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October 2004
MONITOR WEEK
October 8 - October 13
What a joy it was to go take a careful look at the land after the good
summer rains! In six days we monitored all twelve sites, including the
exclosures, taking detailed photographs. It seems to me the "walkabouts"
were much more detailed than last year - and included the tiny Phrynosoma modestum or "round-tailed horned lizard".
All twelve transects showed significant improvement over last year, primarily in amount of foliage and the grass headed out. It would be
interesting to see how the amount of bare ground varied from last year - or didn't.
General observations:
-The valley sites were far more lush, while the mesa sites showed far more diversity.
-There were seedlings, of both grass and forbs, where we didn't expect
them, including in the barren areas which we had been rating low on
"incubation sites".
-There were far more varieties of grass than we found last year.
-Almost all the grass had produced seed.
-There is a lot of standing litter which could get knocked down for next
year. Wish we had the herds to do it all!
-Many of the perennial grass clumps which we thought last year were dead had produced decent growth.
-Because of the timing of the rains - in April and then July-August, the
weeds had sprung up early and then died, leaving grass unchallenged.
I am amazed at how little erosion (except in roads!), scouring, and crust
we have to contend with. Give our land some good rains and a chance to
recover from grazing, and it DOES!
-The Payne and Gallegos pastures will take a while to recover from their
pounding; but I wonder what their potential is? Bill Zeedyk commented that pinons and junipers, with their combination of shallow and deep roots, always out compete the grasses.
On Saturday and Sunday there were 19 of us, including all 5 McCulloughs
plus Jeanne ..., 4 Martins plus Laura's schoolmate Roman ... from Nepal,
Sally and Kelly, 2 Deckers, and 4 Holmes. After spending Wednesday in
financial planning and getting rained off the East Side, the "hard core" -
Sally & Kelly, John and Linda, Kristen and Rick - did the last transect on
Thursday.
It seems two a day is about our pace, since we are looking at all the
vegetation with more attention. I'm not sure how we squeezed in the other two! Kristen's request that we all stay together on the first transect, so that we were all talking the same language, was a good idea; the rest of the time we had three teams (circles, points on the tape, walkabout) going hard! And her preparation of the forms on all those clipboards was quite a help. Also, please don't miss viewing the attached pictures taken during monitor week. Linda and John
RANCH ROAD WORKSHOP
October 15 &endash; October 16
Dear Trigg Ranch Clan:
I wanted to write an informative letter about what we learned at the Quivira Coalitions' "Ranch Roads Workshop" given on October 15th & 16th . It was held at the CS Ranch outside of Springer, NM. Bill Zeedyk was the main speaker and his co-worker, Steve Carson, ran a D5-Cat "high-track" bulldozer with a 6-way blade for the drainage building demonstrations. Steve sure made it look easy. Kristen, Sally, John, Linda, and I attended the workshop. The workshop was free to the 40 or so participants; it was funded by grants from EPA and the NM Water Quality Bureau.
The workshop started with a two hour instructional talk with handouts by "Erosion Guru" Bill. The afternoon was spent with an on-the-ground demonstration of constructing rolling dip drainage structures. Re-routing and closing a poorly placed section of road which ran straight downhill was the last demonstration of the day. Day two was devoted to the participants deciding how to "treat" a mile of eroding roadway, followed by Bill's critique and discussion of those decisions. The workshop ended with a discussion of creek crossings and a demonstration showing how to drain a deeply incised/entrenched roadway.
In addition to the great wealth of information Bill gave us, there were three elements that helped make the workshop enjoyable and very useful:
1. The use of Quivira's new portable loud speaker system (Bill speaks softly);
2. The D5 dozer "how to" demonstrations of constructing drainage structures;
3. The hands-on opportunity to apply what we learned to a _ mile section of road.
I found the "how-to" dozer demonstration the most useful, being an equipment operator and all. Sally mentioned the "hands-on" placement of structures helped her "fix" the concepts.
