For some reason a rural Oklahoman blogger will not answer my question in her comments.
I think my question was valid, and I'm afraid the only people who can answer it live in her region.
Now I hate to admit I sometimes read her blog, but I am interested in wild horse management (for which they profit 700K yearly via taxpayers for the mustangs). I really much prefer Pie Near Woman's site. But the Oklahoman has made herself a great example of How to make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway* (with her blog grossing an average of 1 million per year).
* - Do not buy this book. This was written in 1994 by the King and Queen of Internet Spam and they deserve only spam themselves.
The blog entry was about why they burn their cow pastures. It defends the benefits of controlled burns. 806 out of 807 people commented about how clever they are for doing this. I commented asking, "What is the benefit over haying?" Most of the reasons they give for burning can be achieved with mowing for hay, and you actually get a marketable or useful product if you mow.
Can anyone tell me why burning is better than making hay?
(I want to add that I'm not against people using marketing or technical ingenuity to get rich (unless you take the ideas of others, in which case you are the Borg). I have other reasons for disliking her and lately I'm getting my recipes from the Netherlands.)
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36 comments:
People burn their hay fields to get rid of weeds, briars and things like that without using chemicals. It's also good for the soil and a first cutting will come in much nicer too. What they are doing is good field management.
I'd be interested in reading some of this blog you are talking about.
~Wazzoo, stupid thing won't let me sign in.
Weed control was one of the reasons given to burn, but it was one of the reasons that mowing also manages.
One of the benefits of fire that mowing does not incur: fertilization. The burnt material provides nutrients for the next generation of growth. But why not just use fertilizer and get a sellable product: hay? (When your main business is beef cattle, you probably have a source of fertilizer when they go to feedlots.)
Pie Near Woman is only funny if you have read the site it is satiring. If you do go there, please check out "The Bread" - hilarious! (If you recall the original.)
That's certainly food for thought- or not!
If their primary "crop" is cattle, then pastures that have been grazed by any decent sized herd wouldn't be suitable for making hay--swathers need even ground (with no poop piles) and consistent plants of a certain height to work well. A large herd will eat the good stuff and leave behind the weeds and poor quality forage--not what you'd want to bale.
There is a case to be made for "saving back" some fields for haying, then grazing stock after just one cutting.
There is a small grass seed industry outside of Spokane (N. Idaho) that burns their fields after harvest. It creates all sorts of air quality issues, and really impacts folks with asthma or other respiratory ailments (especially because the "bowl" that is the Spokane/Couer d'Alene valley holds the resultant smoke in a smog-like inversion layer). Their argument is that the stalks have virtually no nutritional value once the plant has put all it's energy into making seed, and is therefore unmarketable. But wheat farmers just south of them in the Palouse have baled their plant stalks as straw forever--the trick is finding a market for the by product. These days of alternative energy sources (fiber reconstituted as stove pellets) and building materials (straw bale building or alternatives to OSB), are creating more options.
But for the Rathdrum Prairie grass seed growers (and your folks?), I think there's an element of "we've always done it this way!" It also would mean the purchase of a whole different set of farming equipment from seed-harvesting machines.
as the others have said, it's good prairie management - weed control, revitalizes the soil, allows natural grasses to spring up. She gets thousands of comments so I imagine it's hard to answer many of them - especially when you homeschool your children on a working cattle ranch and have a blog as popular as hers. Personally I love her, it's a daily read for me. She doesn't know anything about horses, but that's ok :)
Evensong, thank you for the response. Isn't it true that if you mow regularly, even with cattle you can prevent the tufts of grass that are not palatable to cattle? The blog did explain the finicky nature of cows and how unevenly they graze. But mowing makes it even, at least, in my field. I walk through my field and see "tasty spot" vs. "not tasty spot" but as soon as the mower comes (yesterday!) it's all even again. Of course you know this already.
I didn't want to get into the pollution issue (tractors also cause pollution, but cannot be as bad as a thousand acre fire!). I also didn't want to touch the emotional issue of the people who died in Oregon due to controlled burns' smoke that crossed over I5. There are obviously a lot of people out there with great reasons to be against prescribed burning and I feel for them.
I am really curious, and live in a land now where every scrap of every natural resource is vital (and I'm afraid it cannot help but rub off on me).
It could be that the landscape in Oklahoma is not suitable for tractors--that would be a reason to burn rather than mow, if you cannot reach it with a mower, you simply must find an alternative. But your example disproves that argument. What you said about buying all new equipment (when these are family farms passed down by anscestors, including equipment) makes sense.
