#120 In Practice JUL/AUG 2008

healthy land. sustainable future.

2008 2006 JULY / AUGUST January / February

NUMBER105 120 Number

Remembering to Count Our Blessings

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

by Tony McQuail

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’ve been involved in farming and farm organizations and attending farm meetings for over 35 years, and there is no question that things are mighty tough in the farm community right now. I was a young farmer when I started farming in 1970, and 38 years later I’m still younger than the median age of farmers. We’ve been getting older and older with fewer young people wanting to start farming. We suffered through high interest rates in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. We suffered through price cycles that frequently robbed a farmer of his feed and labor values. We’ve seen grain prices drop well below the cost of production. We’ve come through the BSE crisis in the beef industry followed by a Canadian dollar rising to par with our major trading partner. Times are tough and they seem to be getting tougher for agriculture as a whole.

So when we were doing our Holistic Management® Financial Planning this year we thought we better remember to count some of the hidden profits in living on our farm. The easy way to remind ourselves of these hidden profits was to go through this exercise. We asked “What if we sold the farm and reinvested the money we would get from that at our local credit union? What would we need to do then?”

What if we sold the farm?

• Get $300,000 net return • Invest at local credit union at 4.75%: $14,250/year interest income

What next?

But now we’ve got no house, no barn, no woodlot and no garden so here are the yearly expenses that would be added on: House Rental – comparable value $1,500 to $2,000/month = $18,000 to $24,000; Additional food purchases – at least $100 a

WWW.HOLISTICMANAGEMENT.ORG www.holisticmanagement.org

week to our food bill to buy the beef, pork, lamb, chickens and vegetables that currently make their way into our freezer by way of the barn and garden. = $5,200; and Heating oil – Without a woodlot to cut our own firewood we would need to buy heating fuel and that would likely run around $100 to $167/month = $1,200 to $2,000.

CANADIAN CONFERENCE

When we total up just these three items let’s see what happens.

Financial Analysis Income $14,250 Expenses House Rent $18,000 to $24,000 Food 5,200 5,200 Fuel 1,200 2,000 Totals

Join HMI-Canada for the Holistic Management International Conference on October 22-25, 2008 in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. Read more about the details on page 20.

FEATURE STORIES

low $24,400 high $31,200 Aligning with Nature— Applying Tools Toward Your Holisticgoal TONY MALMBERG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

At the low end we are $10,150 worse off by being off the farm than if we stay on it. At the high range we are $16,950 worse off, and neither of these take into account the impact of inflation on the money invested as opposed to the ownership of land. It also doesn’t take into account that we would have to pay income tax on our interest earnings before paying rent, buying groceries or paying the fuel bill, and we would have to pay income tax on any wage we earned to make up the difference. So we would be paying these expenses with after tax dollars. At the low range our farm is giving us a value worth over $400/week that is untaxed and at the high range the value is over $600/week.

If I weren’t working on our farm I might be able to get a much better paying job—but would I be doing something I enjoyed and CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Holistic Management & Heifer International MIKE EVERETT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

First Things First ANN ADAMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Developing A Quality Of Life Statement DAVID IRVINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

LAND and LIVESTOCK Twodot Land and Livestock— Pushing Limits on the Northern Plains JIM HOWELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Shenley Station— Simplicity is the Key to Success JOHN KING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

NEWS and NETWORK From the Board Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Healing the Land Documentary . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Grapevine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Certified Educator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Network News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

healthy land. sustainable future.

Count Our Blessings

continued from page one

Field day at the McQuail Farm with horsedrawn hay wagon.

Holistic Management International works to reverse the degradation of private and communal land used for agriculture and conservation, restore its health and productivity, and help create sustainable and viable livelihoods for the people who depend on it.

FOUNDERS Allan Savory

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Jody Butterfield

Left to right Katrina, Tony, Fran & Rachel McQuail

STAFF Peter Holter, Executive Director Shannon Horst, Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives Kelly Bee, Director of Finance & Accounting Jutta von Gontard, Director of Development Craig Leggett, Director of Learning Sites Ann Adams, Managing Editor, IN PRACTICE and Director of Educational Products and Outreach Maryann West, Manager of Administration and Executive Support Donna Torrez, Customer Service Manager Marisa Mancini, Development Assistant Valerie Gonzales, Administrative Assistant

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Ben Bartlett, Chair Ron Chapman, Past Chair Roby Wallace, Vice-Chair Gail Hammack, Secretary Christopher Peck, Treasurer Ivan Aguirre Jody Butterfield Sallie Calhoun Mark Gardner Daniela Howell Andrea Malmberg Jim McMullan Ian Mitchell Innes Christopher Peck Jim Parker Sue Probart Jim Shelton Roby Wallace Dennis Wobeser

ADVISORY COUNCIL Robert Anderson, Corrales, NM Michael Bowman,Wray, CO Sam Brown, Austin, TX Lee Dueringer, Scottsdale, AZ Gretel Ehrlich, Gaviota, CA Dr. Cynthia O. Harris, Albuquerque, NM Leo O. Harris, Albuquerque, NM Edward Jackson, San Carlos, CA Clint Josey, Dallas, TX Doug McDaniel, Lostine, OR Guillermo Osuna, Coahuila, Mexico Soren Peters, Santa Fe, NM York Schueller, Ventura, CA Africa Centre for Holistic Management Tel: (263) (11) 404 979 • hmatanga@mweb.co.zw Huggins Matanga, Director The David West Station for Holistic Management Tel: 325/392-2292 • Cel: 325/226-3042 westgift@hughes.net Joe & Peggy Maddox, Ranch Managers HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE (ISSN: 1098-8157) is published six times a year by Holistic Management International, 1010 Tijeras NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102, 505/842-5252, fax: 505/843-7900; email: hmi@holisticmanagement.org.; website: www.holisticmanagement.org Copyright © 2008

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believed was important? Would I get to take a pasture walk every day to move fencing? Would I be watching hawks overhead and life underfoot growing, shifting, living?

Without a farm I might have a greater need to spend money on a fitness center membership. I might want to take more holidays if I didn’t have a spot where I could walk out into nature from my front and back doors.

We can add some further values if we take a look at the points in Your Money or Your Life

by Joe Dominguez and Vicky Robins. By living and making my job on a farm I can live in the country which I like without having to commute everyday to a job somewhere else. That is a saving of my life energy and time as well as a savings on gas and wear and tear on a vehicle and environmental damage to the planet. My wardrobe on the farm is pretty basic, and good flannel shirts and jeans are recycled as farm work clothes over time. “Dressing for Success” on the farm doesn’t require the same wardrobe expenditures that are required at the office.

Dominguez and Robins do a good job of highlighting the “hidden” costs of employment which frequently mean a “good paying job” ends up offering pretty marginal returns.

Things are tough on the farm and you need do your own calculations. If you are in a situation where your equity is eroding and you are in danger of losing the farm, then selling or restructuring, cutting your losses, may be essential. Holistic Management® Financial Planning can help you do that. It has also helped us realize that the grass on the other

July / August 2008

side of the fence may look pretty green— but a lot of that green goes somewhere else.

We’ve got more grass on this side than we were counting.

Tony McQuail is in HMI’s Certified Educator Training Program and lives in Lucknow, Ontario, Canada. He can be reached at: mcqufarm@hurontel.on.ca.

CORRECTIONS . . .

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hanks to Pat Richardson for pointing out an error in the calculations in the article “A Resource Base Balancing Act” in the last issue. On page 13 about 3/4s down the first column: “Then, based on both experience and a little guesswork, the team concluded that those 12,200 acres, in a typical summer, could produce an average of 40 stock days per acre (SDA) or 16 stock days per hectare (SDH), . . . .” It should be 99 SDH. Our apologies for the confusion.

Aligning with Nature—

Applying Tools Toward Your Holisticgoal

by Tony Malmberg

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he Holistic Management® Management Guidelines can help reform our tendency to have codependent relationships with our land base, our animals, and people in our families and organizations. As an industry and livestock culture, we have moved calving dates to winter, requiring excessive feeding and care of animals. We have planted monocultures and sprayed herbicides to eliminate nature’s complexities. We use pesticides rather than understand the natural rhythms of life. We created these dependencies to increase production. We had to be there on cold nights to put the new-born calf in the barn, to spray the weeds, and put pesticides on the livestock.

Subconsciously we became dependent, in a sadistic, martyred way, on working hard. We found safety in the inflexibility. We found assurance in not questioning. And, we found security in being needed. Unwittingly, our culture accumulated a codependent relationship with our land, people, and animals, but the management guidelines can be used to wean us from these destructive habits.

Profit not Production I first realized the management guidelines are intended to help us use the tools to mimic nature as closely as possible when reading Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision Making. That realization brought my awareness of our culture’s codependent nature to an entirely different level. I realized my grandfather endured the forces of nature, my dad changed the forces of nature, with technology, and with the management guidelines I could align my actions with the forces of nature.

I got clearer on this when we attended a Ranching for Profit school. Peter McBride walked our class through an exercise demonstrating why it is beneficial to mimic nature as closely as possible. The entire class prepared a profit and loss sheet for two ranches. One ranch was our average neighbor down the road. We went through his operating budget line by line to project the overhead expenses, feed, fuel, labor, and the income. The bottom line was marginal.

The second ranch was abandoned by civilization for 100 years and the cattle left to fend for themselves. We flew in and landed to assess the situation. Mother Nature had cut back on the conception rates and weaning weights. She eliminated the labor and fuel. We went all down the line and were shocked to find the wild ranch more profitable than our neighbor, who used the best management possible!

The lesson was clear. By working more closely with nature and just tweaking a few things here and there, we could be much more profitable. That

is the intent of the management guidelines, using the tools to mimic nature as closely as possible.

Each tool is associated with a management guideline. The moment we apply a tool, a management guideline comes into play, whether we are aware of this fact or not. To use that tool with the conscious design of mimicking nature took a paradigm shift in my case. Each paradigm shift we’ve experienced was precipitated by the comprehension of a new piece of knowledge.

Learning & Practice When Andrea and I were at our first training program in Zimbabwe, our instructor, Dick Richardson, commented that he drove five hours to attend his management club meeting. Our Learning & Practice suffered from a lack of contact with other practitioners, and we always lamented that we didn’t have anyone close that was interested in a management club. Dick shattered this paradigm, and we immediately started a Holistic Management club with Jim and Daniela Howell, who live eight hours away. We have since added Zach and Shannon Jones, who live eight hours in the opposite direction.

The paradigm shift was realizing that we did not need to be immediate neighbors with our management club members. We mimicked nature by recognizing that human nature will attract to the like minded. In our case, the paradigm shift allowed for that to happen.

Organization & Leadership I grew up in a situation where the ranch manager had all of the information in his/her head and no one really knew what would be going on each day. Management and labor were codependent! The managers were secure in knowing that they had to be there because no one would do anything until they were there to supervise. In reading Holistic Management for our Certified Educator training, I noted the purpose of the Organization & Leadership management guideline was to create an environment that

nurtures creativity. It is the natural tendency of humans to create. Our subconscious, human creativity will create a more comfortable environment and easier ways to get our work done if we have a clear vision of the goal. In 2006 we included all of our staff in the grazing planning to get everyone’s focus on the big picture. The paradigm shift was from directing labor to empowering them to direct themselves.

Marketing I always had this belief about marketing, thinking it was some magic or hocus pocus that manipulated people into buying something they didn’t need or paying more than it was worth. As Andrea worked to better market our beef and lodge she demonstrated that marketing begins with product development and ends with sales. It’s a chicken-egg situation in a way because one must understand what the customer values before the product can be developed and a product must collect money. Marketing begins by developing the natural outcome of a product generated by our organization’s resources and human creativity, and does not violate our holisticgoal. Marketing acknowledges the natural tendency of human nature to invest their time and money on what they value. Our paradigm shift realized that marketing is the link between product and sales.