The Trigg group enthusiasm was high with hopes we might be able to fix some of our deteriorating ranch roads and more effectively use road water. The day after the workshop, Kristen, Sally and I were anxious to try out what we learned. We tackled the terribly eroded 2 mile stretch of road in Medio Pasture from the RR to the dry lake bed. We spent _ the day looking, talking, discussing, measuring and staking out rolling dips, flatland drains, out-sloping and one combination structure we dreamed up. Kristen is looking forward to getting the loader to Medio to tackle the repairs and develop her dirt-working skills.
RANCH ROAD WORKSHOP
I. MAIN OBJECTIVES
1. Place/construct or repair ranch roads so as to effectively "harvest"/use the water from roads to increase land productivity;
2. Reduce road maintenance;
3. Spread/spill water often to help control/reduce erosion;
4. Improve water quality by reducing sediment yields from roads;
5. Improve road use during adverse weather conditions.
II. IMPORTANT POINTS
1. Since 1 mile of an 8 foot road will collect 1 acre foot of water (27,000 gallons), drain the road at least every 200 feet (400 feet in some cases). (With a double of volume and or velocity of water, erosion potential increases exponentially.) Bill chides that you have four opportunities to drain water: "the first chance, the best chance, the last chance and no chance."
2. Road problem indicators:
a. Ruts, rills, pot holes, puddles
b. Upslope gullies &endash; head-cuts
c. Down-slope gullies, channel incision
d. Deltas, debris fans
e. Slumps, cracks, mass wasting
f. Water not draining into its original watershed
3. Learn to read the land to determine why there is erosion. You need to consider topography (hill-slopes, valleys, ridgelines, creeks, wet meadows, obstacles and barriers), soils (depth, texture, alluvial or colluvial) and slope (steepness, length, aspect, slope breaks and watershed boundaries). Understand the surrounding landscape; not just the road and immediate area around the roadway.
4. In placing drainage structures, ALWAYS think about where the water comes from and where it will go.
5. Build drainage structures
a. At least every 200 (400) feet; often enough to keep water velocity and volume low;
b. with a drainage angle sufficient to drain the road without leaving mud pits - 30 degree angle to road is best &endash; 45 degrees sometimes acceptable, but never 90 degrees across the road;
c. with lead-in dip and lead-out roll length sufficient to allow a comfortable ride over the drainage structure with long trailers (at least as long as a truck and trailer &endash; 30 feet);
d. use dirt from lead-in dip and lead-off ditch to build lead-out roll;
e. re-seed disturbed soil to give a quick start to vegetation regrowth.
6. Before starting repairs, pre-plan the kind and placement of the drainage structures and mark them.
7. Water should be drained to an area where it would have gone (same water shed/drainage basin &endash; on a small scale) if there were no road.
8. Best to drain curves before and after curve.
9. To repair/control mud bogs or seeps, a layered approach may work well. The layers start with existing soil, layer of geo-textile fabric, followed with a layer of round river rock 4-6 inches deep, a course of round gravel, another layer of geo-textile fabric and a final layer of top soil for the road.
10. Don't build roads that go directly downhill; angle them across a slope.
11. Most easily drained roads have a 5-8 degree slope.
12. Don't put a road along the bottom of a valley because it is hard/impossible to drain properly and destroys the most productive land. Above the valley floor along a contour line is the best place to build a road even though the route will be longer.
13. If an old road is causing "unfixable" erosion, abandon it and build a new one.
14. Low maintenance roads are built to drain water often &endash; not for speed.
15. The intersection of two roads or crossing animal trail is of special concern because the volume of water can be doubled. Best to spill the water before an intersection.
16. Culverts should be placed at ground level to prevent head-cuts above and below the road.
17. Creek crossings should be built 90 degrees to the stream flow and just above a riffle (the place in a stream where water naturally slows down and drops its heaviest sediment load &endash; often indicated by a "rocky" area). Rocks and gravel placed in the stream bed of road to the height of the "annual" high mark helps keep crossing passable when water is running (see #9).
18. If a road is not needed, close it. Minimize roads going to the same place.
19. Start with the small, easier repairs; the gains are immediate; you get most bang for the buck and if they don't work as planned, not a lot of energy wasted. Large, time consuming repairs may lead to large, expensive errors.
20. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
III. DRAINAGE STRUCTURES AND SPECIFICATIONS
1. ROLLING DIP (See attached drawing)
(Lead-in dip along roadway with dirt berm angled across roadway with lead-out roll and a lead-off/spill ditch)
a. Used on road sections with a 5-8% grade
b. Angle of dip and "dirt berm" across the road should be built 30-45 degrees to existing road; NEVER at a 90 degree angle across the road as in a "thank you ma'm'' " (speed bump).
i. To easily get a 30 degree angle, measure the width of the road and double that measurement. Mark the beginning of the dip at that doubled length. Think of a 30/60 degree right triangle with sides being A (the width of the road), B (the beginning of the dip) and C (angle of berm across the road - hypotenuse). The reasons for a 30 degree angled berm is to slow the water down enough not erode the berm but fast enough to flush water and sediment through the drain.
ii. Lead-in dip and the lead-out roll should be built with lengths equal to the length of vehicles (including trailers) using that road. Down hill side of dirt berm needs to be higher than uphill side to prevent water running down wheel rut caused when road is wet.
iii. Lead-off drain should maintain at least the road grade and should be at least a blade width wide. Depth depends on how deep your lead-in dip is.
iv. Lead-off drain needs to be positioned so as to keep water sheds connected. If lead-off drain is steeper than 8% grade, a filter is needed to slow the water down to help drop sediment and to prevent a gulley or head cut. A filter could be a one-rock damn or crushed tree or tree branches placed parallel with lead-off ditch, brushy part facing downhill.
v. Lead-off ditches should be re-seeded.
2. FLATLAND DRAIN
(No lead-in dip; angled berm across the road with a lead-out roll and lead-off ditch/structure)
a. Used on road sections with a grade of 4% or less.
b. Angle of dirt berm should be 30-45 degree to the road. 45 degree angle can be used when the water running down the road is not moving super fast and is not carrying a lot of sediment. However, water must maintain enough momentum to run out the lead-off ditch.
c. Lead-off ditch should be put where there is some sort of positive down slope grade so the water will drain. For example, you would pick a 2% grade over a 1% or -% grade.
d. The lead-off ditch should be wide with no debris where it meets the grass. You want water to flow through ditch to reach grasslands.
e. Re-seed ditch after building.
f. To keep water from puddling in the road, lead-off structure should be deep enough to drain the water from roadway. Might use pit at end of lead-off structure to collect water if land slope is very shallow.
3. OUT-SLOPED ROAD
A road's grade naturally tips outward automatically draining the water off the road. Sometimes, removing an existing berm is all that is need and is the least disturbing to the stable ground. This drainage works best at curves in a road or for "the first chance" to spill water theory.
4. IN -SLOPED ROAD
Road tips inward towards a higher embankment or berm; has a slight grade towards a drainage channel along the roadside; side ditch has to be drained; used for heavily weighted truck traffic; can't use road when wet or you will end up in a ditch. This technique was mentioned in our handout, and not a technique we would normally use for Trigg roads. It is supposed to drain the water off roads quicker than the other techniques mentioned earlier.
5. CROWNED ROADS
Road grade is high in the middle, often with ditches along the sides; water drains to both sides of road; often needs culverts to drain properly; used for heavy and/or fast traffic; water drains from roadway quickly; hard to maintain properly; usually built with too few lead-off ditches.
A booklet outlining many of the concepts Bill uses, complete with illustrations, can be found both at Kristen's and at Nana's. Kelly and Sally
CATTLE WORK
Weaning
This year we are vaccinating all the weaned calves with Bova-Shield and One Shot. The Bova-Shield is for bovine viral diarrhea and the One Shot is for pneumonia. The 2 vaccines cost about $2.80 for each calf. We are keeping them in the waterlots until they stop walking the fence and they are eating cake and responding to the feed truck. We are also working them Bud Williams style to get the stress off and settle them down more quickly. After 4 to 6 days in the waterlot we are putting them out into the Shipping Trap to eat all that lovely and abundant grass. We plan on keeping them for 3 to 4 weeks after weaning before selling them. Below is a semi-detailed log of our days spent weaning:
Weaning Calves
Oct. 19th We started weaning in the Creek Pasture. There were
92 calves, 48 steers averaging 523 lbs. and 44 heifers averaging 492 lbs.
