Sierra Foothill REC

A Healthy Soils Demonstration project was recently launched at Sierra Foothill REC in experimental rangeland plots in the Forbes pasture.

As anyone who has ever cared for livestock at a commercial scale will tell you, animal husbandry requires a wide range of skills. Ranchers must be animal behaviorists, veterinary technicians, bovine (or ovine, caprine, etc.

As a grazer of sheep, at least from a forage management perspective, I live by the rule, "If the worst might happen, it probably will." A corollary to this rule is that pessimists are often pleasantly surprised.

This month, Sierra Foothill REC recognized and congratulated two of our staff members on reaching new service milestones. Martin Beaton has given 40 years and Abraham Mendoza has given 25 years of service to SFREC.

As you probably know if you've read previous posts on Ranching in the Sierra Foothills, my go-to tool for protecting sheep on our foothill rangeland and irrigated pasture is my livestock guardian dogs.

As I write this post, the first few drops of rain are falling on our part of the Sierra foothills since early October. Here in Auburn, those early autumn rains were enough to green up our annual rangeland; other parts of the foothills and Sacramento Valley weren't so fortunate.

The Camp Fire, which started a week ago today in the foothills northeast of Chico, has devastated the communities of Paradise and Magalia. As of this writing, the fire has consumed nearly 150,000 acres and destroyed more than 10,000 structures.

As a commercial sheep producer who is also the father of two daughters who have shown lambs at our local fair since they were nine years old, I'm sometimes conflicted about the value of showing livestock.

UC Sierra Foothill REC is hosting a community workshop & field demonstration event where The Silver Lab at UC Berkeley will discuss results from a long-term (10 year) compost addition trial on foothill rangeland and observed benefits for forage quality, quantity, and soil health characteristics.

As some readers may know, I put out a quarterly newsletter (The New Foothill Rancher in Placer and Nevada Counties; The New Ranch Update in Sutter and Yuba Counties).