#096, In Practice, July/Aug 2004

20th Anniversary

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1984-2004

IN PRACTICE a publication of the savory center

July/August 2004 * Number 96

www.holisticmanagement.org

HM2—Holistic Management Squared

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

by Robert Graham When we examine the lives of Holistic Management practitioners, we soon become aware of how much they share in common— the external realities of their land, animals, techniques, and challenges. Then as we go deeper, we realize just how unique each person is in his/her internal landscape. Here we discover what Allan Savory calls “the driving force behind every decision we make.”

And we also find, to our surprise and delight, the capacity for the practice of Holistic Management not just to heal the land, the environment, and fractious communities, but also to heal ourselves—to unite our fragmented psyches into a whole that experiences life as peaceful, happy and productive.

It is within this context that I write the story of the Morris family—Joe, Julie, Sarah and Jack—of San Juan Bautista, California.

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t only takes a half-cup of coffee sitting around the kitchen table of Julie and Joe’s comfortable ranch house to get to the beginning: Julie laughingly recalls the run-up to their wedding in 1991. “Two weeks before the ceremony, when my friends thought I should be involved with dresses, parties and plans, Joe and I attended a three-day seminar on Holistic Management in Santa Cruz led by Naseem Rahka. We were so excited that we defined our whole and wrote our three-part (holistic) goal on the way home! It has been updated as Sarah and Jack came along (now 9 and 7), but today it’s basically the same affirmation of values and articulation of who we are and who we want to become.”

There it is: a marriage by two twenty-

somethings (actually 24 and 29 in the case of Julie and Joe) completely grounded in Holistic Management as a way of life—perhaps not completely unique, but certainly unusual in this, the early stages of the evolution of Holistic Management as a way of life. Because they had that shared framework of Holistic Management from which to “grow” their marriage, they have been able to exponentially work toward the life they want. And what led them to the seminar?

Uniting Two Worlds “In 1990 I was teaching at a Jesuit high school in Washington DC,” Joe explains. “I was working the bookshelves at the library in preparation for a class on social justice. Next to the works of James Baldwin was a small volume that caught my eye because it had a unique title—Home Economics. Curious, the term seemed so old-fashioned, I pulled it down and began reading a commentary by Wendell Berry on the linkage between agriculture and our under girding human culture. I got excited because it was a connection that had completely eluded me. See, I possessed two seemingly unrelated halves—first a person that knew he wanted to be a cowboy at age three, and then a person who longed for social justice in the world. After college at Notre Dame, where I majored in the Great Books program, I had gone from cowboying at the 14,000-cow Ellison Ranching Company property in Nevada for two years to serving the poor in the barrios of Caracas, Venezuela for two years to six months at the Graduate Theological Union Seminary in California. Then back to my old cowboy job for a year and a half, and on to continued on page 2

Our appreciation to Dean William Rudoy, Ph.D. for his generous donation that has enabled us to redesign IN PRACTICE and print in color throughout 2004 in celebration of our 20th Anniversary.

Holistic Management helped Joe & Julie Morris learn how to bring their fragmented lives into a unified whole.

Now Joe & Julie, with children Jack & Sarah, are creating the life they want together. Read their story beginning on page one.

FEATURE STORIES HM2—Holistic Management Squared Robert Graham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Working with All Thy Neighbors Robert Graham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 A Letter To My Banker Floss Garner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 47 Ranch Update Ann Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Life Planning Aspen Edge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Tools to Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

LAND & LIVESTOCK Managing the Whole Horse Tim McGraffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Natural Cattle Care . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Working with Animal Nature Robert Graham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

NEWS & NETWORK Savory Center Grapevine . . . . . . . . . . .15 Certified Educators . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

The

Savory

HM2—Holistic Management Squared continued from page one

CENTER

AD DEFINITUM FINEM

THE SAVORY CENTER is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization. The Savory Center works to restore the vitality of communities and the natural resources on which they depend by advancing the practice of Holistic Management and coordinating its development worldwide.

FOUNDERS Allan Savory

* Jody Butterfield STAFF

Tim LaSalle, Executive Director Shannon Horst, Senior Director, Strategic Projects; Kate Bradshaw, Director of Finance and Administration Kelly Pasztor, Director of Educational Services; Constance Neely, International Training Programs Director Ann Adams, Managing Editor, IN PRACTICE and Director of Publications and Outreach Alicia Schell, Finance Coordinator Lee Johnson, Project Assistant Brooke Palmer, Executive Assistant Donna Torrez, Administrative Assistant

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Rio de la Vista, Chair Allan Savory, Vice-Chair Leslie Christian, Secretary Richard Smith, Treasurer Manuel Casas Judy Richardson Bruce Ward Terry Word

ADVISORY COUNCIL Jim Shelton, Chair, Vinita, OK Robert Anderson, Corrales, NM Michael Bowman,Wray, CO Sam Brown, Austin, TX Leslie Christian, Portland, OR Gretel Ehrlich, Gaviota, CA Cynthia & Leo Harris, Albuquerque, NM Trudy Healy, Taos, NM Clint Josey, Dallas, TX Krystyna Jurzykowski, Glen Rose, TX Dianne Law, Laveta, CO Doug McDaniel, Lostine, OR Guillermo Osuna, Coahuila, Mexico Jim Parker, Montrose, CO Dean William Rudoy, Cedar Crest, NM York Schueller, El Segundo, CA Richard Smith, Houston, TX Africa Centre for Holistic Management Private Bag 5950, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe Tel: (263) (11) 404 979; email: hmatanga@mweb.co.zw Huggins Matanga, Director HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE (ISSN: 1098-8157) is published six times a year by The Savory Center, 1010 Tijeras NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102, 505/842-5252, fax: 505/843-7900; email: savorycenter@holisticmanagement.org.; website: www.holisticmanagement.org Copyright © 2004.

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Washington and teaching Spanish and social tradition of active cattle ranching had ceased studies. You can readily see that I was torn with his grandfather, J. J. Baumgartner. J.J. was between two worlds. well known for continuing into the 1980’s, “I went home and told my house-mate under the T.O. Cattle Company aegis, the about reading Berry’s stimulating perspectives. vaquero tradition of the historic Santa Margarita He had more of Berry’s works, and I devoured Ranch (which became Camp Pendleton in them. Then my friend gave me an issue of the 1942). “We now lease another 7,000 acres and World Monitor with an article on Allan Savory. run 200 cows plus replacements, 80 two-year‘Read this,’ he said. It blew me away! Now I olds for our Morris Grassfed Beef business, and could not only see that my love of the land 1800 head of stockers on a gain basis. We do all and my love of working for positive cultural this with one full-time employee, Everett change were reconcilable in theory, there was Sparling, and one part-time employee, Joy Law.” in fact a way that I could do both, Before we look at Joe and Julie’s “master’s simultaneously!” degree” course work, coffee cups are moved Wait . . .Washington DC seems a strange landing place in this trajectory of soul-driven flip-flops. Why Washington? Joe laughs, “The short answer is that Julie was there!”

Julie picks up the ball.

“Let me explain. Joe and I both grew up in San Francisco and attended Catholic schools. One of my friends at St. Rose Academy (a girls’ school) had an older brother at Joe & Julie Morris offer field days as part of their marketing the University of Notre and educational efforts to neighbors, customers, and local Dame. So I knew of Joe policy makers. They have hosted well over 1,000 people at field then, but actually didn’t days and discussions on their property. meet him until after college. At the time I had a job in Washington as a reporter with Thompson Newspapers. Joe came to DC after a year of our corresponding, and that’s where we got to know each other. After his Holistic Management epiphany, we headed back to California, where I continued to write for newspapers, and Joe looked for ways to get into ranching holistically.”

More Than Resource Management Joe recalls, “I couldn’t find a job with Holistic Management practitioners, so I was all ears when my parents and my uncle, who had inherited my grandparents’ 200-acre ranch here, suggested I take it on as a home-base for experiencing a sort of ‘master’s degree’ program in Holistic Management.” (Joe’s lineage includes five generations of ranch owners, but the

aside and the 4 lb., 14” x 12”, 300-plus page book, Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West book is presented. The thesis of the book is that cattle should be banned from public—and therefore, by extension, private—lands. What do the partners have to say to this? Julie takes up the challenge.

“The crux of their argument is that cattle are ruining the land. Holistic Management says that cattle aren’t ruining the land, it is management, that is, decision-making, that produces either healing or damage. Cattle are merely a means.”

In this book George Weuerthner has written a series of chapters with provocative titles such as “The Donut Diet: The Too-Goodto-Be-True Claims of Holistic Management” and “Using a Hammer to Swat Mosquitoes: Livestock

as Management ‘Tools.’ ” Joe, who like Julie, has more common phenomenon, and it is vital. We Profitable Outreach not seen the book before, reacts. “Look, I’m not must lead this dynamic, not merely react to it.”

Julie and Joe are philosophers, ecologists, going to say that the results of Holistic Julie picks up the trail. “And this realization and social activists, and they are prophets as Management practitioners are perfect or even is what is at the heart of one of the most well. They have hosted well over 1,000 people uniform. Many people have adopted only parts important Holistic Management decisions that at demonstrations and discussions on their of the process. Even those of us who are fully we have made for the business. Because public properties, especially at the home place in the committed to using all aspects of Holistic agencies now have a need to have their lands foothills of the Gabilan Range, so beautiful that Management often have an incomplete managed for biodiversity and other ecological John Steinbeck’s book title, Pastures of Heaven, perspective of just what we’ve tapped into. considerations, that need can be monetized. immediately comes to mind. Does that mean “For example, I’ve been at this thing for over And there are private land owners 1,000 new Holistic Management practitioners?

10 years, and I really just ‘got it’ at a dinner who will pay for it, too.”

“No,” Julie shakes her head ruefully. Joe with Allan Savory in December when he Whoa . . . the Morris’ are getting checks for explains, “Basically you have three kinds of described the evolution of Holistic their resource management services? “Not attendees. First are commercial cattle people.

