Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

This past week we did the hay at a friends farm about 10 miles away.  We do this as a favor to our friends, who need the grass cut in their field to keep the land open and to alleviate the fire danger.  The hay is on the light side, but on the plus side the field is relatively flat and easy to haul and even though the BPA transmission lines run through one corner of the field, the bird diversity is amazing.  Or it used to be.  For the last four years, we have seen such a quick decline, it is alarming. 

We started getting the hay off of this field in 1995, the dairyman that was making the hay there, retired.  The first time we drove into the field we were amazed at the edge effects  we saw.  Fruit trees were abundant, hanging heavy with fruit, and the numbers of birds from raptors, to insect and seed eaters were incredible.  There were so many swallows when we started cutting you couldn’t begin to count them.  This year, 2 swallows and a red tailed hawk.  No snakes, no field mice, just lots of starlings eating cherries.

Meanwhile, changes had been made on the neighboring rental farm.  For years, the local Black Angus breeder had rented the adjoining pasture.  Around here, getting that property tax deferral for farm land is very important.  This cattleman didn’t take the best care of his cattle, the pasture was always overgrazed and had patches of thistles and tansy ragwort.  :0  Also, the cows would get hungry on that overgrazed pasture, and would get out, since usually on rental farms, the landowner doesn’t want to keep up the fence, and the renter can’t afford to improve the landowner’s property.  Subsequently, cattle would be out.  Now the fine people in our small town didn’t like this, and when a “Widow Hen” next door started renting to some Laotian market gardeners, the cry went out “We need us some of them.”   “Flowers are purty!”  (Now mind you I really didn’t hear the original conversations, and these landowners are much more refined and educated than I, but what they have done was gamble, not make an educated decision.)   Monkey see, Monkey do.  When the cattleman’s lease was up, it wasn’t renewed.  Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.  No more cows getting out, no more thistles and tansy, and we’ll have a pretty view of fields of flowers.  I have to admit too, I was hoping the cow guy would retire and not keep so many cows, thinking that he could take better care of a few.  And, I liked looking at the waving rows of posies.

What no one thought about was some of the farming methods that would be employed to get these bouquets to the farmers market in marketable condition.  I’m giving the benefit of the doubt here, because most people don’t care about the process of farming, just so their produce is cheap, their meat is in neat little packages, and the bouquets don’t have bugs crawling out of them on the dining room table.  So whatever it takes, right?  Better living through science, not biology.  You know it hasn’t been proven that there are actual benefits to organic farming, right?  I hear these statements tossed around like a bug-free bride’s bouquet all the time.

 

On the horizon you can see a glimpse of the flower field.  It doesn’t show in this photo, but the ground is quite steep in places.   In order to work up the ground for planting crops, the rows have to run up and down the hill.  There are a number of truck farms in our area, mostly growing cabbage, and a few other crops.  But those farmers put in cover crops before the winter rains and the soil is held in place.  On this particular flower field there is a mix of perennials, bulbs and annuals.  Instead of doing any kind of rotation, or cultivating, they are relying almost solely on chemicals.  Herbicides for the weeds, and insecticides for the insects and maybe rodenticides for the voles that most likely have found those bulbs quite tasty, and soon, fumigating the soil will follow after the first round of bulbs need replanting.  I know, I know, they have a right to be in business, and use the products that are available.  They work hard, with entire families there, toiling away.  Some are picking flowers and  some are spraying.  The landowner is happy, he has his tax deferral.  The neighbors are happy, they can drive by and see colorful rows of flowers, and the cowman, he’s tired semi-retired, now he has less cows to take care of.  Even our friend has been lulled into thinking this is a better deal.  Maybe because we only see it once a year at the same time, we can see the changes.  Our friend isn’t an outside person, she walks her dogs in the pasture and enjoys what she sees. She’s a half-full glass kind of person, seeing a swallow swooping by catching mosquitoes is enjoyable, seeing the textures and colors of the flowers and bouqet fillers is pleasant.  But, where is the Lazuli bunting, and the goldfinches, where are the Steller’s jays cussing as you walk near?  What has happened to the sparrow hawks?  No crows, nor ravens either.   The migratory birds have a treacherous world to navigate.  The resident birds not so much, unless something suddenly happens to their part of the food chain.   These animals are doing everything right, that we humans have lost touch with.  Chronological snobbery is alive and well within the human race.  Read –  eat local and seasonally, become a locavore!  This is something new, “what do you think honey, should we try this thing for a year and see how it works?  Do you think the birds and animals coin new words and phrases for what they instinctively know how to do?

Still, everyone drives by and glances at the flower fields and that is all they see – flowers.  Working in a hay field at a slower pace gives you the opportunity to take in your surroundings.  We have decided to stay in the technological decades of the late 40’s – 70’s.  No air conditioning, no bale wagons, just us on a 40 horse tractor.  We have our reasons for not “progressing” but that belongs in a hay post, not here.  It’s too bad we didn’t have a digital camera when we started haying this field years ago.  Now that diverse landscape is just a memory.

What all those bad cows contributed, was a great thing.  They returned the gift of grass, with their nutrient rich manure, and in turn, kept a whole ecosystem humming along like a well-oiled machine.  No one ever complains or even notices how nice we can move around with our freeway system, but let there be a wreck, and holy heck breaks loose.  The wreck has happened in these adjoining farms and it hasn’t been cleared.

It looked pretty dead to me, but I didn’t see any vultures… .  The winged kind that is, the other kind, is happily looking at their property tax statement.