Time At my first Holistic Management seminar, I was introduced to the missing key of “time” and the definition of overgrazing. It wasn’t until I watched a cow graze a plant, flagged that plant, and measured the plant’s regrowth daily that I grasped the need for implementing the management guideline of “time.” Over the years, I learned how a grass plant grows and have developed the ability to step off my horse, look at some plants and quickly estimate the rate of growth and evaluate the risk of overgrazing. The paradigm shift was from judging a pasture by level of utilization to recognizing the risk of regrazing individual plants before they had recovered from their previous grazing.

At the other end of the “Time” spectrum, the comprehension of “overrest” came years later from a presentation by Jim Howell at the Colorado branch meeting. With that presentation I realized that lower production/brittle environments benefit from longer recovery periods. I realized that the first symptom of overrest in a high production/brittle environment is plant growth blocking sun from the growth points, while the first symptom in a low production/brittle environment is plant oxidation and weathering.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

Number 120

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Aligning with Nature

continued from page three

The paradigm shift was in realizing that plant material needing to be consumed each year or more did not apply to a low production brittle environment. If the growth points aren’t blocked and the plant’s not oxidizing, then it’s ok to leave plant material for a windbreak, litter, etc. Lower production environments naturally support fewer animals. Being a brittle environment, the animals naturally herd and move. The paradigm shift was in the realization that in a low production environment, animals return to areas much less frequently, hence longer recovery periods mimic nature.

Stock Density & Herd Effect Shortly after my first Holistic Management seminar I realized the value of animal impact and herd effect with salt block placement. I also learned quickly how much damage too much animal impact can do if the salt block isn’t moved daily.

But we all were wringing our hands in exasperation over practicing “partial rest.” Some built elaborate alley-ways to move livestock daily or hourly. We developed a process to bunch and herd our cattle daily to increase the Stock Density & Herd Effect.

The paradigm shift was in seeing how long lasting this management tool is in a low production environment and realizing that we didn’t have to treat every acre every year. When looking at nature we see herds going where they prefer, first. Being in a herd for predator protection they utilize the forage, urinate and defecate in a concentrated area and want to move to fresh ground. With that paradigm shift, we stopped wringing our hands and focused on mimicking nature by keeping the cattle bunched so they moved of their own free will to fresh grass everyday. The herd effect is increased just from natural animal behavior in a bunch and the animals are not stressed.

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Cropping We haven’t done much with this management guideline, but Holistic Management taught me to think about using animals and mimicking nature, while I always associated farming with tractors, fertilizer, and monoculture. That’s a paradigm shift for me.

A good example is our tendency to calve early when there is a nutrition deficit that must be supplemented by an outside source. Most likely, that source of energy is alfalfa hay or some type of grain product. In any event, the root source of energy is fossil fuels. With global warming and peak oil realities, this source will become less and less attractive and will increasingly fail the Energy/Wealth/Source and Use test. But, if we move the calving date to June, we align the cows nutritional needs with the grasses nutritional content, so there is very little deficit and need to supplement from an outside source.

Data supports that the weight difference of two calves born three to four months apart will converge as they approach 16-20 months of age.

My paradigm shift was in realizing profitability increases by calving later and carrying the calf over for another year will recapture the pounds lost. We are mimicking nature by aligning animal nutrition needs with grass nutrition.

That made sense to me, and I can see a couple of places on our ranch with big sagebrush that might benefit from burning. This aligns with nature by acknowledging successional principles.

Population Management I had this idea that everything is either good or bad and all good people were to have a zero tolerance towards the bad. The Holistic Management biological weak link testing question made me aware of habitat. I realized that whatever community of life we see is supposed to be there as a result of the past management! I’ve learned that the biological weak link often times is germination, and we can manage much of our populations at that point. I learned that diversity provides stability and resiliency and a little of anything is probably not very bad, and a monoculture of anything is probably not very good if you want stability and resiliency. The paradigm shift came with the realization that weeds aren’t bad just because somebody said so. I realized nothing is good or bad, but our holisticgoal makes it so. Nature’s force or influence can be considered by observing the biological weak link.

Conclusion

Our low production/brittle environment had much bare ground and little plant diversity from years of overgrazing and partial rest. The first time I reconsidered this anti-burning position was when I heard a forest service fire technician explain that one should not burn unless the desired plants are there before the burn. In other words, change your grazing management to develop the community dynamics before burning.

If our ecosystem processes call for use of a certain tool, we can go to the corresponding management guideline and do a literature search to get more information on how to implement the use of that tool more effectively. If we look at our business and see that it’s lacking in staff development, we can go to Organization & Leadership and implement an action plan focusing on ways to leverage and mobilize human creativity.

Most importantly, we no longer need to stay shackled to our codependent attitude. By realizing that the forces of nature will manage the ecosystem process very efficiently if left to its own devices, we can focus more on understanding and assisting those natural processes.

MANAGEMENT GUIDELINE

KNOWLEDGE-BREAKING PARADIGM

HOW NATURE IS MIMICKED

Learning and Practice

Travel to be with like-minded people

Connecting with like-minded people

Organization and Leadership

Focus labor rather than direct labor

Release our human tendency to create

Marketing

Providing value vs. selling

Produce what people value

Time

Monitor plant growth rather than plant utilization

Low production environments have less grazing animals to frequent a place

Stock Density and Herd Effect

Impact some land well and stop fretting about impacting it all every year

Livestock desire and seek fresh ground

Cropping

Recapture lighter calf weight by holding for a year

Align livestock nutrition needs with grass nutrition available

Burning

Change grazing management to change community dynamics before fire

Respect successional principles

Population Management

The state of our Community Dynamics is result of the past management

Look for the biological weak link

IN PRACTICE

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Burning

July / August 2008

Holistic Management & Heifer International

by Mike Everett

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t the invitation of the South Africa Regional Office and the Environmental Strategies, Global Initiatives and Advocacy Department of Heifer International, I traveled to Ladysmith, South Africa for an Introduction to Holistic Management Workshop and Ultra High Density Grazing tour at the Blanerne Ranch of Ian Mitchell-Innes, Holistic Management® Certified Educator.

I joined two other Heifer staff members, Bho Mudyahoto, Regional Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation Officer, Heifer International—Southern Africa Region, and Leonard Maputo, Animal Health Coordinator, Heifer Zimbabwe, working toward becoming Holistic Management® Certified Educators and 23 other Heifer and partner staff members from southern Africa, Ghana, and China at the workshop. Most of the participants were getting an in-depth introduction to Holistic Management® for the first time.

Challenging Paradigms Ian started by giving us some of his background and some ranch history. His forefathers came to South Africa in 1863 to a ranch without trees. It now has a lot of brush and trees on it. Before he heard of Holistic Management eight years ago, he was running 1,800 cows and calves on 16,250 acres (6,500 ha) year round. Last year he leased out half the ranch and is running 3,000 head and expects to add another 1,000 head this winter. “It all depends on the management,” he said. Before he had 400 acres (160 ha) in irrigation, but turned it off after training in Holistic Management® Financial Planning. He also got rid of his tractors and most other equipment. He runs a strictly grazing operation now. He has two herders, his son Will and himself to take care of the ranch.

We had gathered for this training to learn, to change our paradigm about livestock and the environment, about ourselves, our families, our communities. We all came from different backgrounds and countries, but we all wanted to make our communities better, and we had to challenge many traditional paradigms, especially

those about livestock and forage management to make a difference in our project partners’ lives.

Ian warned us that to be involved in change can be lonely and that we can be the subject of ridicule and derision from neighbors and others.

He said it was important to have a support group and create the change we wanted anyway. He said that people are pulled in many directions by many forces—family, friends, government policies, etc. but having a holisticgoal gave us direction, a true north to keep our bearings when we felt the tugs of various forces.

Animal Performance Rules Ian stressed that animal performance should be the main goal of anyone owning livestock and that form follows function, therefore it is best to buy locally adapted animals. We should also follow the advice of the game and not spray or overly medicate and vaccinate our animals, but should sell those that do not fit into the environment they are living in. He reduced his vaccination schedule to anthrax and a couple of others and stopped spraying/dipping for ticks. The majority of the animals he has now are resistant

to ticks, so much so that his neighbors claim his ticks are crossing his fences to attack their cattle!

While he still has some “tick magnets” as he calls those cattle that seem to attract ticks, the majority are generally tick-free.

In order to improve animal performance it is crucial that one grow more grass to feed more animals as our main tools in improving the soil (to grow more grass) are grazing and animal impact, which is why he has moved to ultra high density grazing to increase stock density and therefore the trampling, fouling effect of large animal numbers for a short amount of time, while getting a more even “cut” on the grass from the animals grazing.

Ian noted that there are three main challenges one must address in any management system or framework: 1. Cultural—taboos, traditions, or community politics 2. Brittleness differences—management must be different in different environments on the brittleness scale 3. Animal health and management— diseases, immunity, resistance; whether one spends money on animal health or lets nature takes its course and cull animals that do not fit the environment

Landscape Management Every afternoon we loaded up in the vehicles and visited various sections of the ranch. In one portion Ian has installed electric fenced paddocks that are 250 yards/meters wide which he can then use polywire to divide into smaller paddocks. This portion is open with few trees and a diversity of grass and forb species. The ranch is in an approximate 24 inches (600 mm) per year rainfall area. The other portion of the ranch is very hilly and brush covered, where he is using his cattle to clear out the brush and prepare it to put CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

Ian used his cattle for limited animal impact on this creek. As you can see, the left side has more vegetation and less slope than the right.

Ian increased the animal impact in this area of the creek, further enhancing vegetation growth and reduction of slope of creek bed.

Number 120

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First Things First

by Ann Adams

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en years ago I earned approximately $150,000 in a month by digging footers for the supports under my doublewide manufactured home. I suspect I may never make such a good hourly wage again. How did I do it? With an army trenching shovel—and analyzing what the logjam was that kept me from my holisticgoal.

If you’re like me, you wake up in the morning with a list of at least 50 things on your to do list.

I’ve read a variety of books that tell you how to prioritize and give you key principles to follow like, “first things first.” I’ve actually always been pretty good at prioritizing on the day to day stuff, but I was lacking the strategic focus that would get me to the next level until I started practicing Holistic Management.

Lots of folks have heard about Holistic Management and think it’s about increasing your stocking rate or improving land health. It is about that, but it is also a lot more than that. To me the power of this decision making and resource management process is in making decisions towards your holisticgoal and helping you prioritize your time, energy, and money.

holisticgoal. It’s actually a very simple process.

The challenge is if you’ve never thought or talked about what you value or want in life. Those who have already had those conversations find it pretty easy to write their holisticgoal. Those who haven’t, find this process to be rewarding and challenging as they explore those ideas with each other. You must ask yourselves: How do we want to live our lives right now? What do we value? Most folks can agree on such statements as: “We want good relationships, profit from meaningful work.” Each statement must reflect what each decision maker values.

All told, that refinance earned me $150,000. It never would have happened if I hadn’t sat down with my holisticgoal and figured out what was keeping me from living the life I wanted . . .

Core Values In essence, the holisticgoal is like a decision compass. It’s a very simple tool that keeps you on track even when there is a ton of stuff clamoring for your attention and you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the work to do and all the choices you have to make. It works because you have articulated your core values and you can refer to them anytime you aren’t clear what decision to make.

Herb Kelleher, the longest-serving CEO of Southwest Airlines, said the reason for Southwest’s success as an airline was because they were THE low-fare airline. Their core value was to reduce costs anywhere they could. When anyone in that company was making any decision, they just referred to that core value and knew what the right decision was. Great companies know what their core values are. Great families and small businesses do as well.

The first step in creating your decision making compass is for you and whoever else is making decisions for your operation and household to sit down and inventory your resource base (don’t forget the people and skills you have as well as land, animals, money, equipment and other tangible assets). Now you have a clear picture of what you are managing as well as who is influencing you and who you are influencing so you effectively manage it.