Oct. 22nd Guero called in the Creek and Shipping Trap and picked up
15 more calves, 12 strs. and 3 hfrs.
Oct. 25th We branded 28 baby calves in the Creek pasture and let
them out with their mom's. We also weaned 4 calves.
Oct. 25th We let the first batch of 92 calves out into the Shipping Trap
after 6 days in the waterlot. The steers lost an average of
29 lbs. and the heifers lost an average of 12 lbs.
Oct. 30th Put 16 weaned calves out into the Shipping Trap (10 strs. &
6 hfrs.) averaging 462 lbs. each.
Nov. 3rd. Put 7 weaned calves out into the Shipping Trap (3 strs. & 4 hfrs.)
Weaned Upper Campana pasture, 47 calves: 32 strs.
averaging 464 lbs. and 15 hfrs. averaging 450 lbs.
Nov. 4th Weaned Lower Campana pasture, 52 calves: 24 strs.
averaging 502 lbs. and 28 hfrs. averaging 451 lbs.
Nov.8th Weaned Lower Campana again and Dad's pasture,
50 calves: 25 strs. averaging 514 lbs. and 24 hfrs.
averaging 459 lbs.
Nov. 9th Put 99 weaned calves into Shipping Trap (55 strs. & 44 hfrs.)
Together their average weight was 456 lbs. They lost an average of 11 lbs. each during the 5 to 6 days in the waterlot.
Nov.10th Weaned Polecat and Red Mill pasture, 31calves
Nov. 11th Worked the 31 calves weaned the day before, 19 strs.
averaging 484 lbs. and 12 hfrs. averaging 445 lbs.
Nov. 12th Weaned Sabinosa pasture, 47 calves: 22 strs. averaging
549 lbs. and 25 hfrs. averaging 512 lbs.
Put 49 weaned calves out into the Shipping Trap. They lost an average of 30 lbs. each during the 4 days in the waterlot.
Nov. 15th Too wet and muddy to wean. We received about one inch of
moisture from snow and drizzle over the weekend, so cattle work is on hold until it dries up a little.
Nov.17th Put 79 weaned calves out into the Shipping Trap. The
steers and heifers were weighed separately. The steers lost an average of 43 lbs. each while the heifers lost only 10 lbs. each. This is the second time we have weighed the steers and heifers separate before putting them out into the Shipping Trap. Both times the steers lost 20 lbs. &endash; 30 lbs. more than the heifers. I find that very strange.
As of November 17th (today) we have weaned a total of 342 calves. They are all in the Shipping Trap happily eating grass. We still have Wild Horse Flat, Paynes and #10 pastures to wean. There should be about 200 calves to wean in those 3 pastures. We had planned on weaning tomorrow but because of the wet and sloppy roads we will have to wait.
Ranch to Rail Program (R2R)
We are putting 14 yearling steers into the Ranch to Rail Program. This will be our second year to participate. We entered 20 steer calves in 2002-03. As you might recall they didn't perform as well as we had hoped. They performed just about average. This year we are putting in older steers to see if they perform better. Below is a record of those steers:
March 17th We took 10 weaned steer calves to Robin.
April 22nd Meade came and got 8 more weaned steers. Together the
18 steers averaged 406 lbs. before leaving the ranch.
May 10th Each steer was given a red number tag and a fly
insecticide tag. They were re-vaccinated with 8-way Siteguard MLG and poured for internal parasites with Bovamec.
Sept. 3rd. One steer died of unknown causes.
Sept. 23rd We picked up the 17 steers from Robin's. They weighed 650 lbs. at
the farm. We paid Robin a grazing fee of $.50/day/str. ($1,532.50)
Sept. 24th We vaccinated the steers for bovine viral diarrhea (BVD)
with 2 cc of Bova-Shield vaccine, weighed them and settled them down before taking them to Nana's pasture. They weighed 630 lbs.
Oct. 19th We picked up two R2R steers that had escaped Nana's
pasture when we weaned the Creek pasture. We vaccinated them for pneumonia and BVD before letting them out into the Shipping Trap.