Heather, my question was how is burning better than mowing. I am still not sure.
I read that Pie Near Woman...love it. Good for a laugh!
Fire is a lot cheaper. When I lived in South Dakota, I would burn my garden in the spring and I also add my wood stove ash to the dirt. I've been doing it forever and it seems to work.
~Wazzoo
I can answer the "how is burning better than mowing". That is because Burning actually kills the weeds and mowing only keeps them down. When a person is growing and selling hay for their lively hood, weed free, high quality hay is very important and just like with any farm, you have to give nutrients back some how. Fertilizers are chemicals and sometimes, what may be good for the crop is not good for the land. Burning might be pollution but it's also fertilizing the land and is something that would probably happen a lot more naturally than someone running a tractor around a 1000 acres hay field, fertilizing. There is a positive and a negative to almost everything that we do in this world. This is the same in farming.
~Wazzoo
Good thoughts here!
I am thinking alot of different elements come into play here...a little-we've always done it this way,a little 1,000 acre mowing..man hours crazy like, and some facts that is can be good.
I am with you..smaller plots go for the MOW!
I am disgusted again...though my PBO were so much more Savey..NOPE..no horse roation and they just POISIONED the fields!SICK..can't wait to do it the right way..which is my way!
Wazzoo, right. Our first instinct, my husband and I, was "money" - it is too much of an investment to mow, in comparison burning is cheap.
You make some good points.
But even the original blog poster said that the fire doesn't kill the weeds, it just slows them down. Fire cannot know the difference between grass and weed.
(To which my husband asked, "How does your Dicamba* know the difference between grass and weed?" hehehe) (*weed-n-feed)
And although the fertilizer we use on our hayfield is chemical, many farmers use manure to fertilize. So, I'm thinking, like you said, it's money.
Dear Horse Crazy,
I try not to focus on the 'nitty gritty' of ranch life and instead turn all my attention to my husband's extraordinary backside. I hope this helps!
Pie,
The employees who filter your blog comments allowed mine and did not notice it was a question, rather than a worshipful statement. Oh well, they slipped up?
If I could only ask one thing....
Don't be yourself. Be honest.
~lytha in Germany
I'm really curious why you don't like her blog. Of course it's your prerogative and everyone has their likes and dislikes. If you don't mind, would you share your thoughts?
Good point too about fire not knowing the difference between weed and grass but if you go out and reseed and then, yuck, fertilize...they use liquidy cow poop, there is hardly ever a weed in the hay I got. I had to call my friend and see what they did...LOL! They didn't do this to every field, every year, too expensive. They did theirs on a rotation. No wonder it stinks in the spring around their place. There are places here in Georgia that use chicken poop. OMG!!! Makes a person want to put on a full respirator suit. It's a horrible stench.
*faints* I got to sign in finally!
PW is deceitful. The name itself implies that she roughs it, "one calf nut at a time" when in an honest name for her blog would be,
A Photographer's View of a Wealthy Country Lifestyle
She admits to staying in the truck, keeping her hands clean of farm work, at the same time complaining about the difficulties of a mother who does it all.
When she claims to lead an average, homespun, simple ranching life, she's lying to us, insulting both working mothers and real farmers' wives. This is the persona that is PW and it's not real.
There aren't many rules for keeping a web log, except for the one that she breaks: she misrepresents herself. She dares not mention that they are multimillionaires, wealthy from government subsidies and BLM payments. That detail of her life would destroy her persona. The average jane fairytale she's telling which makes struggling housewives idenitfy and connect with her would be lost.
The reality is she has 2 teachers and a nanny who homeschool her children and a housekeeper for the housework. When she says on TV, "If I can do it, anyone can do it!" (write a successfull blog) this is another deception.
She has no right to use the phrase Keeping it Real when her blog does not represent reality. The other side of her camera would show a different picture.
Although her blog represents a lie, she makes an average of 1 million per year with it. Her editors and PR team clean it up so the comments are all positive, and they corrected her faux pas of using the word "retarded" to describe her developmentally disabled brother (she *proudly* used the word before she went back and scrubbed those entries of the r word).
She continuously whines about how fat she is. She does not consider how that makes people feel who actually are overweight.
She turns her children into unreal representations with Photoshop. I'm not talking about removing dirt or a pimple, she enhances her subjects ethereally. How does that make the kids feel? What does that say about her camera skills?