The next step is to begin writing your 6

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Once you have written down your quality of life statements, you have to figure out how you are going to produce that quality of life. What are the beliefs and behaviors that will help? These forms of production might be: “We will be thoughtful and creative in production and use of money and resources. We will take time for self, friends, neighbors, and community.” Make sure you write down at least one of forms of production statement that addresses each quality of life statement.

Lastly, you need to think long-term so you don’t make a decision based only on the shortterm. How do you want your land to be 50 years from now? Do you want healthy soil and water with lots of diversity? How do you need to be perceived by all those people in your resource base (that circle of influence)? Do you want to be perceived as honest, generous, and positive? How does the community around you have to be to support that quality of life? Good economic

July / August 2008

opportunity? Good social services?

I’ve kept this introduction to setting a holisticgoal pretty short because I know you are all dying to find out about the $150,000. Some folks think creating this decision compass is some touchy-feely thing. It can be. But for those of us that want results, you can’t find a better tool to get people motivated to do what needs to be done.

Which brings me back to digging those footers.

Huge Savings Ten years ago I was stuck with a 10 percent real estate contract on 85 acres and a doublewide.

The overhead of that real estate contract was killing me and I couldn’t see any way out. I had just gone through some Holistic Management training and we had focused on the logjam test which asks: “Is there something that is creating a logjam and keeping you from making steady progress toward your holisticgoal.”

I had a decent enough life, but there were things I wanted to do that I didn’t have time for because I was always working just to make ends meet. So I looked at my holisticgoal and how I wanted my life to be. Then I started looking at all the things that were causing life to be challenging and keeping me from it. As I looked at it, I realized that the real estate contract was the biggest thing holding me back (that high overhead). I didn’t want to sell and move, so I started exploring options.

The first option was to get a mortgage with a lower interest rate instead of the real estate contract. Mortgage rates were at 7 percent at the time. The problem was that the only mortgage company I could find that would also finance land was only willing to mortgage 40 acres. It also needed the manufactured home to be approved by a structural engineer as “real estate” (i.e. on cement footers and tied down). I called around to see who did such things and found out it was people who charged a lot of money for such services. Money I didn’t have.

So I found out exactly what was necessary and went under the house and started digging footers for each of the cement pilings on which the house was resting. I would have to say the first day of being underneath a house digging a hole with a small shovel in a very confined space made me wonder if it was really worth the effort. Smashing my knuckles against the steel girders above made me question it more. Smashing my head against them made me take a break for the rest of the day.

But each time I’d be on the verge of quitting, I’d think about my holisticgoal and my logjam and crawl back in again. Luckily the day I came face to face with a skink was also the last day of digging footers. Then I called in my resource base.

It was my birthday and I asked everyone I knew to celebrate with me by mixing cement and creating a cement brigade to haul it in under the house and pour the footers. Most of those folks are still my friends, and we can reminisce about our “Great Escape” experience.

The whole experience was like the movie “The Great Escape” in which the Allied soldiers are totally focused on getting out of the German POW camp. Like them, I was trying to escape an oppressive force that was keeping me from living the quality of life I wanted. Some prisoners were content to live out the war in the camp, waiting to be rescued. In my situation, I knew there wasn’t anyone who was going to rescue me.

My holisticgoal and the logjam test showed me what I needed to do if I wanted out. How I went about doing it was up to me. Seeing the possibility sparked my creativity and encouraged me to use my resource base to address that priority with persistence, even when the going got tough. It helped me get the refinance dropping my monthly payments by 40 percent and pay off 45 acres of the land free and clear.

All told, that refinance earned me $150,000. It never would have happened if I hadn’t sat down with my holisticgoal and figured out what was keeping me from living the life I wanted and knowing where I needed to prioritize my time, energy, money, and creativity.

This article first appeared in The Stockman Grassfarmer. For a free sample, call 800/748-9808.

Holistic Management & Heifer International

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in electric fencing over time. The cows have cleared out the understory brush, creating a browse line and rubbing of tree bark, weakening the trees which will lead to more open, savannah like conditions in the future.

During that 2-1/2 day training, Ian shared his experiences and insights into Holistic Management and how he has used it to bring his family and his ranch back from the brink of Heifer International staff from southern Africa, China, bankruptcy into a very and the U.S. learning about Holistic Management. comfortable lifestyle. As we toured the ranch I was particularly struck by the fence line comparisons of Ian’s ranch and neighbors’ ranches. The different management not only affected the color, height, and blade width of the grasses, but also the diversity of grass species within a few feet of each other. You could clearly see the difference management makes in grass productivity and color due to moisture retention by keeping ground covered.

We also looked at the effect of different types of animal impact on creek beds. Even on the limited impacted creek, one can see the difference between the steep bank and no grass on the right-hand side and the grass covered sloping bank on the left. In the more impacted area, you can see the improved health of the stream bank with reduced slope and greater vegetation.

Overall the workshop at Ian’s ranch was a success on a number of levels. Holistic Management was introduced to a large number of Heifer staff from a number of countries in Africa, as well as China and the U.S., encouraging further discussions on how to integrate Holistic Management into Heifer project development and monitoring. I believe this workshop was a critical step in turning the tide toward true community, project and individual sustainability in southern Africa.

Mike Everett is the Southwest Plains Field Coordinator for Heifer International and is in HMI’s Certified Educator Training Program. He can be reached at: mike.everett@heifer.org.

Community Development

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he essence of community development is improving the quality of life for a community through appropriate project development. It implies change and results from the effort to plan and manage human and natural resources. But, modern technology has increased complexity and disrupted the ecosystem processes, so the major challenge in community development is to balance productivity and a healthy global environment, which calls for management that will improve quality of life and enhance the environment. Therefore, agricultural systems should be technically feasible, socially, ecologically, and economically sound, and sustainable.

The three main elements of community development are: Structure – Create entities that play a role in capacity building and shape the relationships between those entities. They must exist for the good of the community and be complimentary; Power – Provide fair and equitable access to resources. Common interest can bring communities together and resolve the conflicts that emerge between different social and economic classes needing access to those resources; and

Shared Identity – Provide social/cultural meaning. A shared identity can guide a community’s words and actions, provide shared meaning, and build solidarity.

Community development using Holistic Management occurs when a community uses their own development ideas. We can play a facilitator role in building their capacity while the community identifies their own strengths and weaknesses and works out their solutions. This type of community development is not a linear process, but one that is cyclical and interconnected with other processes, natural and human derived.

We need to continue to explore the symbiosis of Heifer and HMI principles and goals. We are not that far apart in our approaches, but we at Heifer need to be more systematic about stressing the sustainability of projects and individual farmers and ranchers and providing them real tools to plan their finances, their grazing, their infrastructure, and their biological monitoring. HMI offers those tools with a long track record of effectiveness and success. Their forms are common sense and easy to follow and give truly useful information.

—-Mike Everett

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Developing A Quality Of Life Statement

by David Irvine

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want to start with two important declarations. First, the quality of your life will depend on the decisions you make. That’s all that life is: one decision after another. Second, the single most important investment you can make in your life is the investment of time to develop a Quality of Life statement—first with yourself and then with your family and team members.

I learned from Don Campbell years ago that having a clear Quality of Life statement is like having a North Star in your life. It’s a guidance system. Once you decide how you want your life to be and what success looks like to you, then you will have a framework for making decisions. The question always in the forefront is, “Does this decision take us toward our goal?” If so, great, you’ll do it. Alternatively, if a decision takes you away from your goal, why would you do it?

This concept of managing holistically has widespread application for an industrialized society that rarely stops to examine the questions: “What kind of quality of life are we personally and collectively committed to sustain? What level of production will support the quality of life we most desire?” and “How do our business and life decisions affect ecological health, which we all depend upon for our future?”

At a personal level, managing holistically means facing these questions within yourself and with those who matter most in your life. Clarifying your most desired quality of life, and then aligning your level of production and decisions that are ecologically sound with your quality of life, compels you to ask, “How much is enough?” This critical question forces you to honestly examine the difference between needs and wants.

No one can specify what is or is not appropriate for inclusion in your quality of life statement. What’s included is unique to you. However, there are eight areas you might want to consider:

How much of your resource (time and money) are you willing to invest in your development annually?

5. Physical health. Even though genetics are a given, you can influence your health, and subsequently the quality of your life, by the choices you make each moment. Good health is a source of wealth. Without health, happiness is not impossible, but it is difficult. We tend not to appreciate our health until it’s not there. Health habits define qualify of life—now and especially in the future. What is your vision of health?

At a personal level, managing holistically means facing these questions within yourself and with those who matter most in your life.

1. Purpose and contribution. What on earth are you here for? What difference do you want to make in the world?

2. Virtues and values. What qualities do you bring to your life? This aspect of a quality of life statement defines what kind of a person you most want to be as well as what matters most to you. Remember: the important things in life are not things.

3. Relationships. Who are the most important people in your life and how are your relationships with them? Who is supporting you? What is your community? How much time will you set aside for these people? What actions need to be taken to create the quality of relationships you most want in your life?

4. Challenge and growth. We all need to grow and expand beyond our comfort zone, and be challenged. What is important to you in this area?

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6. Inner peace. A calm mind is like the surface of a still lake; it reflects the beauty that surrounds it. But a troubled mind reflects a distorted image of all that falls upon it like the windswept surface of a lake.

What will it take to ensure that you are find inner peace, even during stressful times?

7. Community. Where do you want to live? What kinds of surroundings support you and give you the sense of being at home with yourself? Who is in your network of friends?

8. Rest. How much time off, away from the business, is important to you in the coming year? Be sure to discuss and schedule this with the people in your family and team.

A rich industrialist from the North was horrified to find a Southern fisherman lying lazily beside his boat, smoking a pipe.

"Why aren’t you fishing?” asked the industrialist.

“Because I have already caught enough fish for the day,” replied the fisherman.

“Why don’t you catch some more?”

“What would I do with then?”

“You could earn more money,” responded the industrialist. “With that you could have a motor added to your boat to go into deeper waters and catch more fish. Then you would make more money to buy more nylon nets. These would bring you more fish and more money. Soon you would have enough money to own two boats…maybe even a fleet of boats. Then you would be rich like me.”

“And what would I do then?” asked the fisherman.

“Then you could really enjoy life.”

“What do you think I am doing right now?”

This fisherman had a “good” life and was “stress-free” because he held the first key to Holistic Management—clarity. He knew what he wanted in his life and aligned his choices with what mattered most. His life reflected his core values. He did not succumb to the forces of popularity, power, prestige or approval from the world—all of which corrode your quality of life—in order to sustain his worth. Regardless of your judgment of this fisherman for the kind of life he was living, his clarity is undisputable.

& Twodot Land and Livestock—

Pushing Limits on the Northern Plains

by Jim Howell

I

first met Zachary Jones last summer. He was a participant in HMI’s Ranch and Rangeland (R&R) Manager Training Program, and we hosted his class’s final session up at our summer camp here in the mountains of western Colorado. Just prior to the session, I read about Zachary and his family’s ranch, Twodot Land and Livestock, in an article about “mob grazing”. That article made Zachary sound awfully smart, and I figured I better meet this guy. Prior to his arrival at our camp, I didn’t know he was enrolled in the R&R program, so when he stepped out of his little white car, all smiles and full of energy, and said he was “Zachary Jones from central Montana,” I was pleasantly surprised.

We had a great week of training, and I had the chance to begin to get to know Zach, and to pick his brain about their Northern Plains grazing operation. Zach is an ambitious, savvy young rancher in his late 20s. He’s married to equally sharp Shannon Agee (now Agee-Jones). They met as track and field student/athletes at Montana State University in Bozeman. Shannon was an All-American pole vaulter and Zach was a conference champion hammer-thrower. Zach grew up on his family’s 24,000 acres (9,700 ha) of

beautiful rolling prairie, near the little town of Harlowton, and Shannon was raised in the more urban, but still distinctly western town of Helena— Montana’s capital.

As part of the R&R program, Zach also had the chance to spend time on Tony and Andrea Malmberg’s Twin Creek Ranch, near Lander, WY. Daniela and I and Tony and Andrea formed a management club several years ago.

