Firstground Field Notes
Notes from the work.
I use Field Notes to work through land, management, methods, and the decisions behind them. Some come from Firstground work. Others are method or decision notes.
Who Is the Safety Net Actually Catching?
The farm safety net matters. The harder question is who it keeps farming, how support interacts with scale, and what happens to the acres afterward.
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What Are We Asking the Farm Bill to Do?
A washout tells you where the water won. It does not tell you where to start. Farm policy deserves the same walk uphill.
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I Built the Wrong Land Health Walk First
The first version of Firstground's Land Health Walk looked pretty good. Then I worked it for a while and realized I had basically built another rangeland assessment form.
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Passing Down Acreage Is the Easy Part
Succession is a management project already underway. The next generation inherits whatever today's management leaves behind.
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The Ranch Is Not the Whole
A technically strong answer can still be a bad management decision when the people, labor, money, and future of the operation cannot carry it.
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Translators, Not Messengers
Research matters. So do the operator, the ground, the constraints, and what happens after the recommendation leaves the page.
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Reading Your Creek
Bank shape, floodplain connection, waterline plants, and the signs that tell you whether a creek is holding ground or spending it.
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