Oct. 27th Guero and Abel gathered 12 R2R steers from Nana's
pasture and left them in the corrals to be worked the next day. Unfortunately, three steers were missing. We have been looking for them everywhere: in #1, Wayne's, Alamosa, and Raines Canyon. We have no idea where they could be but I'm sure they'll turn up someday and we will eat them!
Oct. 28th We vaccinated the 12 steers for pneumonia and also gave
them a booster shot for BVD.
Nov. 9th The 14 R2R steers were gathered, weighed and inspected in
preparation for taking them to the feedlot in Clayton on the 10th . Their average weight was 714 lbs. Unfortunately, a few of them looked sick - very snotty noses (as you can see in the attached picture), but we had to take them anyway.
Nov 10th Rick took the steers to Diamond A Feeders in Clayton NM.
The trip took 8 hours and was 260 miles round trip. They weighed 683 pounds when they got there, losing an average of 31 lbs. each. He got 7 mpg because of the 40 mph direct head wind. I felt so sorry for those poor steers having to be left in that freezing cold, windy and muddy feedlot.
EQUIPMENT UPDATE
Grader Repairs
Tom picked up the master cut-off switch and new blades for the grader when he came through Amarillo on his way out for Monitor Week. Rick put them on Oct. 21st. Felix came out November 6th and 7th and graded the bad spots on the main road and then up to #10 windmill. Unfortunately he hit a big rock in the middle of the road and broke a piece off one of the brand new blades, so that will have to be fixed or replaced.
Other Repairs
A hydraulic hose blew out on the front-end loader on Oct. 26th and an air-hose has been leaking for quite some time. Felix fixed both on Nov. 6th costing $108 for a new hydraulic hose.
We hauled the maroon Toyota to Clovis to be fixed. It would not run at all. It needed a new timing chain. We picked it up on Oct.20th and paid $846.
The power steering hose on Abel's truck breaks of Nov. 3rd and get a new one in Tucumcari on Nov. 6th.
NANA'S
Patio
Octavio and Alberto Fernandz came out October 18th to re-lay the patio at Nana's. Sally took them up to Medio pasture on the 20th to show them where to get the rocks. Wouldn't you know it, that this is where Octavio's truck decided to die! While they gathered up rocks, Sally walked all the way back to Campana (about a 5 mile trek) to get her truck. Sally didn't seem to mind at all. She said it was a beautiful day plus it was downhill all the way and, as an added bonus, she picked up 37 spikes along the railroad. We got a new starter for Octavio's truck and they were back in business. They worked 22 days straight from sun up to sun down till the patio was finished on Nov. 11th. In all, we got 6 pick-up truck and 2 flat-bed trailer loads of rock, 5 (front-end loader) buckets full of sand to lay the rocks on and 1 bucket full of brown dirt to go in between the rocks. We paid Octavio and Alberto $7,000. I think they did a beautiful job plus all the rain runs straight to the tree! I hope everyone is as pleased as we are. I can barely wait for the first party on the patio!
GUERO AND ABEL'S PROJECTS
Cleaned out the cattleguard going into Nana's pasture from the Creek pasture.
RAIN UPDATE
October Rain at the Holmes Household
Total for September was 2.11 inches
Oct. 5 .29
Oct. 6 .51
Oct. 13 rainy and cold, no measurable amount
Oct. 14 first light frost (freezes just the top leaves of tomato plants)
Oct. 30 first hard freeze (kills all the tomato and zucchini plants)
Total for October was .80 inches
November Rain at the Holmes Household
Nov. 13th .94 very wet snow with about 4 inches accumulating
Nov. 14th .05 drizzle
Nov. 17th .17 drizzle and light showers all day
Rain related news:
During Monitor Week, Tom critter proofed the self-dumping rain gauges.
He also re-calibrated them. It seems that the rain amounts recorded toward the end of the summer were not accurate. Tom is trying to figure out a way to save the rain that is dumped so we can manually measure it later on.
AND OTHER NEWS…
Rick and I cleaned out the red cattleguard going from the Shipping Trap into the Creek pasture.
We have sold 7 wild cows and 7 wild bulls at auction. The cows brought $3,590 and the bulls brought $3,980.
I guess that's pretty much all that has been going on here.
As Always,
Your Lovely President
Kristen