Management, and that it is at its heart a checks, but just as good,” Joe chuckles.

Some of them are attracted to what they hear decision-making process with an integrity of its “Reduced rent. Our leased land is 50 percent and see, but most can’t figure out how to use it own. Before, I thought of Holistic public agency owned and 50 Management as a resource management percent privately owned. There are model or perhaps as an economic model. two state park parcels, one wildlife You see, Julie and I have had a refuge and three private ranches. predisposition to ‘think holistically.’ But Our landlords want substantive that actually inhibited our understanding results on the land. So in exchange of Holistic Management for the planning and monitoring as first and foremost a process that that produces and verifies these absolutely demands a clear delineation of results, we pay reduced rents in a the questions that should inform decisioncouple of cases.” He stares out across making. While I recognized that there is the grasslands sloping down from an inherent interrelated nature in all the house and calculates. “Hmm . . . things, this mind-set didn’t translate into a the rent savings totals in excess of Joe continues to learn as part of his Holistic systematic analysis, because I assumed several thousand dollars a year. And Management “master’s program” in which he works to there was no need to go further. But this is payment for managing the produce top quality grassfed beef for Julie to market and thinking holistically is not the same as land just the way we would want to continues to improve their owned and leased land base. managing holistically. anyway!”

“Take a proposed action. In applying The Choice of A New the Holistic Management® testing guidelines I would consider how the action would affect personally. Also, so much of what they see is Generation our gross margin and how it would affect the What other major decisions have been just plain familiar—bulls, cows, calves, grass, whole ecosystem. But I didn’t think about how water and so on. When they look, everything is made using the Holistic Management process? an increased gross margin might affect the more or less standing still. They don’t see the “Hiring Everett Sparling, our full-time employee. ecosystem; nor did I ask, habitually, several of continual cattle movement, the monitoring, and That gave us more time for planning and the other five questions. That left the question monitoring,” Joe explains. “Another would be the long planning sessions that are a part of of sustainability unanswered.”

Holistic Management. They know and accept teaching all the field trips; and, of course, “I’ll give you another barrier to the proper Morris Grassfed Beef, which came out of an that every cattle rancher does some things a use of the Holistic Management® model,” Joe annual planning process when we were little differently than they do, so what a concludes. “People have a great faith, and brainstorming new income potentials.”

Holistic Management practitioner does can properly so, in their intuition. But they are Julie, the business manager of that almost seem idiosyncratic rather than as an act predisposed to use their gut feelings up front, ripe with potentially revolutionary outcomes. enterprise, takes up the baton. “Grass fed is without informing their intuitive capacities by completely in alignment with our holistic goal.

“Then there are the small ranchers, those consideration of the whole under management, with less than 200 head. These people almost It is healthy, it is delicious, and it is good for the the holistic goal, the ecosystem processes, the all have ‘day jobs.’ To them, the additional costs land where it is raised. We are what we eat; tools and the testing guidelines. If you look at therefore, we are what the animals eat. Our associated with Holistic Management usually the 2004 Holistic Management® model—which I don’t meet the marginal reaction test. And then grass fed cattle have a completely organic diet now carry with me all the time as a result of you have the bureaucrats whose responsibility of fresh grass, forbs and legumes and clean that meeting with Allan—you will see that the is managing public lands, scientists, and the like. water. No synthetic hormones, no antibiotics— society and culture testing guideline, which has just real things! (See accompanying sidebar Here is where it gets interesting. Although a lot of the ‘How do you feel now?’ question in these people don’t run cattle themselves, they about how the Joe raises the cattle on page 14). it, comes last, after all the other tests. That’s are increasingly dictating how cattle are used when the gut feelings should come in.” continued on page 4 on the lands they manage. This is a more and

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HM2—Holistic Management Squared commodity market while remaining competitive with the retail market. Five years ago we grass fed and sold 10 heifers. Last year we were up to 50, this year it will be close to 70. We’ll probably top out at 100 because it’s important to us to maintain continuing relationships with our customer—for example, we invite them to an annual Spring Wildflower Walk and BBQ at the Pacheco State Park where they bring their families and see how we operate.”

“We’ll stop at 100, but grass fed is the way of the future,” Joe asserts. “Our industrial system of grain fed beef is unsustainable. Start to finish; grain fed takes 250 gallons of fuel per head to produce, while grass fed, which is based upon sunlight, is one percent of that. What a difference! Another thing, grass fed is very democratic—grasslands can never be ownership concentrated the way grain fed cattle are. So grass fed encourages local economics, something we strongly believe in.”

The Answers Are There What are the challenges at hand for the

continued from page three

Morrises and their practice of Holistic Management? Joe and Julie put their heads together and emerge with a list.

1. To convert their acquired knowledge into more marketable products such as consulting.

2 . To better learn how to use animal impact to produce perennial grasslands in California.

3. To learn how to get paid for producing ecological values on the land, such as carbon sequestration, improved hydrology, and improved community dynamics in the form of greater health of species.

4. To use Holistic Management habitually on a daily basis, including in the upbringing of Sarah and Jack.

The last item, a greater use of Holistic Management, raises a question of just how much time Joe and Julie devote to planning and monitoring. Julie calculates, “Rough, financial 10-12 days per year. It should be two or three times that. Biological . . .” Joe nods, says, “10 or 12 days, that’s pretty good.” Julie finishes, “Personal, we talk more than we do

about it . . . ugh!”

Final comments? Julie, “Holistic Management is living the way you want to live.” Joe, “You know, Holistic Management takes the worry out of questions and problems. The answers already exist because they reside in the holistic goal. Just work the process! It’s analogous to the idea that a beautiful sculpture is already in a rock. It just needs to be set free.”

The author wishes to acknowledge that J.J. Baumgartner was a foremost role model and influence for him, especially during the years 1958 to 1974, and therefore the process of writing this article was a labor of love that will be long treasured. Also, thank you Maria Racquard—an extraordinary animal behaviorist and rescuer—for inspiring the humane treatment sidebar. For web addresses of more than a dozen articles on various aspects of the Morris operations, please email me, Robert Graham, at regtao@comcast.net.

Joe & Julie Morris can be contacted at: jmorris900@earthlink.net.

Working With All Thy Neighbors

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n March 2003, a handful of San Benito County residents (population 53,000) announced plans to put a growth limitation measure before their Board of Supervisors. The proponents contended that the county, feeling the pressure of an influx of people from the Silicon Valley 50 miles northward (at a 45 percent growth rate in the 1990s, it was California’s fastest growing county), needed to preserve agricultural land in unincorporated areas. The well-intentioned plan easily gathered 6,000 signatures and went to the Supervisors who approved it outright 4-1. By then, details of the plan began to be examined more closely and controversy erupted. The plan changed the zoning of many agricultural properties in a way that highly restricted their owners’ ability to make decisions.

Joe and Julie Morris came out against the measure, as did many in the agricultural and the business community. Opponents gathered 5,000 signatures, which caused the Supervisors to call for a referendum. The population became polarized. Environmentalists, who championed the plan, saw agriculture as an enemy in the matter (the ultimate paradox as it originated in a desire to save agricultural land from urban encroachment) and vice versa.

“It was terrible,” Joe recalls. “We are members of both the agricultural and the environmental communities. We believed the measure was flawed, but some of our friends thought we were traitors. We had to do something!”

In July 2003, the Morrises organized a two-day consensus building workshop moderated by Jeff Goebel from Oregon. Julie recounts the event.

“It was very hot in the gathering hall those days. We attracted 100 people

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from all sides—ranchers, business people, the plan sponsors, educators and so on. We worked toward developing a common vision. Jeff got us in groups, and when we came back into a big circle everyone wanted the same things— clear air and water, good schools and so on. We came up with a ‘Best Outcome.’ It was marvelous.”

Joe picks up, “But the train had already left the station headed for a ballot measure in 2004. Both sides used the Best Outcome against each other. We called another meeting in November to see if we could bring testing guidelines into play [to determine which actions would best lead us to the best outcome].

But November was as cold as July hot. There was little movement among the 40 attendees. I moderated and that was difficult, because I wasn’t neutral.

“We had another session in January. The purpose was to distinguish between goals and tools [objectives versus how to achieve those objectives], a distinction that gave people fits. Some people who had worked with Jeff moderated the session. There were 60 people there and we did secure a promise from both sides that they would continue to work together after the vote.”

On March 2, 2004 the measure was defeated 7,900 to 3,600. What’s next?

Joe says, “After the period of gloating by the winners and sour grapes by the losers, I want to get Jeff back down here so that we can continue the process.

It sure isn’t easy, but I really want to share the lessons I’ve learned and my knowledge of the land and its relationships with our neighbors. This is the way I can do it.”

—Robert Graham

A Letter to My Banker

by Floss Garner Floss and her husband, Jerry, and son, Tony, manage the 47 Ranch Company near Brownlee, Nebraska. The ranch had been in Floss’ family just over 50 years when we first published this article in 1986..

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extra labor. We cut the interest down a little and wished we could have cut more.

Insurance was down because we took off some of the older machinery that insurance would no longer replace anyway. Dues were down because we changed accountants. Our lease figures were down because of our argument with the Board of Educational Lands

paying proposition (motels and meals cost more than the schools!).

We will be many years implementing all the things we want to do. We did put in about three miles of new fence this year (and plan for a total of 25 more!) and put down one new well, which includes a very expensive, solarpowered pump. The pump is movable and

e were recently asked by our banker how we were able to cut $71,000 from our expenses in a single year (and also why we hadn’t done it before!). I have been a bit stumped for a simple explanation.

But this is what I told him: Labor was up considerably because our hired man’s kids wanted to work after school and on weekends, and we didn’t think it was right for them to work for nothing.