She claims to have mental disorders that she does not have, such as agorophobia. If she truly had that condition, she would not be able to do public speaking tours around the country. How does that make people with real anxiety disorders feel?
I hope her followers do not take her for a role model and let their 4 year olds ride horses without helmets. Her 4 year old rides a full sized horse helmetless on cattle drives. Her husband even took one of the kids on a cattle drive at age 1, sharing the saddle with him. Irresponsible, ignorant parenting. And posting photos of it on the blog as if there is nothing wrong?
They claim an unrealistic amount of money for each Mustang in their care. They require $75 per horse per year for a salt/mineral block? I know how much these things cost (less than 10$). They profit 700K per year from the government for the Mustangs on their land, gouging taxpayers. It's just not an honest number.
Martha Stewart keeps a blog (and pays people to help out), but she's honest about her lifestyle and social ranking. If you read MS, you can revel in a lifestyle, enjoy barns and garden photos, and be assured you are not being deceived.
The only thing worse than blogging dishonestly is insistently proclaiming you're "Keepin' it Real" while doing it.
Burning also removes the undergrowth of grass and weeds which prevents new grass from sprouting.
Re BLM. What they charge BLM is probably based more on the use of the land and the profits they would make if they used it for their business. Happens in farming all the time. That number is not the first time I heard and it coincides with what BLM pays other ranches. When you farm, your land is your asset and you use the asset to derive as much income from it as possible.
I have been following PW for a long time. She called herself that because of a power outage and the need to haul water. When you live in the country & lose power, you lose your well pump. I've hauled water before, too. It doesn't matter how rich you are, when the power is gone & until a generator is up & running, most likely you are hauling water or you ain't flushing without hauling.
She has a knack for storytelling that many of us bloggers could only wish for. Did she have a nanny or tutors when she started blogging? Who knows? Who cares? I am sure if any of us found a niche in life that suddenly moved us into a higher tax bracket it would 1) require more of our time and 2) change the way we live today. And 3) consider ourselves very lucky.
The good thing about our country is we are all free to like what we like and tune out to what we don't. There is so much make believe out there that unless it affects your everyday life, take it for what it is. (I clicked over to Pie Near & the humor was lost on me... so I simply didn't bookmark it.)
PW has kept me entertained, made me a little bit better photographer and if I want to win the family over, I cook one of her recipes. There are a lot uglier things out on the internet to hate.
Just an additional thought about "mowing" vs. "haying"--One can mow down a pasture to take out the "roughs"--those not tasty spots-- and to keep weeds cut back. This can be down with a "bush hog" type mover (basically a huge lawn mower run off a tractor). This allows healthier development of the grasses, and the healthier the grass plants, the better they can compete with, and eventually outnumber and strangle out, the weeds. My fourteen acres have come back from absolute desolation (except right along the irrigation ditch) to pretty lush (you've seen the evidence of this on the blog).
I suspect this is the function of their burning.
My neighbor that I drive for during haying season farms over 1000 acres (not much in mid-western terms, but a lot for around here where we have to irrigate everything). He runs 50-75 cow-calf pairs on the land too steep or rocky or otherwise inappropriate for haying (he includes my land in that category, though I expect it could be hayed if I had the smaller equipment needed). He bales export quality timothy on the rest of the land. Any fields that have gotten too weedy, any that get rained on or otherwise spoiled, he keeps the hay for the cattle. The discolored bales on the outside of hay barns are what I get (the Japanese don't like the 1 inch of yellow edge) in exchange for the baling I do (3 weeks or so). He does fertilize with chemicals--I use my composted manure.
btw, If you want a glimpse at a "real" pioneer woman, check out this blog:
http://jksroughstring.blogspot.com/
I really don't at all agree that blogging is any more or less legitimate when it's done by people who don't take good photos, or who photoshop, or who have crappy cameras or 10 thousand dollar cameras, or who aren't precisely and honestly diarizing their lives, or who are presenting something totally unachievable, shallow, or romanticized. Like books, magazines, TV, movies, letters and phone calls, blogs are a medium for pretty much all kinds of communication, personal and corporate.
I actually read a number of blogs specifically about photoshopping! And I love the look of things like Hipstamatic, which I use when I (infrequently) blog. I don't think anybody is going to be upset when they realize that the bouquet I photographed doesn't ACTUALLY have a day-glo pink halo around it, and I always kind of scratch my head when you point out that your photos are not photoshopped. Because... so what? I don't care if you photoshop or not.