We all appreciated Zachary’s enthusiasm, intellect, curiosity, and sense of humor. The management club had been a valuable experience for us and the Malmbergs, and we invited Zach and Shannon to join a meeting to see if we all “fit” together, which we did last October. It was a great experience— hopefully the first of many.

In January of this year, I made a trip to visit a few of my consulting clients around the West. Twodot Land and Livestock happened to lie right on my path, so I pulled in to visit with Zach and Shannon for a few days, meet more of the Jones bunch, and to see their amazing property for the first time. We covered lots of country, both literally and figuratively, and even got a little work done. Here’s their story.

The Fourth Generation Zach’s great, great grandfather, E.C. Baxter, was from Addison, NY, and in 1893 came west to join his brother, Dr. Portus Baxter, who was a physician at the Crow (Native American tribe) Agency. He and the family eventually moved to the town of Two Dot. Two Dot is now nearly non-existent, but in the early 1900s was the main hub of commerce in this part of Montana. E.C. and some partners ventured into the banking business, and eventually branched into ranching, pooling small, struggling homesteads into more viable economic units. E.C. eventually bought out his partners and incorporated his holdings under the name of Twodot Land and Livestock. In 1908 the present ranch was 1,100 head grazing irrigated alfalfa meadows in late May with no bloat issues— quick moves and high post-grazing residuals are the key.

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purchased, marking this year as the ranch’s 100th anniversary.

While E.C. Bob Baxter, E.C.’s son, was never able to pass on his fortunes, his sister, Francis, had better luck, and latched onto William Jones, from Harlowton, Montana. William and Francis spent many summers on the family’s Montana ranch, and their son, Warren “Buck” Jones (Zach’s grandfather), grew to love the place. After graduating from Dartmouth, Warren married Mary (Scotty), and moved to the ranch at age 25 in 1945.

Warren and Scotty brought three new Jones babies into the world, including brothers Bill (Zach’s father) and Bob (Zach’s uncle), who both grew up on the ranch and made it their livelihoods. In 1993, Bill and Bob decided to split the ranch equally, with each receiving roughly 12,000 acres (4,850 ha). This was a management split—not technically an ownership split, and was the structure under which Zach labored throughout his teen years.

When Zach and Shannon finished at Montana State in 2002, they followed their hearts and their heritage and took over the reins of Bill’s side of the ranch. They are both passionate about producing healthy, abundant food in an ecologically regenerative way. Father Bill actually served on one of HMI’s first board of directors, and is innovative in his own right—no doubt a big reason Zach turned out like he did.

To Bill’s credit, he has stepped back and allowed Zach to make significant changes. He’s quit making hay and sold almost all of the ranch’s machinery and equipment. Historically, the ranch has been in the cow/calf business, and on Bill’s 12,000 acres (4,800 ha), there were always three or four herds (of 200 head each) moving through the ranch’s 30 pastures, and a significant portion of the ranch was designated for haymaking (some for their own use, some sold). Zach is properly focused on maximizing solar energy harvest via a low cost production model, and realizes that minimal herd numbers and maximum herd sizes are critical to achieving this aim.

To that end, he’s stepped up the intensity of grazing management significantly.

Understanding the need for high stock densities, well-distributed grazing and animal impact, maximum graze/trample to recovery ratios, and optimal capture of solar energy, Zach didn’t skimp on water development.

He priced out a three-inch (76-mm) pipeline at $1.85/foot ($6.07/m). This would permit gravity delivery of 55 gallons (about 220 liters) per minute

Zachary and Shannon Jones enjoying an outing with the latest family member of the Jones family, Scotland Winter.

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straight to the trough—enough to water a good size herd without the need for massive storage capacity at each water point. But, since the trench had to be dug no matter what, Zach was curious what a four-inch (102-mm) line could do. For $2.30/foot ($7.54/m), or another $.45/foot ($1.48/m), a fourinch line would deliver 120 gallons/minute (480 liters)! For Zach, that was a no-brainer, and in went the four-inch line. As Zach explains, “The conventional ag community rarely even ponders three-inch lines for livestock. Four-inch lines, for some reason, seemed off limits, in the ‘other industries’ realm. Ha!!! Four inches is right at home on our range.”

In 2006, Zach pastured a fairly conventional four herds—three groups of yearlings (750 head, 440 head, and 500 head), plus a herd of 400 cows.

This was a big improvement over the old days, especially since total pasture numbers had now increased to 70 (as a result of adding new pastures, and incorporating previously hayed pastures into the grazing plan) and the herds were larger, greatly increasing stock density and all its associated benefits. But, the water system still hadn’t been tested, and last year Zach made a big jump. He combined all the yearlings into one big mob of 1,550.

This herd was on Zach’s 12,000 acres all summer (mid-May to midSeptember), as well as a year round herd of 500 cows. Last year, Zach and his cousin Adam (Bob’s son) also began to collaborate on managing the whole ranch together, and a second yearling herd of 1,100 grazed in a cell that incorporated pastures on both sides of the Bill/Bob divide.

The 1,550-head herd of yearlings was “a breeze to manage”— according to Zach, “easier than 200 head.” There were no health problems, water problems, or moving problems. The troughs on this four-inch line are 30 feet (9 m) in diameter, and at the peak heat of the day, there were seldom over 20 head watering at a given time, and at no time were the troughs drawn down more than six inches (15 cm). At that point of maximum drawdown, Zach calculated that the water was flowing into the trough at a rate of 90 gallons/minute (360 liters), so even with 1,550 head watering at the same water point, the float valve still didn’t get the chance to open up all the way. So, they still haven’t really tested the water system.

Dream Big And, this topic of herd numbers got us to dreaming. What’s really possible out there on that prairie? On the current water system, Zach figures that one herd of 3,000 yearlings is highly doable. They were planning to do that this coming summer, but have ended up booking in (on a custom grazing basis) 1,700 steers and 1,400 heifers, which will be managed in two separate herds. The cattle owners are receptive to large herds, but Zach tested the jump to 3,000 and opted to moderate. Building confidence with the stock owners will allow the herd to grow exponentially.

But Zach wanted to look down the road, beyond the current year, and asked me to facilitate a session developing a “new” land plan. Our assumption was that the ranch—the entire 24,000 acres—would now be managed as one unit, and that we’d limit herd numbers to a grand total of one (as in One Giant Herd). Could it be done? Zach and Adam are well on their way to getting the ranch tied back together (with the full support of their fathers and other family members—way to go, guys), so that barrier looks like it’ll be breached.

So, if that’s the scenario, and the ranch’s critters are migrating across the landscape in one big mass of bovines, how big could that herd be? First, we had to come up with how many total stock days (SD) the ranch could produce in a given year. Zach had done his homework and had already laid out a bunch of scenarios, but here’s the crux of what he figured. On Zach’s 12,000 acres, he’s averaging an annual harvest of 36.5 SDA (stock days per acre) or 90 SDH (stock days per hectare). When I visited in January, even after producing and harvesting this volume of forage, there was still a lot of

country that looked like it had hardly been touched. This is just 13-inch (330-mm) rainfall country, but the northern plains tend to receive the bulk of their moisture right when they need it, in high spring—April, May, and June. Thirteen inches of rain can grow a lot of grass if it comes right, and in central Montana, it usually does.

On my way up to Twodot, I drove through Colorado and central Wyoming, then up through Billings, Montana and west along the Yellowstone River, and then a little ways north to Zach and Shannon’s. That’s a long drive, and I saw millions of acres along the way. The best-looking patch of ground I saw— and this is no exaggeration—was the Twodot pasture I drove through between the highway and the ranch headquarters, and it was teeming with white-tail deer. Again, this was the middle of winter, after the vast majority of cattle had come and gone, and it still looked good. What’s my point?

My point is that 36.5 SDA (90 SDH) is most likely a conservative figure. If we extrapolate that level of harvest across the whole ranch’s surface area (all 24,000 acres, or 9,700 ha), that works out to a total production of 876,000 SD. So, we now had to look at various livestock production models. This grass can be harvested when it’s at its highest quality, from May to September (in a typical year, the vast majority of the annual feed supply grows during May, June, and July), or it can be very lightly grazed during the growing season and shunted into the winter (which typically stay open and grazeable)—or some combination of these two extremes. For the past few years, the ranch has followed this mixed enterprise approach, maintaining a year round base herd of 800 mother cows, and stocking up with several thousand yearlings in the summer. Concentrating forage harvest over four months means lots more critters and a much bigger herd than grazing year round. So before we could go any farther with our land planning (which all hinges around maximum possible herd size), we had to have this answer.

What’s a Stock Day Worth?

In evaluating the various options, we started with analyzing gross profits, and decided to bring everything back to a common denominator—the elegant, simple, standard stock unit day—which for Twodot represents 30 pounds (13.6 kg) of forage dry matter. “What is that 30 lb. (13.6 kg) worth,” we asked, “when nourishing different classes of livestock, in terms of gross profit/SD?” We looked at custom grazed yearlings; owned yearlings; owned heifers put to the bull and sold as bred replacement heifers; conventional cow/calf, selling weaned calves in the fall; cow/calf, retaining all calves and selling as yearlings; and cow/calf, retaining all calves and running till range-finished at two-plus years.

Every ranch’s resource base is unique, of course, so the following isn’t a recipe. The Twodot prairie is dominated by very high quality cool season perennial grasses. It can reliably pack on 250 pounds (114 kg) of gain over a spring and summer growing season. Sourcing big numbers of yearlings (to either buy or custom graze) is very doable in the Northern Plains—this is still big, open ranching country with lots of cattle. Each pound of gain is worth at least $.35 ($.77/kg) in that part of the country (with custom grazing), so if these yearlings are gaining two pounds (.9 kg) per day, the total value of that stock day (each yearling stock day is the equivalent of .8 standard stock days) is worth $.88 (2 lb. @ $.35/lb divided by .8). In other words, when put through a yearling animal, each 30 lb. packet of prairie grass is worth $.86 return to overhead (gross profit after enterprise expenses of $.02/SD).

This is the type of 30-foot trough (with multiple pastures radiating off of it), supplied by the gravity-fed 4-inch water line, which last year easily watered a single herd of 1,550 head. Zachary is certain they would handle 3,000-head yearling herds, and will move toward these larger herds as he builds trust and credibility with his custom grazing clients.

Owned yearlings worked out identical to custom grazed yearlings (but at greater risk, with millions of dollars tied up in livestock), the replacement heifer enterprise worked out to around $1.30/SD (but, again, at greater risk and with lots more potential complications), and all the cow/calf options came in substantially worse (except for a niche grass finished beef scenario requiring daunting volume).

The worst of all was the traditional cow/calf enterprise (selling calves in the fall) at $.58/SD with today’s markets. In environments with predictable, very high quality growing seasons, it’s hard to justify running cows (from an economic perspective, anyway). There’s just too much energy (grass) that goes into maintaining that cow, the cow loses value over the course of her lifetime and eventually has to be replaced, and the cost of developing (or buying in) that replacement is huge. With young growing animals, they can be growing and gaining in value every day, and if their stay on the ranch coincides with the year’s “high gain” window, they’ll always be profitable under a low cost production model that’s centered on the efficient capture of free sunshine.

Yearlings and the Triple Bottom Line So, from an economic perspective, the yearlings win. Zach and Shannon are keen to travel extensively, they want to have time to pursue other interests, and they appreciate having slow times throughout the year, so essentially shutting down the ranch for half the year stacks up nicely with their desired quality of life. The only red flag with a purely yearling operation is ecological in nature. With a year round cow/calf herd, most of the grass that grows in the spring and early summer has to be shunted to fall and winter. This means that plants are typically lightly grazed during the growing season, and that there is lots of litter-making material leftover when heading into winter. In this cold, winter-dry, windswept environment, a healthy insulating cover of grass stubble is vital. With yearlings, the bulk of the grazing pressure happens right when everything’s growing, so the CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

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threat exists that all that forage could be removed without chance for regrowth, leaving the prairie soil surface overly exposed through the windy winter.