Repairs were up $3,400 because of an irrigation motor we had to fix. Fuel was down because we shut off one of the irrigation motors. We also bought a four-wheeler to use in checking pastures, which helped with the overall fuel bill. Veterinary expenses were down because we eliminated Floss, Jerry, and Tony Garner have worked hard to continue improving their land in the Nebraska absolutely everything we felt we Sandhills. In this picture the Garners’ land is on the left and their neighbor’s is on the right. As you could, and because we had a good can see, the darker color on the left demonstrates the improved health and production of the calving season. Feed was down Garners’ land. The Garners’ land is also more consistently covered with vegetation, with less of the because we eliminated cake and “blowouts” often seen in the Sandhill area. protein blocks for the cows after calving. We’d been told by so many feed dealers and vets that the cows need that boost to make them cycle before we and Funds. After all my figuring, percentages, can be used on several of the existing wells turn the bulls in that we always did it. But we logic and all the rest of it, what made them (somehow, it lacks the “old west” flavor of a were exposing many more cows to the bulls lower the lease was the fact that we shut off windmill turning in the wind). than usual, and we decided to see how good a the water. Lease figures would have been even The biggest thing responsible for our success preg. rate we could achieve without the blocks. lower had we not had to lease more pasture in cutting expenses was a change in attitude, We came out with a 92 percent rate! when the drought made it necessary. which is something we gained from the schools So we decided we wouldn’t buy blocks again Depreciation was down because for once we and workshops. We have spent many hours unless we had a bad winter and the cows were didn’t have to buy too many bulls (only 5!) around the kitchen table with charts, calculators, obviously in very poor shape going into calving. and because we didn’t have to trade any planning sheets, trying to implement the Fertilizer was down because of eliminating vehicles or expensive machinery. management suggestions we got at the schools the irrigation in one area and fertilizer The main reason we were able to do and as a result are very optimistic about the applications in extra meadows, which we had this was the Center for Holistic Resource future of 47 Ranch Company and ranching in done on a rotation basis in the past. Utilities Management. We spent a total of $4,500 going general—a minority view in this business were up because rates went up. Trucking was to the Rancher/Farmer School, the Management these days. down—we didn’t haul any cattle to the other Workshop and a number of meetings with One thing that will set us back quite a bit places this year, or any old cows to far-away people who share the same goals—to improve continued on page 6 auctions. Taxes were up—mostly because of the our land and our lives and to make this a

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A Letter to My Banker for 1986 is that we are having to buy hay, which we have never done before. The extreme dry weather last spring and summer made our hay crop the shortest on record, and we simply did not have enough to see us through until spring.

We were short by more than half. We sold more cows than we had planned on but still didn’t have enough, and we didn’t want to totally sell out the “factory.” (We figure each day we don’t have to feed the cows saves about $225.)

The biggest thing responsible for our success in cutting expenses was a change in attitude, which is something we gained from the schools and workshops On the brighter side, despite the drought of last spring and summer, we increased our stocking rate. We’ve never had more than

continued from page 5

450 adult cattle on the home pastures in the summer. This last summer, we had just over 600 head of adult cattle on the pastures. And we did have enough grass for them in spite of the drought. Moreover, the cows probably looked better going into winter than they ever have. And they sure looked better than the neighbors’ cattle. We achieved this with the grazing planning. Using only what pastures and the set-up we have, we applied what we learned at the Rancher/Farmer School.

I just wish Dad could have been here to see this because so many years ago he was arguing with the Soil Conservation Service people that there had to be a better way—and now we’ve found it. If we’ve done this well in a dry year, I can’t wait to see what we can do in a normal year.

Lest you fall into the trap of thinking that Holistic Resource Management is strictly a grazing plan—which is what the researchers and university people see it as—let me assure you that it is so much more than just the grazing that it staggers the mind. The best proof of that is in what we’ve done with the expenses, and it covers far more than either the financial or the

We’ve never had more than 450 adult cattle on the home pastures in the summer. This last summer, we had just over 600 head of adult cattle on the pastures. And we did have enough grass for them in spite of the drought.

grazing part of ranching.

Everyone in ranching is very aware of the great need to cut back all we can. We know that all areas of the rural economy are in trouble; but the things we learned from the schools were the reason we were able to make those cuts, and Holistic Management is helping us hold to the goals we set. Whether we can continue this kind of reduction in expenses depends on breakdowns, inflation, interest rates —the whole thing. But I feel we have made great progress. A lot of changes are in the works. One, even long, letter can’t begin to tell it all. But I hope this gives you some idea of the past year—and the future.

47 Ranch Update

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talked with Floss last May to get an update on this story. She had just read an article in the Omaha World Herald in which someone was quoted as saying that Holistic Management was risky and not proven successful. It made her stop and think that she and her family had been managing holistically for almost 20 years and had found it to be very successful. The Garners have continued to hold their costs down over the years and continued to maintain land and animal productivity despite drought. They have continued to reduce paddock size and increase paddock numbers (they began with 10 paddocks and now have 50).

When I asked Floss what has challenged her family most over the years, she replied, “Quality of life.” While Floss & Jerry’s son, Tony, works on the ranch, and they’ve had a niece join them, it’s hard to find ranch help so that the family can take a break. She also wishes they wouldn’t have made some decisions so quickly before they first really understood Holistic Management. They have put in nine new water points on their ranch over the years. One of the earlier ones was put on a high point to maximize wind energy to run the windmill. Unfortunately, it has

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led to trailing near that water point.

This realization led to using solar pumps in places where the land can handle the extra traffic. They have also experimented with tire tanks rather than the recommended 20-30 feet diameter stock tanks that local experts say are necessary to water 570 head of cattle. They have found that the smaller tanks fill up more quickly and all the animals can take a turn at it, with calves having more access to the water, and less chance of the animals getting into the tank. They’ve done the cost analysis of a solar pump and well versus pipeline to increase water points, and for them the pipe doesn’t pass the marginal reaction test.

The Garners know the next step for them is to develop their “end game plan.” With that in mind they are talking to the other relatives who have ownership in the land, and beginning to explore their options. “The people stuff is the hardest,” says Floss. “We used to have weekly meetings, and that made it easier because we all had a sense of working on things together.

When Tony went to hear Allan speak last year, he felt inspired again. We need to find people we can learn from.”

—Ann Adams

Life Planning

by Aspen Edge

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or me, the principle behind the value of planning can be summarized as follows.

It puts me in a proactive rather than reactive position. As a result, I am placed in a position of choice and control. I am moved away from crisis management, where the activities have charge of my life, toward a position where I define what activities will be attended to and when. I am able to adapt to change in a response-able way. The benefits to me are increased efficiency and reduced stress at all levels.

Adapting to Circumstances I feel that understanding the principle of planning enables me to develop new procedures to address the ever-evolving circumstances in the life of a small landholder.

Over the four and a half years that we have been managing this land, we have been moving into greater levels of complexity.

Keeping so many “balls in the air” at the same time was beginning to overstretch our management capabilities. We were being drawn further and further into crisis management. We were spending more time attending to tasks as they presented themselves and less time planning and envisioning the future toward which we wanted to work. We were losing our effectiveness and efficiency. It was while learning about grazing planning that I asked myself why the same principle could not be used to plan and control this very multidisciplinary life of ours.

Creating a New Procedure I set about identifying all the various areas of activity: Area 0 (House, House Keeping, Administration, Finance, Marketing, Paying Guests, Workshops, Internships, Volunteers); Area 1 (Greenhouse, Vegetable Garden); Area 2 (Perennial Nursery, Forest Garden); Area 3 (Farm); Area 4 (Structural Forest); Area 5 (Conservation Forest); Area 6 (Irrigation); Area 7 (Building Projects). I adapted the Financial Planning Worksheet, by sub-dividing the months into weeks, photocopied them on both sides and allocated a sheet to each activity.

in the habit of weekly meetings as we were the subject of my case study. So it was easy to bolt this practice on. We went through each Worksheet to identify what had been planned for that week. We then transferred the information onto a white board which was arranged by days of the week. In addition My husband, David, and I then spent a there was room to add anything that we had week thinking through all the tasks that missed for this year, which would be added to comprised each area of activity. We then our Plan for 2004. entered each task onto the Activity Worksheet This process highlighted David’s and my and marked on what week we planned to do very different temperaments (see Please the task. At the end of this exercise we had Understand Me 2 by David Kiersey for more 15 Worksheets completed, some running onto information on temperament analysis). I like to two sides. These activities represented the have perspective, plan and manage. David is eight areas mentioned above, together with happy to take things a day at a time and a any activity within those that was large task at a time. However, the strength of our enough to warrant separate identification, for commitment and agreement to the quality of example my Certified Educator studies. life to which we are aspiring is such that these differences are not irreconcilable, although they result in some heated discussions!

In addition, we decided that we would monitor how many things had not been completed by the end of the week. If there were consistently too many things that had to be brought forward, we needed to replan.

We found that this process This sample of Aspen & David Edge’s “life plan” shows enabled us to challenge again how they are able to chart their time and make better the details of the plan. For use of it. The end result is more production and a lot example, as a result of less stress. Improved communication and harmony are changeable weather, we did some additional added bonuses. not begin the greenhouse construction as planned. By We then summarized this information by the time the weather cleared, and we were area of activity onto one sheet to see if there ready to begin building, I pointed out that were any significant peaks or troughs in our we had missed the possibility of sowing early work. If there were, this highlighted those vegetables. There would be no use for the times when we would be overloaded, in which greenhouse until the beginning of winter. We case we needed to replan the tasks. We did this could, therefore, postpone that work and bring by starting at the point at which we planned another project forward. As we have become the completion of the task and worked more familiar with the routines of our life, and backwards. Where it was possible to adjust the length of time they take, so the number of timing through re-scheduling the activity, we items brought forward has reduced and did so. Where it was not possible to adjust continues to diminish. timing, we planned to obtain extra voluntary We appreciated that all does not always go help to ensure that we met our deadline. according to plan! There are times when other We then arranged that every Sunday priorities present themselves unexpectedly. morning we would have a Life Planning However, even these could be planned over meeting, which lasted about an hour. Through the space of the week. Any ‘planned crisis’ continued on page 8 my Certified Educator studies, we were already

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Life Planning was entered onto the white board in red, and again we monitored to ensure that these red entries didn’t start to dominate the board, in which case we needed to take stock and replan. In fact, we discovered that there were very few situations that demanded instant attention to the exclusion of all else and hence left us no opportunity to plan. For example, our neighbor, a goat farmer, works on a very here and now basis. He will often come and say he is ready to plant today and ask if he can borrow the rotovator (rototiller). The tempting response is to agree immediately.

