truly was and is no "one right way" to do things.  I would read a chapter here and there and ponder and think of how I may adapt the ideas.  The books challenged my foundational thinking.  What were my ideals related to food production?  What was quality food?  How should I treat animals?  How would I optimize my time or the time of those who may help me?  What would I do myself and what would I have someone do for me?  What would I buy and what would I raise myself?

How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty set me on a path of exploration which included a lifetime of study of alternatives and the comparison and contrasting of those alternatives.  This study and intellectual development over literally decades have gotten me to the point where I am today in my thinking.  This study set me off on different avenues of study through my life that frame the way I think about food, nutrition, health, ethics, sustainability, self-sufficiency, economics, etc.

Although I have not read this book for probably 15 years. the lessons were valuable in helping me grow, develop, and come to what I consider to be a relatively wholistic view all of the things discussed above.

Thanks Mom and Dad for the gift of this book and the beneficial impact it has had on my life.

Delicious Raw Milk from Rawl's Cows

On the northeast side of Rawl's milking barn was the "milkhouse."  The milkhouse was a separate, extra clean room where the milk was stored.  It was also the place where all of the milking equipment was washed and sanitized.  The milk came into the milk room through sealed, stainless steel milk lines (pipes).  The milk was received into a roughly five gallon glass jar, then pumped through a filter into a 500 gallon DeLaval bulk milk tank, where it was immediately cooled to 34 degrees.  In the bulk tank was a paddle that stirred the milk to ensure that it was uniformly cold.  Additionally, the paddle stirred the unhomogenized raw milk to keep the butterfat mixed into the milk.  If raw cows milk is not stirred, the butterfat rises to the top of the milk.

Ever since reading the chapter in The Have-More Plan on keeping a family cow, I was intrigued and interested in trying some fresh cows milk.  Growing up, we mostly drank reconstituted powdered milk, not the most delicious kind of milk.  Powdered milk was less expensive than the alternatives.  One day while helping Rawl, I was brave enough to ask him if I could have a taste of milk, fresh from the cows.  He opened up the top of his bulk tank and dipped a clean stainless steel cup into the tank retrieving a full glass of milk for me.  I tasted it and was pleasantly surprised.  The milk was sweeter and creamier than any milk I had tasted before.  One glass and I was hooked.  The milk was fresh, raw, unhomogenized milk from pastured dairy cows.

Having become enthralled by the taste of the milk, I wondered whether or not Rawl would let me keep a cow at his farm so I could produce fresh milk for my family.  Rawl told me that if I got a good stainless steel milk can that I could take milk from his bulk tank for my family - free of charge.  That was a great deal.  I was able to take milk home for my family for several years.  We had a one gallon glass jar in the fridge at home in which we would store the milk.  The cream would separate and we would ladle it off to put on our oatmeal or other hot cereal.  This was good stuff.  Sometimes people worry about the safety of raw milk.  In the roughly eight years I brought milk home to my family no one ever got sick from the raw milk.  We thrived on it.

If you are going to produce or drink raw milk, cleanliness is imperative.  Rawl's milk would be tested every tankful by the milk cooperative that bought his milk.  The county health inspector would test the milk every month.  These tests would include several things, but the key tests of importantance for milk quality are related to bacteria counts and leucocyte counts.  Three different bacteria counts were regularly performed, a raw count, a pasteurized count, and a coliform count.  For each of the tests, the milk was incubated for 24 hours to allow the number of bacteria to multiply.  While the results varied somewhat over time, Rawl's raw count was typically between 1,000 and 2,000 per milliliter.  The pasteurized count was typically between 100 and 200 per milliliter.  The coliform count was typically zero.  Those results were excellent.  Typical Grade A milk had a raw count of about 20,000 per milliliter and a pasteurized count of about 1,000 per milliliter.  Rawl's results were excellent due to careful milk handling and sanitation practices we followed.  Rawl's coliform count was typically zero.  A coliform count of zero means that there was no manure contamination.  If you have ever been around cows, you may understand why zero manure contamination is no small feat.  

Comparatively speaking, if you grab a gallon of milk off the shelf at the store, the bacteria count will be approximatley 3,500 per milliliter, using the same test procedures.  In reality, Rawl's raw milk had lower bacteria counts than the pasteurized milk you buy off the shelf in the store.  Lastly, leucocyte counts represent the amount of white blood cell counts in the milk.  Rawl almost always had excellent scores in the 100,000 range.  This indicated that his cows' udder health was good - no mastitis.

I could make this a treatise about the cautions and benefits of good raw milk, but much has already been written about that by others.  If I could choose the milk that I would feed my family, it would be well-produced and handled, raw, grass-fed, unhomogenized, organic milk.  You can't find it in the store in many states.  Where you can find it, it is typically about three to four times the cost of conventionally raised milk, which meets none on my criteria.  Good milk is a wonderful tasting, health promoting product.... my mind slips back to that first glass of milk from Rawl's bulk tank--refreshing!