But anyway I got over PW pretty quickly when I realized she just wasn't evolving much, and what I originally thought was kind of refreshingly neurotic was actually starting to grate a bit. She found her schtick and she's sticking to it! Which a lot of people apparently need in their lives. I don't hate PW for it, but I might wonder about her fans a little bit.
I still pop over sometimes for recipes, though. They're great for giving large groups of people heart attacks.
I went to her blog a few years ago and couldnt get over how everyone was throwing themselves at her..most of her recipes come out of a church coobook most of us have had for years. She isnt very clever but has a team that can spin a golden web around her.
did you hear she's getting a movie made about her and Reese Witherspoon is supposed to be playing her.
Some parts of the internet, like the tabloid press, are all about voyeurism and fantasy. People want to glimpse inside other lives and imagine what it would be like. It's entertainment, indeed basking in the glow - or really somewhere between "opium for the proletariat" and "bread and circuses" (to take soundings at the two ends of the political spectrum).
In Europe the masses gawp at footballers' wives. Perhaps the American Dream simply leads people to stare at "pioneers" and "entrepreneurs" rather than people who are good at kicking a ball around (or whose husband is good at doing so)? The entrepreneurs are more useful too.
Wealthy people like to pretend too. I can think of some people who have a large house, private plane and helicopter who really want to believe the "ordinary folks" myth - we're like others, just have a few more toys. Well I guess that they share our archetypes and neuroses. And if you ask a perceptive question then, yes, they will pull the shutters down.
There again quite a number of "ordinary" horse owners might be grateful for your fields at home, Lytha, and for the riding that I have at my doorstep. Most of us won't taste perfection on this Earth. And not everyone who "has it all" today will enjoy the New Earth that we hope for.
I dont know anything about field management but I had to laugh at your calling PWs bluff... I object to her calling herself a desporate housewife, nothing desparate about her life. And yea they are seriously rich. All those McDonalds burgers we stuff ourselves with, those cows come from somewhere. Im glad someone else noticed the hipocracy. But I do enjoy some of what she shares, but I take it with a grain of salt and if it gets too out of touch with reality glossy (kinda like Oprahs magazine, sure buy this neat thing here its only $450, yea right, hello normal income here) then I go to some of the real ranch and horse blogs that are much more real. I bet its a trip living in Germany, have enjoyed reading about it.
I'll take a stab at it,,,
First, the native Americans..(or the non PC wording, Indians) used to set fire to it...
second, doesn't that family own thousands of acres? I can't see them mowing it simply because of the hours and hours involved...
Curious though as to where you got all that info on PW? It is to me to each their own as to liking or disliking her... I like aspects, some of the recipes, I do like some of the photoshopping...and shamelessly I use them on occasion....Though here lately, just have not had much of a desire to be taking pics at all....
I never got over my dislike of the German's using liquefied manure, just a matter of not liking the smell, :)...didn't like coming around a curve and coming to a crawl as what we called Eifel Cadillac's on the road(tractors)much either, lol...
Tara
Thanks for directing me to PNW. It was a hoot, to use the vernacular.
I guess I always thought it was quite clear on PW's site that she has help, because it's not possible to not have it and she mentions many of the people who help her. I also thought it was clear that they are well off, because if you followed her lodge remodel, you should have some idea of how much that would cost (I knew quite well). And I don't expect big ranchers to be poor. Her husband appears to be the boss(I don't follow that closely), they have employees and I assume it's run as a family corporation with shares.
Good for them. I think they work a lot harder for their money than the Hiltons or Kardashians! I won't watch her on TV, but that's just 'cause I don't watch a lot of TV (although Castle is well worth the watch).
For the burn- I understand why they do it. If hay is not a primary source of income, it would be far too expensive to do it, until the government chooses to tax the cost of pouring carbon into the air. I used to mow 12 acres of unevenness and it wasn't easy, without cattle grazing on it. Don't judge the US by German standards: this is a country where farmer's fields have paved foot paths trough the, They have no concept of real acreage or anything "ungroomed". Germany was tamed when the US was a vast untrammeled wilderness and it's interesting to live here and watch the country returning to wilderness as it's been abandoned- they will have a huge burn if they aren't extremely careful.
Lytha, I'm disappointed to see such criticism towards another blogger. I've followed your blog for a while now, and have always enjoyed it despite the things you do that I don't particularly agree with.