However, we are encouraging ourselves to go indoors and check our white board to see whether we can honestly respond in that way without throwing the whole week’s plan into disarray. We place ourselves in a position of choice and, therefore, control.

continued from page 7

the completion of the task took us toward our holistic goal. We did not interfere with how each task was completed as we resided in the trust that we were working toward a common goal. Experience has taught us to avoid trying to work together on a common task unless it has very distinct and separate aspects. Our different approaches are often a source of irritation, and we spend more time arguing about how to get to our destination than concentrating on getting there.

Added Bonus One of the jokes in our family is that whenever David and I are discussing how to achieve a particular goal, we will have completely opposite points of view! Working towards consensus has been our ongoing practice through 20 years of life together.

However, when we installed our Life Planning process, we discovered that it facilitated the management of diversity within the decisionmakers, as well as diversity within the whole under management. We found that we could satisfy both our temperaments, mine to have perspective, and David’s to deal with the matter in hand. I could spend time planning, deriving satisfaction from knowing where I was going, and David could get on with the job, deriving satisfaction from knowing what he was doing in the present.

The plan, which was crafted in line with our holistic goal, kept us focused on the bigger picture and helped us keep our perspective.

We also had the freedom to express our own idiosyncratic modus operandi but without getting bogged down in differences. By planning and delineating, we were clear about where the responsibility and accountability for any task lay. We were completely selfdetermining within the organization of the activity, while at the same time in accord that

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David writes some additions or changes to the Edge’s “life plan” board.

Adjustments to the timing of events scheduled in their life plan happens as part of their weekly meetings.

The Proof of the Pudding After only a month we noticed a significant improvement in our efficiency and an enormous reduction in our stress levels! I, for example, was sleeping better. I was not waking up at 4:00 a.m. with my mind full of a list of activities for the day or the background anxiety that I had forgotten something important. I was able to rest secure in the knowledge that everything possible had been planned. All I had to focus on was what needed to be completed for the day, without the distraction of my concerns about what needed to be completed in the future. This increased my capacity to deal with the daily concerns effectively.

This new procedure had highlighted the extent to which crisis management had begun to dominate our lives. We had begun to attend to only activities that were at the top of the pile… the telephone call, the visitor, the neighbor asking for equipment, the volunteer asking for another job. This was taking up about 60 percent of our time. In the words of Stephen Covey, “We were focusing on ‘things’ and ‘time’ rather than on ‘relationships’ and ‘results.’” With the installation of the Life Plan, we noticed that crises dropped to less than one percent of the activities that appeared on our weekly white board.

I was also struck by the psychological difference between a “To Do” list and a “Plan.”

The former seemed to take on the weight of a millstone, and the latter offered the cosetting of a personal secretary! Simply adding to a list of activities to be accomplished made us feel overwhelmed and under pressure. Life was beginning to drive us rather than the other way around. We realized that when we were having a hard time, we gave other people a hard time. As we were failing to meet our own expectations, so we increased our expectations of others in an effort to redress our growing sense of inadequacy. When we decided to take responsibility for, and control over, our life again, we placed ourselves in a proactive position. We had choices. We had time. This, in turn, enabled us to respond in the most effective way rather than taking the first solution that presented itself. We felt as though we were looking after ourselves again and that, in turn, gave us the emotional reserves to look after others. We were no longer looking to someone else to get us out of the situation we had created.

After six months we found that we had achieved more than we had expected prior to the Life Plan. During the time that crisis management had begun to dominate our lives, the developmental work (or the wealthgenerating work) was continually being displaced by the details of daily living. Once we had started to plan, these projects came back onto the agenda and we began completing them.

For example, in our first year, when we were facing the worst drought on record, we decided to renovate the existing reservoir using an innovative building technique—tires rammed with earth to provide a stabilizing

wall. This was our first major project and relied on volunteer labor for its completion. As we initiated other wealth-generating projects, and we were no longer facing a water crisis, renovating the reservoir dropped lower and lower on our ‘to do” list. There was always some other priority presenting itself. However, once we entered the renovation of the reservoir on the plan, we brought ourselves into a position that in another six months the retaining wall should be complete. If we had continued the way we had been, the completion date would have been “sometime” or “never.” In addition, we were able to bring into our planning other projects that we would not have been able to consider previously, such as the construction of a greenhouse and a sheep shed.

We rely exclusively on volunteer labor on a year round basis under the WWOOF (WorldWide Opportunities on Organic Farms) Scheme. This means that we have young people of all ages, nationalities, dispositions, and skills working with us for anything from two weeks to three months. Although we only have two people at a time, we had been

finding it increasingly difficult to stay ahead of their search for tasks. We had also found that we were less able to give them adequate instruction or monitor their performance accurately. This meant that they were making mistakes, which led to serious consequences.

With the installation of the Life Plan we noticed that crises dropped to less than one percent of the activities that appeared on our weekly white board.

For example, one volunteer dug up our perennial broccoli, which left us short of vegetables in the spring. We also had volunteers leave without completing their task or not reporting a broken tool. Once we spent our time planning, we were able to think through the tasks that were most appropriate

for them to complete, provide performance criteria, and ensure that we were managing by delegation rather than abrogation. As a result, mistakes such as mentioned above were eliminated, and we always stayed on top of managing their time.

This application of the principle of planning had highlighted the fundamental value of being proactive rather than reactive.

We were constantly placing ourselves in a position of choice even when a new priority arose. When we had choice, we were in control, and that control produced peace of mind. We are now in a position to adapt to changing circumstances and yet we feel secure in the sound preparation we have made.

This Life Plan is here to stay!

Aspen Edge lives with her family at Semilla Besada in southern Spain and may be contacted at mlima_ngong@hotmail.com.

For those who have noticed the various property name changes . . . it’s a story in it’s own right . . . suffice it to say that Semilla Besada is the last and final choice.

Tools to Test

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first heard about the EnergyCel™ in the Stockman Grassfarmer. The idea intrigued me that a very simple technology could increase the combustion efficiency of any combustion engine, thus reducing emissions and wear and tear on your engine and increasing gas mileage and horsepower.

The theory is that the EnergyCel produces a strong magnetic field around your fuel line, treating your fuel as it passes through. Untreated fuel molecules tend to “clump” together due to weak attraction between molecules with similar properties. These clumps tend to burn inefficiently causing power loss, lower mileage, and carbon buildup.

EnergyCel’s strong magnetic field causes these “clumps” of fuel molecules to re-align and spread apart, yielding more complete combustion and more power production.

One “expert” opinion mentioned in EnergyCel market material is Jerry Cumbus, co-founder of the Automotive Research and Design Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma who currently tests cars for manufacturers and writes technical reports. In an article in the Greater Tulsa Reporter Newspaper, Jerry reports: “We can recommend the EnergyCel with no reservations.

Its internal cleansing action should also extend engine life as well as keep maintenance minimal and fuel consumption at a high efficiency level.”

I was intrigued enough by the marketing material to buy an EnergyCel. I installed it on my 1998 Chevy Prism. I can’t say I noticed any difference in horsepower, but I can say that I noticed an increase of miles per gallon (mpg) from my usual 39 mpg to 42mpg (an 8 percent increase). With current gas prices that means I’ll break even in about one

to two years, because I can now use cheaper fuel as well as buy less of it.

For those using bigger vehicles pulling heavy loads, the return on gas mileage should be higher, as much as 31 percent. One testimonial on the EnergyCel website notes that someone using a 2001, 95hp Massey Ferguson tractor saved $1200 a year in fuel.

What also really intrigued me was the reduction in emissions which in the marketing material would be potentially reduced by as much as 80 percent. I installed the EnergyCel and took my car to have the emissions tested. I have 95,000 miles on my car and the acceptable standard for it is 220 parts per million (ppm) of hydrocarbons (HC) and 1.2 percent carbon monoxide (CO). My emissions ended up being 7 ppm of HC and zero percent CO. The emissions technician said he had seen new cars with zero percent, but not one with as many miles I had. I plan on buying another EnergyCel for my other vehicle.

This product is sold by Sharon and Bill Van Der Vlist in Houston, Texas. You can contact them at 281/852-2157, austex2000@msn.com or www.myenergycel.com/1900. The EnergyCel costs $185 and is fully tax-deductible in the U.S. as an emissions control devise.

—Ann Adams The products discussed in this column are not endorsed by The Savory Center. This column offers our readers additional information about various tools and technologies that have come to our attention and that we think might be of value to our readers. For more information about the products, please contact the people mentioned in the article.

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LIVESTOCK

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Managing the Whole Horse

by Tim McGaffic

A

s holistic managers, you have already realized the importance of managing wholes. In our vernacular, it is the only management style that will allow you to move toward your holistic goal.

That concept or principle also applies to the horse. You must manage the whole horse. The late, great Tom Dorrance once said, “It is amazing how few people see the whole horse.” Of course, Tom saw things in the horse that few do, as say, Allan Savory does on the land. So how does one go about managing the whole horse? The answer is one part at a time, until you have the whole horse. Much like how you eat an elephant, one bite at a time.

Bending the Neck Our management of the horse is going to start from the front and work to the back. For our purposes we will divide the horse into sections until we have gained some control over the whole horse. The sections or parts of the horse are: 1) the head and neck, 2) the shoulders, 3) the mid section or body, and 4) the hind quarters.