But, by managing stocking rate to ensure ample post-grazing residuals, and by only grazing most pastures one time during the growing season, opportunity for regrowth (which, again, won’t be regrazed in a given year) is generous, especially for those pastures grazed early in the season. And, timing of grazing can be switched up from year to year, ensuring that the same pastures aren’t repeatedly grazed late in the season (without the chance for regrowth). So, concentrating grazing pressure from May to September is a potential problem, but with good planning it’s manageable.

Before we could do our holistic land plan, we needed to have all these issues—economic, social, and ecological—sorted out. Now we had an overall production figure to work with (as a starting point—we realize this can move, hopefully upward, through the years), which again was 876,000 SD (24,000 acres X 36.5 SDA). And, we decided that these stock days are most valuable when put through a growing yearling. Those 876,000 standard stock days, when converted to yearling days, equate to about 1,100,000. If those yearling days are harvested over the course of four months, that equates to a little over 9,000 head. If we go back to the probability that 36.5 SDA is conservative, we can easily envision a nice even size herd of 10,000 head. So, we now had our answer to our big land planning question: “How big could our One Giant Herd potentially be?”

Planning for Ten Grand We had to step back a little and digest that figure. I’ve never heard of anyplace running 10,000 head of cattle in one mob. I’m sure it’s being done somewhere, so sing out if you’re out there and let us know how it’s going (or how it went). When we teach land planning and grazing planning, we always say there’s no known upper limit to herd size, as long they can get a drink comfortably. Might 10,000 head breach this limit? We don’t know, but we don’t think so. Zach, at any rate, is willing to give it a go.

So, if we need to come up with a land plan capable of handling at least 10,000 in one herd, where do we start? Like always, we start with water. We calculated that even the existing four-inch line wouldn’t be up to the task, so we had to stand back and reassess. When Zach erased all the fencelines he’d built over the previous years, and imagined how far a yearling could be expected to comfortably walk from water (especially if

The true “pot of gold”.

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grazing in a massive herd at high stock density), a big lightbulb lit up. It immediately struck him that a majority (75 percent) of the ranch is either within two miles (3.2 km) of the American Fork River, or within an easy walk of a huge dam that’s fed by a strong perennial creek. By rearranging the fence layout to allow access to the river or dam, the water problem is eloquently solved over most of the ranch. We did some quick scenarios, and lots of existing fence could stay in place, and all the existing waterlines could still be used as secondary water sources.

On the balance of the ranch (away from the river and creek-fed dam), the solution was a little slower-coming. We were imagining some pretty wild and extravagant possibilities, but then we stepped back once again and asked ourselves how many stock days this part of the ranch produced. It is a lower producing part of the ranch and, with a big herd of yearlings grazing for just 120 days, would only be used for about three weeks. Based on topography and distance to water, we figured we needed three water points in this area, which means that each point would only be used about a week per year. Two of these potential points are well-placed for a potential reservoir site, and the third point’s reservoir is already there (although it might need a little modification). Two of those sites can be fed by springs and abundant spring snowmelt, and one by a strong, shallow well.

Cattle don’t mind drinking reservoir water if they also have access to some clean water (Michael Coughlan, in hot New South Wales, Australia, has proved this with massive cattle herds). If the reservoirs are built deep enough (thereby preventing cattle from walking out into the water), and fitted with a pipe coming out the bottom of the dam, clean, unfouled water can be piped to a long, simple trough fitted with a float valve. The dam itself can provide storage and a drinking source, and the trough can provide a source of cleaner water.

By only providing trough space, 10,000 head would need lots of linear feet. By providing access to both the trough and the reservoir, the actual trough can be much less elaborate. And, as Michael Coughlan has experienced, if cattle have access to a drink of clean water, they’re much happier drinking more fouled pond water. If the cattle are only watering at a given point for a week, and then moving to a new, fresh reservoir that’s had a year of recovery and recharge, fouling becomes much less of an issue anyway. When the cattle are away, these reservoirs would recover and become oases of biodiversity.

And fencing? We didn’t get to drawing new fencelines on the map, but we imagine that permanent fencing might largely be a thing of the past.

Lots of pronghorn, white-tail deer, and mule deer make their home here, and for the vast majority of the year, any given spot on the ranch is cattle free. It’s tough to justify dozens of miles of high tensile wire when it’s so seldom used by cattle, and so frequently torn out by wildlife. So, the idea at this point is to put in permanent posts, but do most of the new fencing with portable polywire. Most of the Twodot is flat or gently rolling, so stringing up polywire is a breeze, and likely will entail much less labor than maintaining all those miles of high tensile wire.

Zach and Shannon are young leaders in the world of holistically sound land management and beef production. Their keen intellects, combined with tested practical grit, form a rare combination. I look forward to following their progress through the years, and wouldn’t be surprised if, maybe a couple generations down the road (thanks in part to their successful example), 10,000 cattle in one herd is the norm. In the meantime, their low cost/high gross profit model has the Jones Family poised to capitalize on the world’s growing hunger for high quality, nutrient-dense, ecologically-regenerative protein.

Shenley Station—

Simplicity is the Key to Success

by John King

“I

use to do the power farming thing”, says Rit Fisher. “It drove my cost per kilo of beef up to NZ$1.40 (US$2.16/lb). I like keeping things simple, and we now have it down to $0.55/kg (US$0.85/lb). Now I don’t care what the beef price does.” Eight years ago Rit and Sara Fisher were running 12,000 sheep and 500 cattle on Shenley Station, a 8,750-acre (3,500-ha) property inland from Timaru, about two hours south of Christchurch. Now they have 5,500 sheep and 1,400 cattle (900 cows). Every decision they make focuses on improving the performance of the engine of their business—the land.

Tightening the Belt Simplicity is the key to any successful operation. The Fishers’ cattle finishing business averages no more than 2 hours labor per day and a profitability exceeding $300,000 (US$210,000). This is not the kind of business you’ll see in the monitor farm program.

Other farmers in the district drop in from time to time, usually during a crisis, to ask what Rit is doing differently. When he tells them his story, the reaction is usually the same, “It can’t be done.” They go back down the drive, past the healthy growing pastures, and out the front gate in disbelief.

Like many farmers, Rit spent years looking for solutions to his production problems. He credits his desire to question and learn to his father, a farming philosopher and great observer of the land. Rit’s own observation skills are outstanding, sharpened from years of fishing, hunting, and rodeo. A prolific reader with an investigative attitude, he stubbornly sought answers to the high debt, low profitability, and difficult market circumstances consistently dogging their operation.

“We bought the 8,250 acres(3,300ha) for NZ$1.2 million in 1979, the largest family trust transfer at that time in New Zealand with nothing more than a saddle, a rifle, and a ute as collateral. When Roger Douglas got in power with the Labour Government in 1984, I had read all his books. We (foreseeing the end of farming subsidies) dropped the staff and moved to a store stock situation. We ran this place with a horse and pair of pliers; me, Sara, and 10,000 sheep. We lived on $90 (US$63) a month. Bank managers couldn’t believe it”

Life was a struggle over the next eight years, but in 1992 they ambitiously bought the neighbor’s 500 acres (200 ha). “How did I buy a $450,000 (US$315,000) property when that very winter we’d lost 3,000 ewes in the snow, around 30 percent of my flock, worth around $180,000 (US$126,000)?

We went to all the banks, they came, looked over the property. We showed them our figures, but none of them were interested. We were broke! In the end, my accountant and I contacted the solicitor and found 13 Timaru widows willing to fund the venture. We got our money; they got the chance to dabble in farming again. Cost us a lot in sides of mutton and scones, but that’s what we had to do to keep it rolling.” Several years later they refinanced with a bank.

Question Everything Buying land was the easy bit. Rit thought the property next door was just over the fence, but it was a world away. It functioned completely different to Shenley Station. Without fertilizer for 20 years, no organic matter breakdown, and an iron pan just below the plough line, the property was just moss and thistles. Rit embarked on a 15-year challenge to get the property up to speed.

“We went fishing,” he says. “We’ve had every snake oil salesman you can think of trying to sell us silver bullets. We did soil and herbage analyses, blood and milk tests, then tried Bio-Start with fine lime by helicopter, but nobody would tell us what was in it other than DAP, etc. I learned it was humic acid. About this time Maxicrop and Stephen Bell-Booth were in the papers and the courts arguing about the benefits of seaweed. I rang him and he visited us. We talked for hours at the kitchen table about soils. It’s all third form chemistry (chemistry for thirteen year olds). He got us a humic acid product (Humisol) from Australia and we applied it at 0.61 gallons/acre (7 litre/ha).”

At very little cost—US$4.50/acre ($16/ha)—this key discovery addressed an immense lock-up situation. The released mineral provided immediate benefits. Prior to spraying humic acid, they measured a million worms/ha, after the initial applications that rose to 4 million within 18 months. They began seeing slugs on the soil, and on dewy mornings the pastures were white with spider webs.

Not only was this a turning point in understanding how land functioned, it changed Rit’s outlook on sources of information. “The Bell Booth case was all tall poppy syndrome,” he recalls. “If someone causes that much trouble, they must be good. Stephen is one of those genuine souls. He had nothing to sell me at the time and was genuinely excited about what we were doing and thinking. Now I question everything including authority. Money never buys an answer.”

Having studied agricultural economics and accountancy, Rit used various techniques and technologies to plan and monitor every aspect of the business. “The more we monitored, the more we realized we weren’t making a margin,” he says. They walked away from traditional farm advisors 15 years ago and talk with three or four key people once or twice a year. As a result, farming has become simpler with less animal health problems and labor.

The Fisher Family. From left: Nick, Rit, Kate, and Sara.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

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Shenley Station

continued from page thirteen

pushing my paradigms. He is another person who has made a huge influence on this property, probably without knowing it. Like Bruce and Mark, I might talk to him once a year; that’s all the contact I have with these people. They’ve made me aware the engine of the farm is the sum of everything.”

Rit doesn’t have a lot of time for support groups. “I can’t stand being around people holding cups of tea and talking about what they’re going to do. I get ants in my pants and just want to get on with it. I remember when we first started the mobs grazing. My stock manager and I jibed over who was going to open the gate cause if it failed it would be their fault!” he recalls.

“First year was the most exciting journey we ever had. We made some monstrous cock-ups, mostly overgrazing by staying too long and having very short recovery periods.”

Increasing Soil Carbon

Rit’s breeding policy has produced animals capable of surviving the coldest winter. During the big snow storm in June 2006 Rit herded cows through 18-foot (5.5 m) drifts into the creeks. These animals must graze and survive all the way to 5,000 feet (1500 m), even in the winter, to make this property work.

Team Shenley “We heard about Bruce Ward and that a course was being organized. I went with the stock manager at the time, Sara stayed at home. What we learned wasn’t a revelation, I didn’t see the light, but it made us focus on the engine. Sara made me explain every decision I’ve made using the process.

She’s the Gatekeeper! It extended my boundaries. Holistic Management is about finding what suits you. We began finding ways to bring fertility onto the property.”

As he recalls, “Animals are there for the grass, not the other way round.

We use them to benefit the four ecosystem processes. The new property had choked to death because a hand was over the carburetor.” They started developing their own grazing regime, the Rito-system, after looking at Harry Weir’s techno-system (see IN PRACTICE #79) and doing the planned holistic grazing.

“We stuck religiously to the grazing chart for three years but then morphed our own method and find that more flexible.” From monitoring and observing results of the planned holistic grazing, they could see they were on the right track. This experience grew their confidence as they saw the kind of property they wanted develop before their eyes.

The people they’ve meet through Holistic Management played a large part in shaping direction of the farm business. “Bruce Ward has had huge influence on what we do here. He has challenged us more than he knows, and we have an immense amount of time for Bruce and Suzie.” During their Holistic Management training with Bruce they heard about Mark Bader and Free Choice Enterprises.