I am sure it is much easier to take care of one horse and a small field and very different then running a ranch for your living. I grew up on a farm and working it was very different then having a pet or a little acreage.
A person is free to ignore or read someone's blog, I enjoy many blogs but do not always agree with everyone.
Hey Heather, not my blog, but if you make comments, and criticize, perhaps you should have a blog or profile or contact info of your own?
Wow, lytha, that's exactly how I feel about PW too. Really well said!
G, good point.
The USA uses liquid manure also.
I remember when I was a kid that they burned fields. Looks for the comments like not much has changed as to the reasons I was given then. I hadn't really thought about the polution issue but I sure do remember the stink when I was a kid. I guess at some point the PC people will be all over burns and they will become a thing of the past. I wonder how long that will take.
As for PW I quite reading her blog as she was doing that remodel of the lodge. There just are not enough hours in the day and I prefer to try and keep up with my blogging friends. Have problems getting that done lots of time so something had to give.
I always thought she was writing in a tongue in check manner and really laughing at herself. At least that's how I took it.
The recipes sounded great but I'm not really into cooking if I don't have to and when I do have to something simple is what I spring for. Besides way too many calories in anything she posted that sounded good to me. The last thing I need is another vice and eating could easily become a vice for me.
I wouldn't mind it if my blog could turn into some form of cash generator but I doubt that's going to happen. I must admit I would not like giving up the privacy I think PW must have sacrificed to get to where she is. The money would not be worth it to me.
Weeds are nearly always of the annual variety, and propogate by reseeding themselves.
Most prairie/pasture grasses are perennial.
while burning will kill the weed, the perennial grass/roots will survive and continue to provide nutritious feed for livestock.
Yes, weeds can be kept from seeding by mowing, but it must be done continuously throughout the season until the frost kills the plant. Even short, mown plants can go to seed in their effort to survivw. Mowing prairieland would be a monumental (impossible) task.
There's a difference between maintaining and haying a 100 acre hayfield on a small farm and maintaining an open range livestock operation.
As mentioned, would it be more ecologically sound to burn fossil fuels running the guzzling tractor over the prairie, several times, to cut, swath, and bale the hay? (Answer: "No").
And what's the point since the grassland is providing feed without baling it to begin with.
Management practices of animal husbandry and land management are different based on location and suitability of land. Land that grows decent forage for cattle might not produce enough hay to be worth the effort of cutting it.
A small hay field in Germany has little in common with the range land in question. What seems imminently logical in one situation simply doesn't apply in another.
Jan, in Illinois, where I'm struggling to get my own hayfield harvested between storms
PS: My farm is next to a Forest Preserve that has some acreage of restored prairieland/grasses. Every spring they burn them off.
They can quote you chapter and verse about why they do it and how it benefits the land. I just tend to believe they know what they are doing...
PPS: I enjoy reading The Pioneer woman...blogs I have an "issue" with.....I don't read.
Life's simple.
Rotational grazing would work too.. Cows are wasteful of pasture, period. Mowing and burning control weeds but if there are weeds then the pastures need reseeding.
Glad to see I am not the only one who's eyes roll and the channel flips when I see the PW. Good for her but I do hope the city folk realize it is all a facade.
I agree that the issue is not that PW is successful and rich.
It's that she plays as if she isn't.
When you attempt to position yourself as struggling and you aren't by any stretch, then it shows a lack of integrity. I agree, it's insulting to those of us who are honest in blog land.
I real blogs for authenticity. Which is why I don't read hers anymore. (But Pie Near? I'm all over that one now, thanks!)
(No clue about the burning, we grew cotton when I was a kid, and fire was considered a no-no)
In the UK we used to burn cropping fields (not grass pasture), one to get rid of the residue of the crop, but it would also put potash back into the ground to provide nutrients for the following year. Heathland is burnt on a managed level to encourage stronger growth and to put nutrients back in to the soil as above. The former is now banned due to emission policies, the latter is still done but has to be a strictly managed process. Hope this helps.
Boy, jealous much? I really don't understand the anger about some conceived "facade" PW is pulling on us. I've heard this complaint about her before on various blogs but in my experience (and I read her blog too) she never claims to be anything but who they are ... Oklahoma ranchers. Her husband's family is one of the largest landowners in Oklahoma, she doesn't mention that but she doesn't hide it either. She is funny and entertaining and that's all I'm looking for her in her blog. Give it another look, you might enjoy it!
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