Beginning with the head and neck, you should be able to bend your horse’s head around with ease (softness in the horse world). This technique will begin the process of putting lateral flexion, or bend, in your horse. The ability to bend the head and neck will give you the beginning of a mechanical advantage over the horse. The horse is very strong when it is straight. If it chooses to get straight, it has the ability to take over and not respond to your commands. The irony is eventually you want your horse to be very straight.

The exercise looks like this: You will achieve through lateral flexion. The horse’s willingness to bend will also be a diagnostic for you. It will tell you how

Land & Livestock

your horse, it will resist and not want to give up control. When you achieve some degree of bend in the head and neck, let go, release the pressure. This is the most important aspect of all horse training, dog training, cattle training, or even people training. The horse learns from the release of the pressure, not from the pressure.

The pressure is a motivator to seek a way, which produces a behavior that can be rewarded by releasing the pressure. The release of the pressure is the reward that communicates to the horse that what it just did was correct. This is what is known as negative reinforcement.

The word negative is used as in a mathematical equation where you are taking something away, a removal, not as a bad thing. Learn to release pressure, and your horse will seek it.

If you ask for more than the horse can give and do not release, it will become confused, perhaps scared, and start to resist, perhaps even panic. If the horse gives a little, you give back until you can bend its head and neck all the way around easily, regularly, and have it stay there without the horse moving its feet. Since this article is not about training theory, it is important to understand positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment. If these are foreign concepts to you, I suggest you do some research on them and your training will go much better. And by the way, these concepts all occur in nature and by definition are natural, although punishment does not occur that often and is the least effective.

So now you can bend your horse easily and it will stand for it. You have achieved a mechanical advantage over the horse, something the Scythians discovered in about 1,500 BC. If you feel resistance, the horse is bracing against you somewhere in its body. As we move through the exercises you will be able to discover where and try to eliminate that resistance. As you ask for more, you can expect resistance to occur at some point in the process of training.

Working the Shoulders

straightness with control

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much resistance is in your horse. If you do not have enough trust in

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Let us move to part two, the shoulders. The shoulders may be the most important part because they are what so many horses use to resist.

Often when you are trying to disengage the hind quarters you cannot get real disengagement because the horse drops the inside shoulder (the

diagonal) and is still able to stay relatively straight and engaged. There are many shoulder exercises that will help you control your horse better.

I will cover a few here. The first is the two tracking exercise. For this exercise, simply point your horse in a direction, and when it is walking straight, bend the horse’s neck to the left or right. Add your leg pressure on the side of the bend in a forward position. There are three leg positions: 1) Forward position—near girth to control front of horse, 2) Middle position—a little behind position number one to control middle of horse and 3) Back position—back near the rear cinch to control the hind quarters of the horse. While applying the leg pressure, ask your horse to keep moving forward, but to travel at about a 45 degree angle.

The amount of bend and leg pressure combined will dictate how much lateral suppleness you will have in your horse. This will help to keep the inside or bend shoulder up and moving forward and out. You can work on all of this as you ride out to the stock. It will create a supple horse, and when you arrive at your herd, your horse will be very maneuverable and handy.

The exercise looks like this: Another exercise that takes a little more skill is to be able to move your horse in a circle while it is bent in the opposite direction. Walk your horse forward and start to bend it to the right (direction not sTwo Tracking Exercise important), then add outside or left rein to limit the bend while adding leg pressure in the forward position on the side of the bend (in this case the right leg). While you are doing this you are showing the horse where to go with the left rein.

Your objective is for the horse to walk in a circle to the left while moving forward and having those shoulders in front of the hips.

If you can steer your horse anywhere like this with little resistance, you are on the road to a handy horse.

The exercise looks like this:

The Perfect Circle The third and next part of the horse is the rib cage.

For this exercise, ride your horse in a fairly small, but not too small, circle (about 15 feet in diameter). As you travel on this circle, your Opposite Direction Bend Exercise horse’s body should mirror the radius of the circle. Start with the horse’s head and neck and add leg pressure at about the same time. Your horse may want to accelerate. If it does, you have an energy leak and should bend the horse more and make it very difficult to move forward. Try not to just stop the horse (unless it is an emergency). Your goal is for the horse to stay on the circle with its body arced so that the radius of the circle passes right

through in between its nostrils, throat latch, shoulder blades and thus mid line. Your horse is moving forward not side ways with his body mirroring the radius of the circle size you have chosen with the amount of bend you put in the horse.

When you can do this with no pressure on the reins or legs, your horse is staying where you put it. The horse is between your hands and legs, and you have done a very good job at rewarding it with a release many times until it has actually achieved the behavior. This type of exercise is called shaping or successive approximations. It is breaking down the maneuver into small parts and rewarding it. If you can do this, you are getting good at horse training. If you have problems, go back to the front and ask yourself, “How can I be more rewarding? How can I communicate what I want better?”

Your horse is not trying to mess with you, but is only doing what it thinks you want or it has to do to protect itself. Always master one exercise completely before you move to the next. There are many different exercises and techniques to achieve the same behavior, but there are only a few principles on how the horse learns. Remember to release and thus reward graduations to the eventual maneuver. Never teach a new maneuver (behavior) by doing the full maneuver. Break it down into smaller sequences.

Training for Tomorrow Now for the last part of the horse, the hind quarters. If you can ride all the previous maneuvers, this is probably going to be easy. If it is not, then you probably don’t have the shoulders and rib cage under control.

Return to your perfect circle with the horse’s body on the radius. As you walk the horse forward, you will need to slow the front end down a little. You will do this by taking up on the leading rein, which is the bend side rein and holding firm the outside rein so as not to lose the bend. Then, slow the horse just a little with the outside rein and add leg pressure to the inside in the back position.

Your horse should start to step out with its hind quarters. You will feel the inside hind coming underneath you. If you do not feel this, look at it so you can tell what is going on and can reward the correct behavior. When you can do this, and move the horse’s hind quarters each direction, try it at a back up. When you can do that, then bend the horse slightly in one direction and see if you can move the hind quarters in the same direction as the bend. If you can do this, you are on the way to spins, roll backs, lead departures and other more advanced maneuvers. Moving your horse in the direction of the bend is much more difficult than moving its body away from the bend.

You no longer have the mechanical advantage, and you will need a willing, understanding horse. Your horse will need to yield to leg pressure very well while being held in the face. If you can’t do this yet, simply go back and keep practicing the simpler exercises until you have a high level of success with them consistently. It is very easy to do these exercises on trails and in pastures as you ride to the stock. Remember the horse is learning all the time, so be aware enough to know what you are teaching it. You are always preparing it for tomorrow.

Tim McGaffic is a Certified Educator and professional horse trainer. He lives in Marina Del Ray, California and can be reached at: tim@timmcgaffic.com.

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Pat Coleby’s Natural Treatments Cattle Ailments Common Ailments and Remedies (excerpt) patient does not dehydrate. Drench in liquids if necessary. Sometimes a tablespoon of vitamin C and the same of dolomite works well; half this amount is very good in calf scours which is usually caused by a lack of magnesium in the diet. However, as Hungerford states in his Diseases of Livestock, a lack of copper is often the cause in weaners and adults; it is also often the cause of worm infestations as well.

A beef cattle farmer I knew had 80 head that were in a bad way. He rang me because one was down and he had tried every drench in the book without success. He brought the ill one into the cattle yards with the tractor. I suggested that he give it two Foot Rot tablespoons of the lick and the same of vitamin C morning and night for two days. I said that by then it This is a highly contagious disease in animals at A worm count of 200 should be well on the way to recovery. He told me risk through copper deficiency. The organism lives or below is not a that it jumped out of pen the day after that. He then in most pastures and copper deficient animals will ran the remaining cattle through the race and gave concern in properly very soon pick it up. The winter and spring of 1992, each their two tablespoons of the lick. I asked him if which was incredibly wet, produced an amazing supplemented and it was difficult. He said he opened their mouths with number of calls from people with foot rot afflicted fed animals. his left hand and with a scoop that held the exact stock, and an equal number of thankful ones who, amount of the dose, he threw it into each beast’s when supplementing with the stock licks, had mouth. The job took him just over half an hour and cleared it up very quickly. One lady who milked the herd recovered completely. Obviously the soil health had to be two very fine house cows that became very lame with bad cases of attended to and the lick made available ad lib at all times. The lick must foot rot, found that a tablespoon of copper sulfate in the evening bail be kept dry or the copper is lost by chemical action in half an hour. feed cured it overnight. The cows were, of course, getting dolomite in Editor’s Note: We thought this excerpt would be of interest to our Land & Livestock readers as a followup to Robert Graham’s sidebar on Joe Morris’ treatment of his animals (see page 14). This excerpt specifically addresses the various ailments that result or are connected to copper deficiency in cattle and natural treatments for those ailments. There is additional information through numerous websites as well as the availability of the complete article at info@acresusa.com. We encourage you to test the tools discussed in this article toward your holistic goal, just as you would any other decision.

their feed.

The disease causes smelly, suppurating and very sore feet, sometimes with large proud flesh growths forming in between the toes. If confronted with that condition, a sprinkling of straight copper sulfate on the growth after dipping the feet in the copper wash will help the proud flesh to disintegrate. The wash should be made up of two pounds of copper sulfate to two gallons of water and two pints of vinegar. The vinegar acts as a water softener to make the mixture soak into the lesions. Raising copper levels in the food, or giving the licks and maintaining the cattle at the correct level, is the quickest cure (and the best prevention), and there will be no recurrence even on the same land.

However, if the farm has had artificial fertilizers used on it, the problem will be ongoing until the imbalances can be corrected.

Keratin, which depends on adequate sulfur and copper in the diet, is the component that gives skin and hair its strength. When foot rot (foot scald) starts, a thin, red line will be seen between the toes of the cow.

This happens when the skin has inadequate keratin and is breaking down allowing the entry of the causative organism.

