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At CMREC Equine Center for a pasture walk on grazing and pasture walk management
During my time spent with extension I have worked on and contributed to lots of different projects, with each of my mentors. With Jeff, I’ve compiled and analyzed beef and dairy manure data, for Sarah I’ve helped wrangle and weigh little Jersey calves, and with Amanda I’ve attended pasture walks. Specifically, though there has been one task that has proved to be the absolute bane of my existence. What started as a small project for Dr. Grev snowballed into a quickly snowballed into a behemoth, but also taught me a valuable lesson: the importance of people skills.
At the start of my internship, Sarah, Jeff, and Amanda created a shared Google folder with all of our internship forms in it. In addition, they made a list and would upload projects for me to work on when we weren’t out in the field. It was from this list that I first stumbled upon a little project for Amanda, regarding the availability of rental equipment for pasture renovations. As an Extension forage and pasture specialist, Dr. Grev often gets questions from small-time farmers – often horse owners – about renovating pastures and where to find equipment or contractors that can assist. In many Maryland counties, the local soil conservation districts maintain small fleets of equipment that can be loaned out to landowners, for use in pasture renovations, cover crop seeding, or conservation planting. Thus, Amanda tasked me with contacting every soil conservation district in Maryland to ask about equipment rentals, contractors, and any other help they might have for a horse owner or other small farmer looking to do some pasture restoration.
This might not seem like a difficult task, and at the beginning I told Amanda that I would be able to get it done in short order. However, I did not anticipate just how difficult it was to get a hold of folks at each soil conservation district to ask about what services they offer. After combing through all the SCD website and finding many to be out of date, I resolved to call each soil conservation district individually. This is the part where people start to become really important! Talking with employees at each soil conservation district proved to be really helpful, and I had the opportunity to meet a lot of great folks around the state. Repeatedly, I was impressed by how helpful people can be if you simply ask nicely and approach from a position of respect. Here, I will give a special shoutout to the folks at the Harford County Soil conservation district, who were so upset at their lack of equipment that they offered the use of one of their own personal no-till drill if a local farmer needed it. Again, approach with kindness and it seems that most people are more than willing to help!
In conclusion, I did complete the project and a list of soil conservation districts with equipment rental services should be up on the Extension pasture website soon! However, I could not have done it without the help of the good employees of Maryland’s soil conservation districts, who assistance proved indispensable. Whenever they themselves were unable to help me, they always had an alternative or were ready to suggest someone else to call!
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