Hauling Hay and the Value of Pasture

As a ten year old, I was ill-equipped to haul hay.  The small bales of hay weighed as much, and sometimes more than I did with the bales weighing in at 70-90 pounds.  I watched the "men" haul the hay for the first couple of years I worked for Rawl.  When I was 12, I was asked to drive the tractor in the field while the others picked up the bales and stacked them on the wagon towed behind the tractor.  I felt like a king driving the tractor, particularly the John Deere 3020 that Rawl had.  I had to grab onto the hand hold in the fender as well as by the steering wheel as I pulled myself up to the driving platform and seat.

From atop the tractor I could see the hard work, picking up the bales, walking them over to the wagon and either putting them on the wagon or pushing them up in the air onto the stack as the wagon got full.  Usually two people would pick up bales and bring them to the wagon while one person carefully stacked the bales on the wagon.  Stacking the bales on the wagon required both muscle and finesse.  The worst thing ever would be for the stack to fall apart as you drove down the road or pulled in to the barnyard.  The stack on the wagon had to be sturdy enough to endure bumps in the road, braking the tractor, and the steep downhill and uphill slopes encountered when maneuvering the tractor from the hay field to the barn or stacking area.

By the time I was 13, I was strong enough to begin to help hauling hay.  It was fulfilling to know that I had reached that level of masculinity (try not to laugh).  I even tried hauling hay without my shirt on.  That was a bad choice.  I don't recommend that.  The hay, primarily alfalfa, was unforgiving as it gouged my skin and made me bleed.  The pollen from the hay would get onto my skin and in the scratches and made my skin welt up.  My suggestion:  keep your shirt on.

Hauling hay was hard work.  It was physical and exhausting.  We would haul hay from right after breakfast at about 9:00, to milking time at 4:00.  We would take a quick break for lunch as well.  By the end of the day, I was ready to crawl into bed at 8:00.  Rawl had 13-20 acres of hay, depending on the year.  The hay yielded 5-7 tons to the acres, over three cuttings.  We hauled roughly 50-60 tons of hay each year with the first cutting in early June, the second cutting in mid July, and the last cutting in mid to late August.  These were hot and sweaty times of the year.

While stacking the hay on the wagon was important, stacking in the barn or yard was at least as important.  We would put roughly 60-70 bales on a wagon, but we would put 2,500 bales in the barn. The stack had to be built well so it didn't fall down during the time is was stored in the barn.  The stacks got 20-30 feet high with the use of a hay conveyor.  Careful building was required.  Rawl "taught" me several times how to build as stack before I gained a good understanding and became proficient.

One day, after hauling hay, but right before milking time, Rawl said to me that pasture is really where he made the money that he made on the farm.  I was puzzled.  "Why is that?" I asked.  He said, he didn't have to pay anyone to harvest the pasture because the cows harvested the pasture themselves.  I thought that was interesting, but didn't see that what he paid people to haul hay as very much.  What I didn't consider was all of the equipment, fuel, repairs, maintenance, storage space, etc. that he had to pay for to harvest hay.  Is was worse for corn silage.  On pasture the cows fed themselves, and spread fertilizer while they fed themselves.  It would be years before I realized the simple genius of this concept.

Rawl had earned a special award from the Soil Conservation District for his pasture management.  I didn't get the idea.  It seemed to me that Rawl was a little backwards.  After all, it seemed like no one else still pastured their dairy cows.  I thought Rawl was a little old fashioned.  I thought it was okay, but it seemed to me he was a little behind the times.  I had no idea how far ahead of the curve he was.  Rawl practiced what is commonly called "strip grazing."  In effect, this is a special kind of "Management Intensive Grazing" (MIG), where you give the cows just what they need to meet their daily nutritional requirements well, but not enough so that they spoiled any of it.  This strip grazing allowed the grass to be harvested cleanly by the cows, but then given a rest of about five weeks to recover and grow before it was again harvested by the cows.  This allowed for more nutrient dense feed to be managed in a way that suppressed weeds, prevented soil erosion, built organic matter, improved butterfat yield, improved cow health and all other manner of fantastical things.  Rawl was decades ahead of other dairy or beef farmers on this issue.  Even today, forty years later, many still have not learned the lessons Rawl had learned and put into practice.

I have learned much more about the concepts and science behind MIG over the past 10-15 years.  I hope to be able to implement what Rawl knew and practiced as well as other elements of MIG and other biological farming processes that could make it even better.  Rawl was a good mentor in teaching me about pastures and the value it brought to the farm.

As I look back and think, would I rather cut the hay, rake the hay, bale the hay, haul the hay, stack the hay, feed the hay, clean up the manure, and spread the manure; or would I rather move a single wire in the field and let the cows take care of all that.  I will choose the pasture when it is possible.  I will also be prepared to deal with the hay while trying hard to let the cows do the work as often as is possible.  Simple is good.  Let the cows be cows.  Use human management to help the cows help, rather than harm the environment.