Diarrhea This is caused by an imbalance in the gut due to poor feed, lack of minerals, or interior parasites, all of which can place the cow at risk.

However, Hungerford, the basic veterinary authority in Australia, suggests that diarrhea is nearly always due to a shortfall in copper. Give the lick by mouth — just put the powder straight in. Care must be taken that the

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Infertility The cause needs to be determined. If the cows do not come in season fully, the most likely cause is lack of copper. See that the cows have access to the lick in feed or ad lib or amend the diet if what they currently receive is insufficient. Cows that fail to hold to service (always assuming that the male is fertile) are, unless non-breeders, suffering from a lack of vitamin A. An injection of vitamins A and D, or A, D and E before the next heat will usually mean the failure will not occur again.

Otherwise, supplementation with some sort of vitamin A coming up to service, or feeding the stock on a well-grown green crop, would ensure they hold.

This sort of infertility is apt to occur after or during a long drought (which is probably how the native fauna are regulated). Particular care should be taken of the bulls in that case as vitamin A related infertility is usually irreversible in males. A lack of selenium is another reason for poor or complete infertility in bulls. The sperm will be weak and few in quantity, and those that are there will tend to drop their tails. Luckily seaweed contains selenium in an organic form and making sure that stud animals receive their ration of the lick regularly will go a long way to ensuring sperm quality and quantity.

Worms and Liver Fluke Drench resistance strikes fear into everyone these days, but it seems to be a fact of life. The worms adapt to drenches faster than we can make new ones. Even the Ivermectin group, which was supposed to be proof against drench resistance, has

Copper toxicity causes liver damage which, if not treated, is fatal. We now succumbed. Each new drench has a limited life as long as it is found out that when copper is administered with dolomite, there is little of a chemical composition. risk unless the cattle have been grazing heliotrope or some other weed The answer to worms lies in good husbandry which has been high in copper like Patterson’s curse or St. John’s wort; however, if they outlined in earlier chapters. We shall never be able to beat the worms, had, the chance of a worm burden would be virtually nil, because of the so we must use an organic system of farming that lets the dung beetles, high copper content of all three. earth worms and soil fauna do it for us. This must be allied to a diet high According to the Department of Primary Industry in Queensland, the enough in the necessary minerals to stop the worms from becoming a blood serum levels of copper in a bovine should be between 500 and scourge. Dr. William A. Albrecht says in his works that animals who 1,100 milliliters per liter, at which levels worm infestations would be have the right amount of copper in their systems do not have worm unlikely. In all cases of suspected worm infestation, a count should be problems. Farmers who have fully remineralized their land and have it taken either by the vet, or as many farmers the world over these days in good heart have, in many cases, given up drenching on a regular do, examining the manure with a microscope (a school quality basis. Most of them also see that their cattle have licks available when microscope will do). they want them.

Long standing copper overload can apparently be corrected by giving Given the information in Chapter 8 in the section on copper, where it the affected cow dolomite on a permanent basis. This can be given with is pointed out that Dr. Albrecht found worm infestations (of any kind) an injection of vitamin B15 (10 cc), Pangamic acid only occurred in copper deficient animals, the section below on different kinds of worms is (10 cc) and vitamin C (20 cc) in the same syringe once academic. It has been noticeable with all stock that a week. This has been tried in the field on farms fluke, tape worm and coccidia are the first and where too much copper has been spread on the land.

Black animals need easiest to prevent with even quite small amounts of For immediate copper poisoning, give the beast a about six times more copper. Those farmers with cattle on the lick tablespoon of dolomite and vitamin C powder by described in Chapter 8 will find that drenching mouth every few hours, and 10 cc of vitamin B15 with copper than white ones. becomes a thing of the past. A worm count of 200 or 30 cc of sodium ascorbate (vitamin C) in the same below is not a concern in properly supplemented syringe by injection. This can be given every few and fed animals; in fact, a “wormless” beast usually is hours, although a calf that I first did this work on not very well since worms do not live in unhealthy recovered fully in an hour and a half and further animals. Not only actual worms, but all protozoa-type infections also doses were not necessary. Signs of copper poisoning are misery and a appear to be caused by a lack of copper in the diet. It took me and hunched up appearance—in effect, acute belly ache due to liver pain. other farmers a few years to realize that many of the conditions, such According to Justine Glass, black animals need about six times as coccidia and possibly toxoplasmosis, just were not occurring once more copper than white ones. Consult the section on copper for the ration was in order. deficiency signs.

As the copper in the lick prevents the worms from staying in the gut Initially several friends who ran cattle, horses, sheep or goats of the cattle, they will surely die out fairly soon as they have to live experimented using copper instead of proprietary drenches, with very inside a beast to complete their life cycle. It is interesting that worm satisfactory results. The only controlled experiment was performed with counts done soon after beasts arrive often show a quite high count of goats and the Department of Agriculture did the tests. Half were given eggs, but no adults either mature or immature. Another week or two the latest state-of-the-art drench (not Ivermectin), and half were given on the lick is probably enough to see that the animal is fully clear. the copper sulfate/dolomite/vitamin C dose. The results were equal— When hatched worms just do not stay in an animal whose copper 100 percent clear in both cases. reserves are correct.

When I first started using copper sulfate instead of proprietary drenches, I could not find any guidelines and Dr. Albrecht, whose works Copper and worms show that copper prevents worm infestations, does not mention dosage quantities. A retired vet lent me a copy of the British Veterinary Codex I have not used any proprietary drenches for just on 30 years now.

(1952) and I was able to work out amounts from that source. I had Copper sulfate, with various additions, was used for many years prior to reckoned that monogastrics need about half the amount on body weight the advent of artificial chemical drenches in the late 1950s. The copper that ruminants require; however, work done by the University of was mixed with either carbon tetrachloride (a very poisonous cleaning Minnesota on ponies and copper requirements suggests that equines fluid), lead arsenate (another dangerous poison) or nicotine sulphate, actually top the list as far as copper requirement or tolerance goes. which was possibly the safest of the three. I very much doubt if the reported deaths were often due to copper poisoning. continued on page 14

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Pat Coleby’s Natural Treatments continued from page 13 I have discussed running copper through the diet with various vets and at least one did not have apoplexy, but was genuinely impressed and interested because to use his exact words, “We have come to the end of the line with proprietary drenches.” That was 18 years ago and the situation has not improved with the years.

Modern strategy

Working with various farmers we evolved the lick mentioned in Chapter 8. It has been eminently successful and it is no longer necessary to think about the old strategic drenching. It takes a full year to build up the copper reserves in an animal and only then does the coat stay a good strong color the whole year through.

The cattle’s continuing good health on the regime seems to be the only consequence.

I found that telling people to drench their animals with copper and dolomite, etc., was not a success, but what does work is prevention as underlined many times in this book.

This article was first published in Acres USA and is available via e-mail upon request by contacting info@acresusa.com.

Working With Animal Nature

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branding time—namely roping, vaccination, castration, and he animal handling philosophy of Joe and Julie Morris (see main dehorning—the emphasis is on speed, safety and elegant, effective article on page one) can be summed up as two concepts: respect execution. “Animals and people are alike: we all can stand fairly high and the mimicry of nature. They believe in orchestrating low stress stress for short periods, but the killer is environments from birth through death. Joe, chronic stress,” Joe states.

Joy, and Everett have attended the Bud Brandings are conducted as an art Williams Stockmanship School and worked form in keeping with the vaquero with Tom Dorrance. They have also been tradition inherited from Joe’s grandfather, influenced by the work of the well-known J. J. Baumgartner. Only acculturated animal behaviorist Dr. Temple Grandin of cowhands—and kids who aspire to Colorado State University. be—participate. People come from Joe studies how animals interact in the 90 miles around for the ritual and wild and then seeks to duplicate those social interaction. patterns. This has led to spring calving, rather The second time of stress in the life of than the traditional fall calving practices in a Morris Grassfed animal is at death. To California. This means the cattle have a minimize this, the cattle are kept on their grassland diet supplemented only by small homeland grass through the night and feedings of minerals. It means honoring the then loaded into trailers at first light. normal biological cycle by not using growth Morris aims to have them first in line at hormones. It means no deworming, except the slaughterhouse with water waiting in with copper sulfate fed free choice. “We the holding pens. When the time comes, seek a balance in the biological community. the cattle are funneled through a curved Humans have parasites as a matter of course, Using the skills of the vaquero and the concrete chute (Grandin’s design concept), and we don’t sterilize our insides. Why understanding of livestock learned from Bud a door drops behind and within 10 to 30 should the worms in cattle that are part Williams and Tom Dorrance and their families, seconds a captive bolt stunning gun is of their normal ecological system be Joe & Julie can doctor sick cattle among the herd used to induce instant unconsciousness eliminated?” Joe asks. “We are trying to with little stress. The animals can reunite with the and death without causing pain. manage for the health of animals, land and herd immediately after they get up, and a long It is all part of a pattern for Joe and ourselves—not against the health of worms.” trek to the corral is unnecessary. Understanding Julie Morris that can be summed up as Invasive, stressful procedures are and skills add considerably to the Morris’ quality “conscious living, conscious dying.” minimized to those deemed absolutely of life, while low tech and low energy inputs-— —Robert Graham necessary. When they are performed at such as ropes and solar powered horses—pass the tests for the Morrises.

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July/August 2004

T he

GRAPEVINE

n ews f ro m t h e s a vo r y c e n t e r * p e o p l e , p ro g ra m s & p ro j e c t s

Training Program Update

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he Savory Center’s 2003 Mexico Certified Educator Training Program participants completed their last intensive the end of June in Chiapas, Mexico. This is the first Certified Educator program taught entirely in another language (Spanish) and includes participants from throughout Mexico.

Several of the participants in the Northeast Region’s Certified Educator Training Program received funding from Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (NE-SARE) for interested participants to work together to develop Holistic Management Decision Cases.

