FIELD NOTES
Land and life at the confluence of Earth and Sky
Listening to the wind at the old Howell Ranch, out west of Gunnison
I stopped by the ranch I used to manage, on the north side of the San Juans, while driving between Gunnison and Montrose. I don't pass this way often anymore, but it's always cathartic.
This is the low country at about 7000 ft elevation (in October, before the snow); the high country is up in the aspen at over 9000 ft. We didn't feed cattle through the winter here, just ran a few hundred pairs and some yearlings from the low country up to the high country and back, from May to October.
Virtual fence technology improves grazing management on public lands
A couple dozen ranchers, virtual fence company employees, and agency rangeland specialists from the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, as well as from the Natural Resources Conservation Service and Colorado State University Extension, gathered on a brisk fall morning to learn about virtual fence, which might be the most significant technological innovation for improving grazing management on the range in the last century. We travelled through ponderosa pine, Gambel oak, and grass meadows to see how it is being used on a grazing allotment on the San Juan National Forest.