Aug 17 2020 49 mins 2
We’re back! When all was said and done, the Great American Cattle drive chalked up 8,500 miles, 22 states, 38 days and a partridge in a pear tree. And everything the caretakers (nieces and nephews) were in charge of was still alive upon our return – plus a few extra as-yet-to-be-determined biting things inhabiting the house. We still don’t know what those are, but we do know that when things change in nature – subtractions (us) and additions (the kids) – it can sometimes impact everyone’s general environment until the balance is once more restored. The Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa is working on just this “balance” concept. This non-profit organization not only saves seeds, grains, fruits, berries and other crops, but it redistributes them, too, so their diversity can bring the elasticity needed to not only a healthy ecosystem, but a healthy food supply. One of the things they do well is to look at the big picture, which is why their Homestead Farm also is using heritage animals as well as plants. In this case, the animal breed is one that we’ve been wanting to see for about 3 years now, and a cross-country trip through Iowa was just the opportunity. Jim Edrington, the Facilities Manager at Seed Savers, took us right into the fields with the wonderfully (somewhat still) wild Ancient White Park Cattle (We’re not sure he had all of those cute calves out there just for great footage, but we’d like to think so). This very rare breed is one of the most genetically distinct in the cattle world. It has a history in the thousands-of-years-range, and the recent stuff in their lineage reads like an action thriller as well. That’s pretty apt, as they’re still one of the less-domesticated domesticated breeds of cattle out there, and are definitely not for beginners. Their calm but wary demeanor was in full view when we visited, and it was easy to imagine these beauties on the pastures and in the forests of England eluding the nobles that hunted them as game. Self-sufficient, thrifty, great foragers, excellent mothers, and apparently not cowed (ha) by an ATV carrying a film crew in their pasture. These are the perfect pasture restoration and conservation grazing animals for the Seed Savers Exchange, and they are doing that job beautifully. Links: https://exchange.seedsavers.org/ https://www.seedsavers.org/visit https://www.seedsavers.org/contact https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-edrington-2b8b1340 http://www.bbar.com/Stewardship/white-park-cattle https://www.rbst.org.uk/white-park http://afs.okstate.edu/breeds/cattle/whitepark/index-2.html http://afs.okstate.edu/breeds/cattle/britishwhite http://afs.okstate.edu/breeds/cattle/americanwhitepark/index.html/ https://livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/ancient-white-park https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/life-uh-finds-a-way
