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This
last winter and spring drought stalked its way down through the
sandhills of Nebraska, across Kansas and Oklahoma, stopped long enough
to torch the Texas panhandle, scorched New Mexico, then drove a stake in
the heart of Arizona’s rangeland.
When
the grasslands of the plains turn as tough and fragile as a spider web,
proper grazing management can sustain it and prolong it even through dry
seasons. But eventually without rain it becomes as nutritious as
bristles on a push broom.
We’ve
got a saying out here, "Don’t look at the country, look at the
cows." But when the cows start fallin’ off we begin looking for
solutions: feed protein, feed hay, wean off the big calves, rent pasture
in Missouri, or finally sell cows.
Because
the profitability of the cow business has been good these last few
years, most cowmen begrudgingly began instituting supplemental feeding.
But, most of us are thankful. Their value is high enough to justify the
additional cost.
Summer
rains were never so welcome. It’s like a baseball team struggling at
bat, dropping the ball, walking the hitters, changing the pitcher,
striking out, getting picked off at second, flying out, getting caught
in a pickle and trailing by 3 runs, then suddenly getting a grand slam
home run in the bottom of the 7th inning and taking the lead!
The
game’s not over but we’re back in it with a fighting chance.
Wonderful feeling, rain. The 100 lb bag of worry you’ve been carrying
around on your shoulder is gone. You stand taller. Drought is one of
those scourges like diabetes or tuberculosis. It can kill you just as
dead as a wildfire or flood or tornado, it just takes longer.
We’ve
had a bad year or two of drought. It has been regional and it hurts
those of us who are affected. But it is not the ’30s when drought
broke the back of rural America and changed the face of our nation. Even
city people went hungry.
We
think of the Great Depression as a collapse of our banking system and
stock market but it was also a natural disaster far worse than the San
Francisco earthquake, the Galveston flood or New Orleans’ Katrina.
This year’s drought was just some western ranchers’ turns in the
barrel. Our suburban neighbors hardly noticed; the economy is booming,
gasoline is expensive but abundant, and our urban customers keep eating
beef like it was chicken and paying record prices!
We’re
still in the game. Guess I better order one more load of protein blocks!
Baxter
Black is a former large animal veterinarian who can be followed
nationwide through this column, National Public Radio, public
appearances, television and also through his books, cds, videos and
website, www.baxterblack.com.
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