“Mark came here and really challenged what we were doing. He never gave us an answer. If you hadn’t thought through your question he’d answer, “I don’t know.” He just didn’t give a toss. He had nothing to sell us. I had to think it all out with his rationale.” They now ration balance everything that goes through the Rito-system using herbage tests to make adjustments. Their first year doing the ration balancing saved them $26,000 (US$18,200) in animal health costs. Rit is now investigating bringing in Free Choice Enterprise products to New Zealand from South Africa.

They also met Kim Stevenson, an independent soil and animal health consultant. “Kim challenges the choices and decisions we make. He is always 14

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Shenley Station has a long history of documented grazing and soil research going back to the 1950s. In the late seventies they partook in water harvesting research establishing how grazing could improve the run country by increasing rainfall absorption and retention. Set stocking for long periods with sheep only increased rainfall run off. Using large mobs for short grazing periods proved to be the most effective. This research ended in 1986 when an 18-inch (450-mm) rainfall in 24 hours washed away all the monitoring equipment.

An ongoing commitment to research includes five yearly evaluations of vegetation transects in the run country to record the impact grazing regimes have on plant species. They have found long recovery times and short grazing periods increase the number of native species found in the paddocks they measure. The run country appears to be slowly reverting from woody species under their holistic grazing. While the native matagouri (a thorny shrub) is good snow protection, running a larger herd will prove useful in improving access through those blocks.

The Fishers grazing regimes have increased the soil organic matter, which in turn improves soil water absorption and retention properties. The analyses from the 1950s soil conservation Run Plans have soil carbon measurement indicators. They are considering whether to review these and compare the difference with current records. About 90 percent of the property is crown pastoral lease and as renegotiating with Department of Conservation is a nasty business, they might claim increases in soil carbon as capital improvements to the property.

Holistic Management helped the Fishers develop a better understanding of what they were observing in the run country blocks and what they were trying to create with the new intensive property. It deepened their knowledge of the links between animals, soils and plants to improve the whole business. The result is evident from the moment you arrive at the property.

Creating Resilience When you drive on to Shenley Station, the first thing you’ll see are the tall pastures on the rolling down country. This is the Rito-system, a 200-acre (80ha) area subdivided into 10-acre (4-ha) paddocks. In 2007 the Rito-system will envelope all 500 acres (200 ha) of the intensive country The Rito-system post-grazing residuals are 4,450 lbs DM/acre (5,000 kg DM/ha). “Most consultants can’t get their heads around that,” asserts Rit. “They see hay and straw lying in the paddock uneaten and freak out. I see organic matter and wonder how I can get it into my soil.” Key to improving farm performance has been feeding the soil with litter to strengthen soil structure while enhancing nutrient cycling. Their grazing planning focuses on these objectives with the Rito-system an excellent demonstration of what they’ve achieving.

Stimulating and maintaining the mineral cycle has increased winter soil temperatures around 2 Degrees C higher than neighboring properties. The

build up of soil organic matter buffers both drought and cold by extending pasture growth into the dry and winter. Dung piles are gone in 21 days with the Rito-system, if not they apply fulvic and humic acids in the form of Maxicrop at one gallon/acre (10 l/ha). Earlier this decade the South Canterbury district experienced its three driest years ever. Shenley Station carried on without dropping a single stock unit, however the Rito-system post grazing residuals dropped to around 2,700 lbs DM/ac (3,000 kg DM/ha).

The high grazing residuals testify the old adage grass grows grass and hay is the best fertilizer. Despite years of trying to graze all the Rito-system production, they have always made hay to maintain grass quality, anywhere up to 450 large round bales of hay plus 250 balage. They buy in another 750 bales of hay and about the same amount of straw. Animals have access to straw all year round. They never sell fertility off the property. As Rit observes, “This is summer and autumn country. We seldom have a spring.” They carry two years feed at all times reflecting the erratic climate.

Another key factor is increasing the mix of plant species in the pastures to maximize the benefits of pasture diversity. On the intensive country there are at least 26 species of grasses in the pastures and even more forbs and sedges.

“We never stopped sowing, but I never sow more than a 1/2 lb/acre (1/2 kg per hectare),” he says. “Anymore than that and you’re wasting money.” Rit looks for herbs and the oldest grasses he can find and has even imported seed from the U.S. With the Rito-system, any new seeding is direct drilled straight into the pasture after spraying only 5 oz/acre (400ml/ha) Roundup. As he puts it, “Why bugger up all the soil life with higher doses.”

Rit uses his animals as tools to build soil fertility. When buying the next door property and its horde of Californian thistles, he bunched 200 cows on 50-meter strips to flatten the lot. “Those thistles have roots going down 15 feet (5 meters). By flattening them, I put that mineral they pulled up on the soil surface. In the following years we had spectacular growth on those paddocks without a thistle in sight. It was the cheapest fertilizer ever.”

Optimizing Production Rit uses herbage analyses in calculating the ration balance of growing steers. Ration balancing focuses on assessing and correcting the ration protein/energy ratio to optimize animal growth. They pH test the animals’ urine every second day and Rit supplies additional protein or carbohydrate depending on what animals need to keep growing. From mid-spring, steers in mobs of 200 are behind wires in the Rito-system and graze a break no more than two days at 20 head/acre per day (50head/ha per day).

Over the last four to five years, weaning weights have climbed by 44-66 lbs (20-30 kg) per animal and this trend will continue. Their annual daily growth rate is 1.5 lbs (0.7 kg) and peaks at around 4 lbs (1.8 kg) in the spring.

Cow age is impressive. Some 15-20 percent of the 900 cows are 18-34 years of age. Around 40 animals are between 28-34 years old, each squeezing a calf out every spring. They select cows that drop a calf and lay fat on their backs for winter. Calving rate is 97 percent for the last four years.

The breeding policy has produced animals capable of surviving the coldest winter. During the big snow storm in June 2006 Rit herded cows through 18-foot (5.5 m) drifts into the creeks. “These animals must graze and survive all the way to 5,000 feet (1500 m), even in the winter, to make this property work.” The homestead and Rito-system are at 1,700 feet (500 m).

The sheep and cows graze their own cells according to a grazing plan that is season dependent. To reduce parasites, the cows and sheep swap cells after lamb tailing. They usually run a couple of mobs of each, but this winter only two mobs will be grazing across the run country, one cows, the other sheep. This is an effort to reduce labor, simplify the operation further, and push the potential of their Holistic Management practice.

This picture of the homestead shows the difference between the improved lower country which is now the Rito-system and the run country higher up. The farm swings up the right of the photo and goes over the range in the background Rit still ponders where sheep fit into the operation. He claims the property can lose 500 ewes and he could replace them with 200 cattle. “The stock unit figures don’t stack up,” he says. The animal health bill for the run country is $14/hd (US$9.80/hd) for sheep, whereas its $6/hd (US$4.20/hd) for cows. A gross margin analysis shows 1,100 hoggets produces the same income as 14 steers, hence the move to buying in ewe replacements and using terminal sires. Moreover, the winters are too hard on the sheep and there are significant losses to theft (900 stolen last winter).The figures say it all; sheep consume 80 percent of the labor and only generate 30 percent of the income.

A contributing factor to poor sheep performance is the tall post-grazing residuals. They are great for the soil and pastures, but sheep production suffers. “We can’t get our grass down low enough to benefit the lambs,” Rit observes. He believes the higher pasture residuals result in greater exposure to ryegrass endophyte. They are looking at dropping the Halfbreds for Romney/Texel crosses. Texels have a longer intestine and may handle the property and endophyte levels better. They are also better at absorbing copper, a trait from grazing copper deficient seaweed in their native Ireland. However, they’ll have to perform very well. “We need 140% lambing from crossbreds to equal an 80 percent from Merinos,” he says. Not only is the wool less valuable but crossbreds gobble up more grass than browsing fine wool breeds.

It’s all part of the experiment.

The Fishers have always had a very long term perspective to their business planning. “Most farmers want a return in six months. The things I’m doing take six to ten years to see an outcome,” says Rit. “The production indicators of our business have never been targets we’ve set. The figures are simply consequences of choices and decisions we’ve made with the long term in mind.”

With a landscape and operation constantly changing, Rit and Sara often find themselves standing back in amazement and then redefining their goals. Despite carrying debts, they are not afraid to expand into new directions. Moving to meat production with their sheep and entering the heifer market with their cows have become options because they’ve stimulated the nutrient cycle and challenged the traditions of high country farming. As Rit muses “We’re not rich, but I’ve never been one to keep score with money anyway!”

John King is a Certified Educator who lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. He can be reached at succession@clear.net.nz.

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Scientific Team Visits Africa Centre T he

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news from holistic management international

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PBS Documentary—A Work in Progress

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hris Schueler, Director/Producer of the one-hour PBS documentary “Healing the Land: The Untold Story,” logged close to 20,000 miles in three months when he and his team traveled to Australia, Mexico, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. They filmed and interviewed long-time practitioners, range and soil scientists, as well as the next generation ranchers, farmers, and pastoralists. The June/July filming will The documentary crew learns what the younger generation at Ivan and continue on sites in the US, most likely Colorado, Martha Aguirre’s Rancho La New Mexico, and Texas.

Inmaculada in Sonora, Mexico We are happy to report that we have raised twothinks about healthy land. third of the money needed for this project. In addition to the two lead gifts from Dr. Cynthia Harris & Leo Harris and the Jerry Peters Foundation, several other individuals and foundations have contributed to make it all happen.

Among those are Sallie Calhoun and Matt Christiansen, Jim & Ann McMullan, Bazy Tankersley, Ron Chapman, Penny & Armin Rembe, and Linda Davis.

We know this documentary will have quite an impact in terms of public perception of the land and its role in keeping us and the planet healthy. After viewing the footage from Australia, producer Tony Tiano had this to say to HMI Executive Director, Peter Holter: “…pass on my extreme enthusiasm for this project and for what you are doing. It just may be the most important thing happening in the world right now. There are solutions here that people need to know about and you have honored me by giving me a small part to play in bringing this message to a broad audience.”

From all of us at HMI a heartfelt thanks to all who are contributing time, experience, wisdom, and money! THANK YOU!

From the Board Chair

Holistic Management and the “Food Crisis”

by Ben Bartlett

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recently gave a talk about agriculture around the world to a rural–urban group just days after the food riots in Haiti and numerous other countries. It was a great time to share with people how agriculture and the way we treat the land is our future. To paraphrase the old cliché: “Food is like oxygen, no big thing, unless you aren’t getting any.” The shifting of the use of our crops for fuel instead of food is often noted as a significant cause in this run up in food prices because our food crisis is price and not availability, at least at this time. (Keep in mind that for almost 2 billion people in the world, a higher food price is the same as food shortage.)

As you listen to the various commentaries on the situation, it seems that most people are missing the real cause of the problem. Most of the solutions to the situation revolve around hard system thinking—just plant a better

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n May scientists at South Africa’s famous Kruger National Park visited HMI’s learning site in Zimbabwe along with 10 of their colleagues. They were there to see the results produced by the Africa Centre for Holistic Management‘s staff in using livestock to restore degraded land and wildlife habitat on Dimbangombe Ranch. The scientists were so impressed with what they saw—lush forage, developing wetlands, and little bare ground— that they plan to return in October with even more colleagues. They hope to conduct followup research on Dimbangombe to better understand the changes in the “hydrology” (water cycle), and to answer other questions.

They also hope to initiate their own research trials in South Africa on land adjacent to the Kruger Park, using management staff trained by HMI. One of the scientists will be conducting a review of the scientific literature, particularly on the use of fire in rangeland management with a view to reinterpreting the conclusions based on what they saw at Dimbangombe, where animals have replaced the role of fire in land management.

This was an impressive group of scientists representing not only Kruger National Park, but also including senior researchers from South Africa’s Agriculture Research Centre, and faculty and student researchers from the University of Kwazulu-Natal and University of the Witwatersrand, as well as the manager of South Africa’s Environmental Observation Network. We were honored by the visit, appreciative of the stimulating conversations, and look forward to some fruitful collaborations in the near future.

seed, more water, more fertilizer and presto, more food. As practitioners of Holistic Management, we realize that the eco-system, which includes food, or wildlife, or the land, and much more—is a soft or complex system. We are not in control of the weather, diseases, the wind, or a million other factors that can alter the outcome and output. But, we can manage complex systems by understanding how they work and then monitoring all our actions to “herd” the outcomes in our desired direction.