A decision case is a teaching tool developed

by Harvard and modified at the University of Minnesota. It appears to be an ideal model for

Africa Centre News

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teaching various aspects of the Holistic Management® decision-making process. Led by Dr. John Gerber and Dr. Constance Neely, the group met April 23-25 to explore the many possibilities for using decision cases as a tool for teaching Holistic Management and to begin developing decision cases.

The 2002 North Central Region’s Certified Educator Training Program will meet the last weekend of July as they prepare for their last six months before graduation and begin to write their case studies. They will be meeting at the Kellogg Biological Station, an experimental station, in Battle Creek, Michigan.

South African Conference

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his March “Our Management Club” (the management club begun by Dick & Judy

Land Restoration

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Richardson) arranged The South African Holistic Management Annual Conference at Tiger Kloof, Vryburg. The conference theme was “Handling Change.” Despite its local nature, it was a truly international event, attended by 149 delegates from seven countries including: South Africa, Namibia, Australia, U.S., Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland.

The five-day program began with a preconference excursion to two farms near Kimberley.

On Willowbank, the Barnes family's irrigation farm on the Vaal River near Kimberley, participants learned about the challenges of sustainable crop production and livestock on pastures using Holistic Management principles. Topics covered throughout the conference included: the connection between rumen pH and rumen microbes, permacropping, transitioning family business, fair and sound estate plans, conflict resolution, adapting management to the brittleness scale of the ecosystem, human response to change, evaluating information for effective decision-making, and management clubs as an effective tool for supporting and sustaining change. continued on page 16

the herdsmen. That proviso was a good idea in theory, but didn’t work in practice. The herdsmen came and went, which made training them in planned grazing impossible. The cattle owners weren’t paying the herdsmen regularly or enough to make it worth their while. So we hired the herdsmen ourselves, trained them, and required the villagers to cover veterinary expenses for their animals (vaccinations, or medicines for sick animals), and that worked.

Now, two years later, our herd of 600 cattle and goats has been herded according to plan, and

ast March the staff and board of the Africa n the late ‘90s the Africa Centre started Centre for Holistic Management in Zimbabwe running a small herd of cattle on undertook to restructure the Centre to clarify Dimbangombe Ranch. The animals were herded roles, streamline operations and enhance according to a very simple grazing plan, but communications. The exercise began with the herd was too small to make much of an refining their holistic goal, which helped clarify impact. Three years ago, we invited villagers many of the roles and responsibilities and who had no forage to bring their cattle onto guided the restructuring, which was completed Dimbangombe with the proviso that they supply the end of May. The Centre is now run from four separate offices to minimize staff continued on page 16 travel, with each office headed by a section manager: Huggins Matanga oversees the administration office in Victoria Falls, and continues to serve as Africa Centre Director, responsible for overall operations; Elias Ncube heads our Community Programs section and is based at our office in the Wange Community; Roger Parry is responsible for client relations (tourism) and is based at the elephant In 1987 this vlei (meadow) on camp on Dimbangombe Ranch; Dimbangombe was under Rodger Savory is ranch manager and continuous graze by a herd of is based at Dimbangombe Ranch about 100 cattle. Most plants are headquarters. Although the political overgrazed and only grow freely in and economic turmoil (inflation is The same vlei in 2004 is now dominated by high-quality the protection of thorn bushes, as 600%) in Zimbabwe remains, the perennial forage growing freely everywhere under planned shown here. Wildlife was scarce, Africa Centre staff and board grazing by a herd of 600 cattle and goats. Wildlife is abundant— only a few small antelope species. remain confident of their success. elephant, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, kudu and impala, in particular.

GRAPEVINE

them effectively to build a stronger whole.”

New Publication

continued from page 15

T

Australia Gathering

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olistic Decision Making Association (HDMA) of Australia and New Zealand met on May 1 for their Annual General Meeting and field day at the Coughlan family farm in Morundah, New South Wales. The Coughlan’s beautiful farm, “Tarabah,” provided a really worthwhile “case study” of Holistic Management in action. The Coughlans’ ability to come through the recent drought without having purchased feed and still have a fair supply of feed remaining as the winter growing season approaches were strong indicators of their effective thought process and planning at work.

Approximately 60 people were in attendance for that event including Savory Center Board of Director Chair, Rio de la Vista (who is also an HDMA board member).

On April 30, in conjunction with HDMA’s annual meeting, Certified Educators Mark Gardner and Graeme Hand offered a “Holistic Management in Action” course. Rio, who also attended this workshop noted, “One of the key their impact has been enormous. It helped that we had average rains for the first time in three years, but the areas impacted by the herd are so obvious that the improvement is not entirely due to good rains. Areas the cattle didn’t reach are still mostly bare ground. On areas right beside them that were grazed and trampled by the herd it’s hard to find any bare ground. We expect our monitoring, which was being done as we were going to press, will tell quite a story.

The most exciting improvement has occurred along the Dimbangombe River, which rises on the property. A couple of years ago we were contemplating planting a few reeds in the hope of re-establishing them. Now the river has thickets of reeds along its entire length--and we thought they needed some help!

Certified Educator Gathering

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n May 1 and 2, the Africa Centre hosted a Certified Educator gathering that drew 20 participants from Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Australia and the U.S. The topics discussed included the restructuring of The Savory Center’s education programs, and programs being pioneered in Southern Africa and Australia, the limited role of the Africa Centre has played in promoting Holistic Management in Africa and what its future role could be. (The association of Southern African educators, Community Dynamics, has largely fulfilled this role in

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Certified Educator Mark Gardner answers questions as part of his & Graeme Hand’s “Holistic Management in Action” workshop. points that I took away from the day was the need for us to better understand ourselves in order to better communicate with others—even, and perhaps especially, those closest to us. To achieve the kind of deep, honest communication and collaboration that successful farms, businesses, families and communities require, we need to become ever more careful and adept at really understanding one another’s way of seeing the world. Further, we need to learn to appreciate those differences so that we can use Southern Africa over the past few years).

International Certified Educator Training

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he Savory Center, through the work of the Northeast Certified Educator Training Program participants and funding through Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (NE-SARE) and Growing New Farmers (New England Small Farm Institute), has released a new publication, Improving Whole Farm Planning Through Better Decision-Making. If you are a new farmer or work with new farmers in the Northeast U.S., you are eligible for free copies of this 70-page publication. It is also available for free on our website at www.holisticmanagement.org/oll_wholefarm.cfm?

To request your free copy, please contact The Savory Center at 505/842-5252.

Volunteer Thanks

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ur thanks to Erica Frenay, a trainee in the North Central Certified Educator Training Program, for her help in our work to collaborate with universities and other institutions of higher learning as part of our educational efforts. Her research and writing skills have been much appreciated!

Humane Society International and a scientist with the U.S. Humane Society.

Certified Educator Dick Richardson (South Africa), the program facilitator, will work with a different co-facilitator for each of the remaining three sessions over the next two years. Helen Carrell from Australia co-facilitated this session.

Wiebke Volkmann, a Certified Educator from Namibia, is the program mentor.

he Africa Centre hosted the first session of our 2004 International Certified Educator Training program May 2-9. The participants come from Southern Africa, Europe, Australia and the U.S.—our most diverse group ever. They include a program officer from the United Nations Environmental Programme/World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge, England, a political activist from Zimbabwe, a bio-dynamic farmer/educator from Germany who works with mentally handicapped children, ranchers/farmers from Australia, South Africa, and the U.S., a community Participants in the 2004 Certified Educator Training Program. Front: development Jörg Jacobi, Dick Richardson, Jennifer Lanier, Wayne Knight. Back: consultant from South Kelly O’Meara, Amanda Atwood, Jason Virtue, Wiebke Volkmann, Helen Africa, the Asia/Africa Carrell, Jozua Lambrechts, Andrea Malmberg, Philip Bubb, Tony Malmberg.

Program Manager for

J u l y / A u g u s t 2004

Certified

Educators

To our knowledge, Certified Educators are the best qualified individuals to help others learn to practice Holistic Management and to provide them with technical assistance when necessary. On a yearly basis, Certified Educators renew their agreement to be affiliated with the Center. This agreement requires their commitment to practice Holistic Management in their own lives, to seek out opportunities for staying current with the latest developments in Holistic Management and to maintain a high standard of ethical conduct in their work.

For more information about or application forms for the U.S., Africa, or International Certified Educator Training Programs, contact Kelly Pasztor at the Savory Center or visit our website at www.holisticmanagement.org/wwo_certed.cfm?

* These educators provide Holistic Management instruction on behalf of the institutions they represent.

