Two weeks ago I was riding with University of Nebraska Extension educator, Scott Cotton, headed up Deadhorse Road southwest of Chadron. Scott took me into the heart of what was the West Ash Fire late last summer, and he described the tumultuous days of the wildfires in that region and how ranchers, emergency personnel and firefighters coped with extreme challenges. It wasn’t a pretty picture, and the most disheartening for many long time Pine Ridge ranchers is that their beautiful…

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When I attended one of Pat Reece’s grazing strategies sessions last week in Bloomfield as part of Reece’s four-day tour of Nebraska, I asked the well-respected grazing consultant a question that I guessed might be on the minds of many producers. “If I pulled my cows off pasture in July, having grazed every conceivable blade of grass out there, and if I have received basically no measurable precipitation this fall and if there is zero grass regrowth visible in that…

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Driving over Gavins Point Dam north of Crofton today, a little water was being released through one flood gate into the spillway below and down the Missouri River. That is a far cry from the raging waters that burst through the flood gates in all of the six major Missouri River flood control dams last summer, sending flood waters downstream, into homes and cities, and across farm fields on the path to the Mississippi River. In January, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported that their…

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    When I was a kid, five or six neighborhood families would pile into pickups and trucks around Christmas time and drive over hill and dale in grazing land along the Missouri River, searching for the perfect red cedar Christmas tree. In the days before plastic trees were so popular and before we operated our own choose and cut Christmas tree farm, red cedar trees were plentiful and made fine Christmas trees. They were always very brown when we cut them from the…

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I was driving home from a farm meeting a few weeks ago, and passed, as I like to do, through a portion of the Sandhills. Like most folks who experience the beauty and remote awesomeness of this region, I have come to cherish every trip I take through the area. My Dad loved the Sandhills too. If he hadn’t purchased the home place back in 1965 from my grandparents, he would have loved to go west and ranch in the middle of the Sandhills somewhere. It was his favorite place in Nebraska…

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James Hoecker ought to know what he is talking about when he speaks about wind energy. The former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, serving from 1997 to 2001, is now senior counsel and energy strategist with Hush Blackwell. When he spoke to a large crowd at this year’s Nebraska Wind Conference in Kearney, he said that the only way the U.S. reaches a goal of 20% of our power generation from wind by 2030 is if transmission lines and infrastructure are expanded, improved…

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I was in awe. I'm not sure there are any other words to describe my feeling. It was a feeling of sadness, shock and complete respect and empathy for the flooded farmers who live and operate along the Missouri River this summer. Walking out onto what looked like a desert landscape, covering acres and acres of what was once fertile crop ground, I was amazed and upset at the same time. Scott Olson, who farms with his brother, Randy along the bottom land north of Tekamah, took me for a ride in…

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Dave Wedin’s Sandhills dune restoration project tries to establish the best methods for stabilizing moving sand dunes.     Last week, when I attended a field day at the University of Nebraska research facility at Barta Brothers Ranch near Rose, Dave Wedin, professor in plant and ecosystem ecology, presented information about his ongoing research on restoring vegetation on sand dunes in the Sandhills. Wedin pointed out during his program that “grass is what makes the…

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Field day shows off high quality Sandhills research at Barta Brothers Ranch near Rose. POINTING THE WAY: The Barta Brothers Ranch research facility is located 20 miles south of Long Pine or about five miles west of Rose in Brown and Rock counties. I had the pleasure of attending a research field day at Barta Brothers Ranch near Rose in late June. Located 20 miles south of Long Pine and about five miles west of Rose, the ranch consists of 6000 acres, with over 5500 acres of prime upland…

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The largest quantity of water in sixty years is now gushing down the Missouri, making the Muddy Mo look mighty wild. Just a few years ago, folks around Pierre, SD were talking about how low the water level was in Lake Oahe, on the Missouri River. Today, folks only wished they were talking about low water. Things change pretty rapidly in the Great Plains, and the low snowfall years have given way to a winter that won’t quit in the Northern Rockies. All that snowpack eventually melts…

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