The good news for Holistic Management is that people are talking about the land, food, fiber, and fuel it produces. We, practitioners of Holistic Management, have a great opportunity to share with people how the land could be managed to allow us to produce the food and fuel we would need, taking our future resource base into consideration. HMI has some great projects in the works to tell people about Holistic Management and what it can accomplish. The website is up and running with great pictures that demonstrate what Holistic Management can do on the land. But the best promotion of Holistic Management is the things you do. It’s how you manage your land, it’s how you talk about how we need to manage the land, it’s how you support your fellow land managers and your Holistic Management cohorts, and it’s your support of HMI that will make a different.

All change will start with you.

UNITED STATES

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 HMI. 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 HMI’s Certified Educator Training Programs, contact Ann Adams or visit our website at: www.holisticmanagement.org.

EDUCATORS PROVIDE HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT INSTRUCTION * THESE ON BEHALF OF THE INSTITUTIONS THEY REPRESENT.

UNITED STATES

CALIFORNIA Bill Burrows 12250 Colyear Springs Road Red Bluff, CA 96080 530/529-1535 • 530/200-2419 (c) sunflowercrmp@msn.com Richard King 1675 Adobe Rd. Petaluma, CA 94954 707/769-1490 707/794-8692(w) richard.king@ca.usda.gov Kelly Mulville 319 Sunnyvale Drive Hearldsburg, CA 95448 707/431-8060 jackofallterrains@hotmail.com * Rob Rutherford CA Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 805/756-1475 rrutherf@calpoly.edu

COLORADO Joel Benson P.O. Box 4924, Buena Vista, CO 81211 719/395-6119 • joel@outburstllc.com Cindy Dvergsten 17702 County Rd. 23, Dolores, CO 81323 970/882-4222 hminfo@wholenewconcepts.com Daniela and Jim Howell P.O. Box 67, Cimarron, CO 81220-0067 970/249-0353 • howelljd@montrose.net Craig Leggett 2078 County Rd. 234, Durango, CO 81301 970/946-1771 crleggett@holisticmanagement.org Byron Shelton 33900 Surrey Lane, Buena Vista, CO 81211 719/395-8157 • landmark@my.amigo.net Tom Walther P.O. Box 1158 Longmont, CO 80502-1158 510/499-7479 tagjag@aol.com

GEORGIA Constance Neely 635 Patrick Place Atlanta, GA 30320 706/540-2878 cneely@holisticmanagement.org

IOWA * Margaret Smith Iowa State University, CES Sustainable Agriculture 972 110th St., Hampton, IA 50441-7578 515/294-088 mrgsmith@iastate.edu

LOUISIANA Tina Pilione P.O. 923, Eunice, LA 70535 phone: 337/580-0068 tina@tinapilione.com

MAINE Vivianne Holmes 239 E. Buckfield Rd. Buckfield, ME 04220-4209 207/336-2484 • vholmes@umext.maine.edu Tobey Williamson 52 Center St., Portland, ME 04101 207/774-2458 x115 tobey@bartongingold.com

MICHIGAN Ben Bartlett N4632 ET Road, Traunik, MI 49891 906/439-5210 (h) • 906/439-5880 (w) bartle18@msu.edu

MONTANA Wayne Burleson 322 N. Stillwater Rd., Absarokee, MT 59001 406/328-6808 rutbuster@montana.net Roland Kroos 4926 Itana Circle, Bozeman, MT 59715 406/522-3862 kroosing@msn.com * Cliff Montagne P.O. Box 173120 Montana State University Department of Land Resources & Environmental Science Bozeman, MT 59717 406/994-5079 • montagne@montana.edu

NEBRASKA Terry Gompert P.O. Box 45 Center, NE 68724-0045 402/288-5611 (w) tgompert1@unl.edu

Paul Swanson 5155 West 12th St. Hastings, NE 68901 402/463-8507 swanson@inebraska.com

R. H. (Dick) Richardson University of Texas at Austin Section of Integrative Biology School of Biological Sciences Austin, TX 78712 512/471-4128

NEW HAMPSHIRE WASHINGTON

* Seth Wilner 24 Main Street Newport, NH 03773 603/863-4497 (h) 603/863-9200 (w) seth.wilner@unh.edu

NEW MEXICO * Ann Adams Holistic Management International 1010 Tijeras NW Albuquerque, NM 87102 505/842-5252 anna@holisticmanagement.org Kirk Gadzia P.O. Box 1100, Bernalillo, NM 87004 505/867-4685 (f) 505/867-9952 kgadzia@msn.com

NEW YORK Phil Metzger 99 N. Broad St., Norwich, NY 13815 607/334-3231 x4 (w) • 607/334-2407 (h) John Thurgood 15 Farone Dr., Apt. E26 Oneonta, NY 13820-1331 607/643-2804 • jthurgood@stny.rr.com

NORTH DAKOTA Wayne Berry 1611 11th Ave. West Williston, ND 58801 701/572-9183 wberry@wil.midco.net

Craig Madsen P.O. Box 107, Edwall, WA 99008 509/236-2451 Madsen2fir@gotsky.com Sandra Matheson 228 E. Smith Rd., Bellingham, WA 98226 360/398-7866 mathesonsm@verizon.net Doug Warnock 1880 SE Larch Ave. College Place, WA 99324 509/540-5771 509/856-7101 (c) dwarnock@charter.net

WEST VIRGINIA Fred Hays P.O. Box 241, Elkview, WV 25071 304/548-7117 sustainableresources@hotmail.com

WISCONSIN Andy Hager W. 3597 Pine Ave., Stetsonville, WI 54480-9559 715/678-2465 ahager@tds.net * Laura Paine Wisconsin DATCP N893 Kranz Rd. Columbus, WI 53925 608/224-5120 (w) 920/623-4407 (h) laura.paine@datcp.state.wi.us

WYOMING

OHIO Larry Dyer Olney Friends School 61830 Sandy Ridge Road Barnesville, OH 47313 740/425-3655 (w) • 740/425-2775 (h) larry@olneyfriends.org

Andrea & Tony Malmberg 768 Twin Creek Road, Lander, WY 82520 307/335-7485 (w) 307/332-5073 (h) 307/349-1144 (c) Andrea@LifeEnergy.us Tony@LifeEnergy.us

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

INTERNATIONAL

AUSTRALIA

TEXAS Christina Allday-Bondy 2703 Grennock Dr., Austin, TX 78745 512/441-2019 tododia@sbcglobal.net Guy Glosson 6717 Hwy. 380 Snyder, TX 79549 806/237-2554 glosson@caprock-spur.com Peggy Maddox P.O. Box 694, Ozona, TX 76943-0694 325/392-2292 westgift@hughes.net

Judi Earl 73 Harding E., Guyra, NSW 2365 61-2-6779-2286 judi@holisticmanagement.org.au Mark Gardner P.O. Box 1395, Dubbo, NSW 2830 61-2-6884-4401 mark.gardner@vbs.net.au Paul Griffiths P.O. Box 3045, North Turramura, NSW 2074, Sydney, NSW 61-2-9144-3975 • pgpres@geko.net.au

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INTERNATIONAL

AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIA

George Gundry Willeroo, Tarago, NSW 2580 61-2-4844-6223 ggundry@bigpond.net.au Graeme Hand 150 Caroona Lane, Branxholme, VIC 3302 61-3-5578-6272 (h) 61-4-0996-4466 (c) graemeh1@bordernet.com.au Helen Lewis P.O. Box 1263, Warwick, QLD 4370 61-7-46617393 61-7-46670835 helen@insideoutsidemgt.com.au Brian Marshall P.O. Box 300, Guyra NSW 2365 61-2-6779-1927 fax: 61-2-6779-1947 bkmrshl@bigpond.com

Brian Wehlburg c/o “Sunnyholt”, Injune, QLD 4454 61-7-4626-7187 brian@insideoutsidemgt.com.au

Arturo Mora Benitez San Juan Bosco 169 Fracc., La Misión Celaya, Guanajuato 38016 52-461-615-7632 jams@prodigy.net.mx

CANADA Don Campbell Box 817 Meadow Lake, SK S9X 1Y6 306/236-6088 doncampbell@sasktel.net Len Pigott Box 222, Dysart, SK, SOH 1HO 306/432-4583 JLPigott@sasktel.net Kelly Sidoryk P.O. Box 374, Lloydminster, AB S9V 0Y4 780/875-9806 (h) • 780/875-4418 (c) kjsidoryk@yahoo.ca

Bruce Ward P.O. Box 103, Milsons Pt., NSW 1565 61-2-9929-5568 fax: 61-2-9929-5569 blward@the-farm-business-gym.com

MEXICO

KENYA Christine C. Jost International Livestock Research Institute Box 30709, Nairobi 00100 254-20-422-3000 254-736-715-417 (c) christine.jost@tufts.edu

NAMIBIA Wiebke Volkmann P.O. Box 9285, Windhoek 264-61-225183 or 264-81-127-0081 wiebke@mweb.com.na

NEW ZEALAND John King P.O. Box 12011, Beckenham, Christchurch 8242 64-276-737-885 succession@clear.net.nz

SOUTH AFRICA Jozua Lambrechts P.O. Box 5070, Helderberg, Somerset West, Western Cape 7135 27-21-851-5669; 27-21-851-2430 (w) jozua@websurf.co.za

SOUTH AFRICA Ian Mitchell-Innes P.O. Box 52, Elandslaagte 2900 27-36-421-1747 blanerne@mweb.co.za Dick Richardson P.O. Box 1853, Vryburg 8600 tel/fax: 27-082-934-6139 Dickson@wam.co.za

SPAIN Aspen Edge Apartado de Correos 19, 18420 Lanjaron, Granada (0034)-958-347-053 aspen@holisticdecisions.com

UNITED KINGDOM Philip Bubb 32 Dart Close, St. Ives, Cambridge, PE27 3JB 44-1480-496295 philipbubb@onetel.com

ZIMBABWE Amanda Atwood 27 Rowland Square, Milton Park, Harare 263-23-233-760 amandlazw@gmail.com

HMI Australia

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MI Australia has been active in recent months. A total of 5 training programs have been delivered to groups of farmers and graziers across New South Wales (NSW). Judi Earl has recently completed a program at Inverell, Brian Marshall is working with groups in the Western districts and the Hunter Region of NSW, and George Gundry has presented to a group in Braidwood.

Earlier this year Steve Hailstone hosted a very successful meeting of the Australian Certified Educators and HMI Executive Director Peter Holter at his wonderful home in Adelaide. The next Certified Educator gathering is planned for August.

During March we were very pleased to host Chris Schueler and his crew for the filming of the documentary “Healing the Land.” The crew travelled extensively throughout NSW visiting holistically managed properties, interviewing Certified Educators, practitioners and children.

In association with Phillip Diprose, HMIA is working to extend the principles of holistic planned grazing. With funding provided by the National Landcare Program, 10 demonstration sites have been established to monitor and evaluate planned high density grazing on farms in the Lachlan Catchment of NSW. The accreditation process of the Holistic Management training program through the TAFE college system is in its final stages. Ian Chapman has done a fantastic job developing a Holistic Management program to meet nationally recognized standards. The first courses to be offered under this program are expected to begin early 2009.

For regular updates, visit www.holisticmanagement.org.au.

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July / August 2008

HMI Texas Increase Forage Production up to 400%!

Ian Mitchell-Innes will teach you how: October 25-26 . . . . . . Biological Monitoring $450 ($800 couple) at Running High Ranch, Bowie, TX;

October 27-28 . . . . . . Land Planning $450 ($800 couple) at Running High Ranch, Bowie, TX;

October 29 . . . . . . . . . Mob Grazing $100 at Decatur Civic Center, Decatur, TX

Register online at http://www.hrm-texas.org, click on October Intensives. Or register with Jeanie Dreinhofer (jdreinhofer@hrm-texas.org or 325-348-3014).