UNITED STATES ARIZONA Kelly Mulville 2884 W. Hilltop, Portal, AZ 85632 jackofallterrains@hotmail.com ARKANSAS Preston Sullivan P.O. Box 4483, Fayetteville, AR 72702 479/443-0609 • 479/442-9824 (w) prestons@nwaisp.com CALIFORNIA Monte Bell 325 Meadowood Dr., Orland, CA 95963 530/865-3246 • mbell95963@yahoo.com

Chadwick McKellar 16775 Southwood Dr. Colorado Springs, CO 80908 719/495-4641 • cmckellar@juno.com Byron Shelton 33900 Surrey Lane, Buena Vista, CO 81211 719/395-8157 • landmark@my.amigo.net GEORGIA Constance Neely 1160 Twelve Oaks Circle Watkinsville, GA 30677 • 706/310-0678 cneely@holisticmanagement.org IOWA

Julie Bohannon 652 Milo Terrace, Los Angeles, CA 90042 323/257-1915 • JoeBoCom@pacbell.net

Bill Casey 1800 Grand Ave., Keokuk, IA 52632-2944 319/524-5098 • wpccasey@interl.net

Bill Burrows 12250 Colyear Springs Rd. Red Bluff, CA 96080 530/529-1535 • sunflowercrmp@msn.com

LOUISIANA

Richard King 1675 Adobe Rd., Petaluma, CA 94954 707/769-1490 • 707/794-8692 (w) richard.king@ca.usda.gov Tim McGaffic 13592 Bora Bora Way #327 Marina Del Rey, CA 90292 310/741-0167 • tim@timmcgaffic.com Christopher Peck P.O. Box 2286, Sebastopol, CA 95472 707/758-0171 ctopherp@holistic-solutions.net COLORADO Joel Benson P.O. Box 2036, Buena Vista, CO 81211 719/395-2468 • joel@adventureunlimited.org Cindy Dvergsten 17702 County Rd. 23, Dolores, CO 81323 970/882-4222 info@wholenewconcepts.com Rio de la Vista P.O. Box 777, Monte Vista, CO 81144 719/852-2211 • riovista@rmi.net Daniela and Jim Howell P.O. Box 67, Cimarron, CO 81220-0067 970/249-0353 • howelljd@montrose.net

Tina Pilione P.O. 923, Eunice, LA 70535 phone/fax: 337/580-0068 tinamp@charter.net MAINE Vivianne Holmes 239 E. Buckfield Rd. Buckfield, ME 04220-4209 207/336-2484 • vholmes@umext.maine.edu MASSACHUSETTS

* Christine Jost Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine 200 Westboro Road North Grafton, MA 01536 508/887-4763 • christine.jost@tufts.edu MINNESOTA Terri Goodfellow-Heyer 4660 Cottonwood Lane North Plymouth, MN 55442 763/559-0099 • tgheyer@comcast.net MONTANA Wayne Burleson RT 1, Box 2780, Absarokee, MT 59001 406/328-6808 • rutbuster@montana.net Roland Kroos 4926 Itana Circle, Bozeman, MT 59715 406/522-3862 KROOSING@earthlink.net

* Cliff Montagne Montana State University Department of Land Resources & Environmental Science Bozeman, MT 59717 406/994-5079 • montagne@montana.edu NEW MEXICO

* Ann Adams The Savory Center 1010 Tijeras NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102 505/842-5252 anna@holisticmanagement.org Amy Driggs 1131 Los Tomases NW Albuquerque, NM 87102 505/242-2787 adriggs@orbusinternational.com Kirk Gadzia P.O. Box 1100, Bernalillo, NM 87004 505/867-4685 • fax: 505/867-0262 kgadzia@earthlink.net Ken Jacobson 12101 Menaul Blvd. NE, Ste A Albuquerque, NM 87112 505/293-7570 kbjacobson@orbusinternational.com

* Kelly Pasztor The Savory Center 1010 Tijeras NW Albuquerque, NM 87102 505/842-5252 kellyp@holisticmanagement.org Sue Probart P.O. Box 81827 Albuquerque, NM 87198 505/265-4554 • tnm@treenm.com Vicki Turpen 03 El Nido Amado SW Albuquerque, NM 87121 505/873-0473 • mvt9357@aol.com NEW YORK Karl North 3501 Hoxie Gorge Rd. Marathon, NY 13803 607/849-3328 • northsheep@juno.com NORTH CAROLINA Sam Bingham 394 Vanderbilt Rd. Asheville, NC 28803 828/274-1309 • sbingham@igc.org NORTH DAKOTA

* Wayne Berry University of North Dakota—Williston P.O. Box 1326, Williston, ND 58802 701/774-4269 or 701/774-4200 wayne.berry@wsc.nodak.edu OKLAHOMA Kim Barker RT 2, Box 67, Waynoka, OK 73860 580/824-9011 • barker_k@hotmail.com

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PENNSYLVANIA

INTERNATIONAL

Jim Weaver 428 Copp Hollow Rd. Wellsboro, PA 16901-8976 570/724-7788 • jaweaver@epix.net

AUSTRALIA Helen Carrell “Hillside” 25 Weewondilla Rd. Glennie Heights, Warwick, QLD 4370 61-4-1878-5285 • 61-7-4661-7383 helenc@upfrontoutback.com

TEXAS Christina Allday-Bondy 2703 Grennock Dr., Austin, TX 78745 512/441-2019 • tododia@peoplepc.com Guy Glosson 6717 Hwy 380, Snyder, TX 79549 806/237-2554 • glosson@caprock-spur.com Jennifer Hamre 316-A La Grande Ave., Austin, TX 78704 yosefahanah@yahoo.com

* R.H. (Dick) Richardson University of Texas at Austin Department of Integrative Biology Austin, TX 78712 512/471-4128 • d.richardson@mail.utexas.edu Peggy Sechrist 25 Thunderbird Rd. Fredericksburg, TX 78624 830/990-2529 • peggy@ fbg.net Liz Williams 4106 Avenue B Austin, TX 78751-4220 512/323-2858 • evwilliams@austin.rr.com

Graeme Hand “Inverary” Caroona Lane, Branxholme, VIC 3302 61-3-5578-6272 • 61-4-1853-2130 gshand@hotkey.net.au Mark Gardner P.O. Box 1395, Dubbo, NSW 2830 61-2-6882-0605 gardnerm@ozemail.com.au Brian Marshall “Lucella”; Nundle, NSW 2340 61-2-6769 8226 • fax: 61-2-6769 8223 bkmrshl@northnet.com.au Bruce Ward P.O. Box 103, Milsons Pt., NSW 1565 61-2-9929-5568 • fax: 61-2-9929-5569 blward@holisticresults. com. au Brian Wehlburg c/o “Sunnyholt”, Injue, QLD 4454 61-7-4626-7187 • ijapo2000@yahoo.com

WASHINGTON Craig Madsen P.O. Box 107, Edwall, WA 99008 509/236-2451 madsen2fir@centurytel.net

CANADA Don and Randee Halladay Box 2, Site 2, RR 1, Rocky Mountain House, AB, T0M 1T0 403/729-2472 • donran@telusplanet. net

Sandra Matheson 228 E. Smith Rd. Bellingham, WA 98226 360/398-7866 • smm1@ gte.net

Noel McNaughton 5704-144 St., Edmondton, AB, T6H 4H4s 780/432-5492 • noel@mcnaughton.ca

* Don Nelson Washington State University P.O. Box 646310, Pullman, WA 99164 509/335-2922 • nelsond@ wsu.edu

Len Pigott Box 222, Dysart, SK, SOH 1HO 306/432-4583 • JLPigott@sk.sympatico.ca

Maurice Robinette S. 16102 Wolfe Rd., Cheney, WA 99004 509/299-4942 • mlr@icehouse.net Doug Warnock 151 Cedar Cove Rd., Ellensburg, WA 98926 509/925-9127 • warnockd@ elltel.net WISCONSIN Elizabeth Bird Room 203 Hiram Smith Hall 1545 Observatory Dr., Madison WI 53706 608/265-3727 • eabird@facstaff.wisc.edu Larry Johnson W886 State Road 92, Brooklyn, WI 53521 608/455-1685 • lpjohn@rconnect.com WYOMING Tim Morrison P.O. Box 536, Meeteese, WY 82433 307/868-2354 • mcd@tctwest.net

Steve Hailstone 5 Lampert Rd., Crafers, SA 5152 61-4-1882-2212 hailstone@internode.on.net

Kelly Sidoryk Box 374, Lloydminster, AB, S9V 0Y4 403/875-4418 • hi-gain@telusplanet.net MEXICO Ivan Aguirre La Inmaculada Apdo. Postal 304, Hermosillo, Sonora 83000 tel/fax: 52-637-377-8929 rancho_inmaculada@yahoo.com Elco Blanco-Madrid Cristobal de Olid #307 Chihuahua Chih., 31240 52-614-415-3497 • fax: 52-614-415-3175 elco_blanco@hotmail.com Manuel Casas-Perez Calle Amarguva No. 61, Lomas Herradura Huixquilucan, Mexico City CP 52785 52-558-291-3934 • 52-588-992-0220 (w) iconquiahua@att.net.mx

Jose Ramon “Moncho” Villar Av. Las Americas #1178 Fracc. Cumbres, Saltillo, Coahuila 25270 52-844-415-1542 • fmholistic@att.net.mx NAMIBIA Gero Diekmann P.O. Box 363, Okahandja 9000 264-62-518091 • nam00132@mweb.com.na Colin Nott P.O. Box 11977, Windhoek 264-61-228506 • canott@iafrica.com.na Wiebke Volkmann P.O. Box 182, Otavi, 264-67-234-448 wiebke@mweb.com.na NEW ZEALAND John King P.O. Box 3440, Richmond, Nelson 64-3-547-6347 • succession@clear.net.nz SOUTH AFRICA Sheldon Barnes P.O. Box 300, Kimberly 8300 Johan Blom P.O. Box 568, Graaf-Reinet 6280 27-49-891-0163 johanblom@cybertrade.co.za Ian Mitchell-Innes P.O. Box 52, Elandslaagte 2900 27-36-421-1747 • blanerne@mweb.co.za Norman Neave P.O. Box 69, Mtubatuba 3935 27-084-2452/62 norberyl@telkomsa.net Dick Richardson P.O. Box 1806, Vryburg 8600 tel/fax: 27-53-927-4367 judyrich@cybertrade.co.za Colleen Todd P.O. Box 21, Hoedspruit 1380 27-82-335-3901 (cell) colleen_todd@yahoo.com ZIMBABWE Mutizwa Mukute PELUM Association Regional Desk P.O. Box MP 1059 Mount Pleasant, Harare 263-4-74470/744117 • fax: 263-4-744470 pelum@mail.pci.co.zw Liberty Mabhena Spring Cabinet P.O. Box 853, Harare 263-4-210021/2 • 263-4-210577/8 fax: 263-4-210273 Sister Maria Chiedza Mutasa Bandolfi Convent P.O. Box 900, Masvingo 263-39-7699 • 263-39-7530 Elias Ncube P. Bag 5950, Victoria Falls 263-3-454519 rogpachm@africaonline.co.zw

For a list of our affiliate networks, please visit our website at: www.holisticmanagement.org/asc_net.cfm 18

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J u l y / A u g u s t 2004