Annual Meeting 2009 celebrates our roots with Allan and Jody!

Allan and Jody are coming to the HMIT 2009 Annual Meeting!

Mark your calendar now for March 6 and 7, 2009 in Abilene.

T H E M A R K E T P LAC E

HANDS-ON AGRONOMY BASIC SOIL FERTILITY GUIDELINES Now Available on DVD

BUY THE DVD TODAY! Runs 80 minutes and covers the following topics:

$30

• Feeding and Balancing the Soil • The Albrecht System • Soil Testing • Considering Soil Test Results • Sulfur • Calcium, pH, and Liming • Potassium and Sodium • Nitrogen • Manures, Green Manures

(postpaid to US addresses)

For consulting or educational services contact:

Kinsey Agricultural Services, Inc. $30 (plus shipping) (PAL orders add $5)

297 County Highway 357, Charleston, Missouri 63834 Phone: 573/683-3880; Fax: 573/683-6227, neal@kinseyag.com WE ACCEPT CREDIT CARD ORDERS (VISA, MC)

Holistic Management International Conference

Paradigm Shifting for the Future IN CONJUNCTION WITH

The Wheat City Stampede— www.wheatcitystampede.com

October 22-25, 2008

Keystone Center, Brandon, Manitoba Canada

REGISTRATION: Register Early—Space is limited! Early bird price $175.

To register go to: Mbforagecouncil.mb.ca, or call 204/622-2006. For a downloadable brochure and registration form, go to www.holisticmanagement.org.

Accommodations and Airport Shuttle: A block of rooms have been booked at the following host hotels. FREE SHUTTLE SERVICE! • Royal Oak Inn: (800)852-2709 or (204)728-5775; www.royaloakinn.com • Comfort Inn and Suites: (204) 727-6232; www.choicehotels.ca • Super 8: (204) 729-8024 or 1-800-800-8800; www.super8brandon.com Brandon Air Shuttle: www.brandonairshuttle.com

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July / August 2008

SPEAKERS INCLUDE:

SPONSORS:

Abe Collins • Manitoba Agriculture, Food & Rural Initiatives Ivan Aguirre • Manitoba Forage Council Lee Pengilly • Holistic Management Peter Holter International Ron Chapman • Manitoba Rodeo Gene Goven Cowboys Association Gabe Brown • Manitoba Rural Ken Meter Adaptation Council Jill Clapperton • Canadian Cattleman Meyers Norris Penny Association Blain Hjertaas • Greencover Canada Peggy Maddox

T H E M A R K E T P LAC E

Journey to the Tip of the Americas BRITTLE AND NON-BRITTLE PATAGONIA ARGENTINA AND CHILE NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2008

GREEN BEFORE GREEN WAS COOL!

• Explore the extremes of the Patagonian Andes, from lush Chilean valleys to the stark immensity of the Argentine steppes • Ranch visits to fascinating families, creatively thriving in one of the world’s most isolated corners • Grass finishing lessons in Chilean paradise, fine wool Merino sheep production on the Strait of Magellan, large scale Hereford ranching at the foot of the Andes

Backed by cutting edge nutrition supplementation research and the highest integrity and quality control, the decision to buy Shaklee supports many of our mutual quality of life values.

Learn more by visiting the website.

Check out these great Shaklee products PROVEN SUPERIOR VITALIZER NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENT PACK: Non-toxic, concentrated, biodegradable, effective cleaners. Shaklee’s Basic H was a proud sponsor of the very first Earth Day!

• Famous Patagonian Fly-fishing • Exploration of the peaks, fjordlands, glaciers, and glacial-fed lakes of the southern Andes • Off-the-beaten-path, luxury accommodation • The best of the big city in Buenos Aires

STERLING ENTERPRISES WOULD LIKE TO BE YOUR SHAKLEE DISTRIBUTOR

For detailed itinerary and price, contact Jim and Daniela Howell at howelljd@montrose.net 970/249-0353

Tina Pilione, Certified Educator and Independant Shaklee Distributor PO Box 923, Eunice, LA 70535 • 337/580-0068 www.shaklee.net/sterlingenterprises

HMI Fall Courses Introduction to Holistic Management Nov. 10 & 11, 2008

Holistic Grazing Planning

Holistic Financial Planning Nov. 12 & 13, 2008

INSTRUCTORS:

Tony & Andrea Malmberg

Holistic Management® Certified Educators

LIFE

The practice of Holistic Management has improved our relationships, enabled us to run profitable enterprises, enhanced the health of the land, animals and people that have enriched our lives, and given us peace of mind when faced with troubled times. We look forward to sharing what we have learned with you and building your capacity to create the life you desire. ®

Holistic Biological Monitoring Nov. 14 & 15, 2008

Nov. 14 & 15, 2008

All classes held in Summerville, Oregon

Tony & Andrea Malmberg

450

$

PER CLASS

Special package discounts for multiple class registrations!

To register for these classes, contact HMI at 505/842-5252 or register online at www.holisticmanagement.org.

Tony & Andrea Malmberg

For custom-designed coaching based on real-life experience contact:

768 Twin Creek Road • Lander, WY 82520 U.S.A. • 307.332.5073 Tony@LifeEnergy.us • Andrea@LifeEnergy.us • www.LifeEnergy.us

Number 120

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T H E M A R K E T P LAC E CORRAL DESIGNS

Resource Management Services, LLC Kirk L. Gadzia, Certified Educator PO Box 1100 Pasture Bernalillo, NM 87004 Scene 505-263-8677 Investigation

kgadzia@msn.com

By World Famous Dr. Grandin Originator of Curved Ranch Corrals The wide curved Lane makes filling the crowding tub easy.

Includes detailed drawings for loading ramp, V chute, round crowd pen, dip vat, gates and hinges. Plus cell center layouts and layouts compatible with electronic sorting systems. Articles on cattle behavior. 27 corral layouts. $55.

Low Stress Cattle Handling Video $59.

Send checks/money order to:

GRANDIN LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS 2918 Silver Plume Dr., Unit C-3 Fort Collins, CO 80526

970/229-0703 www.grandin.com

How can RMS, LLC help you?

On-Site Consulting: All aspects of holistic management, inFOXGLQJ À QDQFLDO HFRORJLFDO DQG KXPDQ resources.

Training Events: Regularly scheduled and customized training sessions provided in a variety of locations.

Ongoing Support: Follow-up training sessions and access to continued learning opportunities and developments.

Land Health Monitoring: Biological Monitoring of Rangeland and Riparian Ecosystem Health.

Property Assessment: Land health and productivity assessment with recommended solutions. www.resourcemanagementservices.com

Start Using Holistic Management Today!

Join Our Distance Learning Program Stay At Home – All You Need Is A Phone

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P.O. Box 218 Lewis CO 81327 USA

—— C O N T A C T ——

Cindy Dvergsten, a Holistic ManagementÂŽ Certified Educator, has 12 years experience in personal practice, training & facilitation of Holistic Management, and 25 years experience in resource management & agriculture.

She offers customized solutions to family farms & ranches, communities and organizations worldwide.

MARK BADER, Free Choice Enterprises, LTD

IN PRACTICE

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July / August 2008

10055 County K Lancaster, WI 53813

608/723-7977 fce@chorus.net

PHONE: EMAIL:

freechoiceminerals.com

T H E M A R K E T P LAC E Twodot Land & Livestock Company est. 1908

“A Holistic Experience” Harlowton, Montana USA • September 13 & 14, 2008

Come to the rolling prairie of Central Montana to share and learn with us on our centenarian ranch as we discover dynamic solutions to the social, ecological, and economic foundations of life.

• Mob Grazing Management • Sustainability • Ecosystem Processes • Electric Fencing • Family Dynamics • H2O-System Design • Holistic Land Planning for 10,000 Head!

DAY 1 (Limit 200 People) 7:30-5:00 7:00 Dinner – Optional (Confirm with Registration, $15) DAY 2 8:00-5:00

Jim Howell, Daniela Ibarra-Howell, Tony Malmberg, and Andrea Malmberg

ADULTS Ages 15-20 Under 15

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DAY 1 DAY 2 BOTH $90 $150 $215 $50 $90 $120 $10 $10 $20

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FOR REGISTRATION CONTACT:

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Advertise in. . .

In Practice a publication of Holistic Management International

Low Rates International Audience Contact Ann Adams at 505/842-5252 or anna@holisticmanagement.org Number 120

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23

HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT MAIL ORDER EMPORIUM Subscribe to IN PRACTICE

Software

Holistic Management® Financial Planning (single-user license) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $249

_ A bimonthly journal for Holistic Management practitioners

Please specify PC or Mac, Office ‘95 or ‘97, 2000, XP, or 2003 and version of Excel you are using

Subscribe for 1 year for only $30/U.S. ($35/International) 2 years ($55/U.S.; $65/International) 3 years ($80/U.S.; $90/International)

_ Gift Subscriptions (same prices as above). _ Special Edition: An Introduction to Holistic Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5 _ Compact Disk Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$14 _ Bulk subscriptions available.

Pocket Cards Holistic Management® Framework & testing questions, March 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$4

Planning and Monitoring Guides

One year for $17 each/U.S., or $22 each/International ______ Please indicate number of one-year subscriptions

_ Introduction to Holistic Management August 2007, 128 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$25

_ Back Issues: $5 each; bulk orders (5 or more issues) $3 each. List

_ Financial Planning August 2007, 58 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$17

Please indicate issue numbers desired: ___,___,___,___,___,___,___,___,___,___ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$25

_ CD of Back Issues: #71 - 89

_ Aide Memoire for Grazing Planning August 2007, 63 pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$17

_ Early Warning Biological Monitoring— Croplands

Books & Multimedia

April 2000, 26 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$14

Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision-Making,

_ Early Warning Biological Monitoring—Rangelands and Grasslands

_ Second Edition, by Allan Savory with Jody Butterfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $35 _ Hardcover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $55 _ 15-set CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $99 _ One month rental of CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $35 _ Spanish Version (soft). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 _ Holistic Management Handbook, by Butterfield, Bingham, Savory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $27 _ At Home With Holistic Management, by Ann Adams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $20 _ Holistic Management: A New Environmental Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $10 _ Improving Whole Farm Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $10 _ Video: Creating a Sustainable Civilization—

August 2007, 59 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$17

_ Land Planning—For The Rancher or Farmer Running Livestock August 2007, 31 pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$17

Planning Forms (All forms are padded – 25 sheets per pad) _ Annual Income & Expense Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$17 _ Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$ 7 _ Livestock Production Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$17 _ Control Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$ 5 _ Grazing Plan & Control Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$17

An Introduction to Holistic Decision-Making, based on a lecture given

by Allan Savory. (VHS/DVD/PAL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $30 Stockmanship, by Steve Cote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $35

_ _ The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook, by Shannon Hayes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 _ The Oglin, by Dick Richardson & Rio de la Vista . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 _ Gardeners of Eden, by Dan Dagget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 _ Video: Healing the Land Through Multi-Species Grazing (VHS/DVD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $30 TO ORDER

MAKE A TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION Amount $_____________ Please designate program you would like us to apply contribution toward _________________________________________

Questions? 505/842-5252 or hmi@holisticmanagement.org

Indicate quantity in box preceding item, print shipping address at right, mail this page (or a copy) and your check or international money order payable in U.S. funds from a U.S. bank only to: Holistic Management International, 1010 Tijeras NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102 Credit card orders: 505/842-5252, or fax: 505/843-7900.

For online ordering visit our secure website at: www.holisticmanagement.org

healthy land. sustainable future. a publication of Holistic Management International 1010 Tijeras NW Albuquerque, NM 87102 USA

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please send address corrections before moving so that we do not incur unnecessary postal fees

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Printed on recycled paper

July / August 2008

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