Life Rests on Leaves of Grass

Despite the pitch darkness, the boys headed out on the windswept polder, together pulling a narrow wagon bearing 8 empty milk cans. “Polder” was the word they all used when referring to land taken from the sea. 

All of them lived and worked below sea level in this place; some of the more well-off farmers had dirt and rock built up high enough to keep their homes and barns above light flooding. Towns were always relegated to higher ground for the same reason. For the most part, the dikes held fast, but rogue storm tides occasionally breached them, and the possibility of the polder going underwater was real.

It was 1938. Up until a few years ago, all the subsurface flowing water that inevitably leaked under the sea walls (what they called dikes) was handily moved back into the sea through windmill power. Those archetypical white-winged windmills in low countries like the Netherlands nearly all pumped water; a few others served to grind grain. But now, electric and steam-powered pumping stations were starting to cover the needed water removal maintenance, lifting water over the sea wall back into the North Sea.

They moved silently, their walking hushed by the thick and rough sheep-wool clothing they both wore. It was the only thing that kept the boys warm despite the North Sea moisture-soaked breezes that sometimes drenched the land. The twelve-year old had in his hand one side of the “t” shaped handle; the 9 year old had the other. This way they walked down the trail to the arrangement of fenceposts and rails that was their roofless milk-barn at this time of year. Although the October days were getting shorter, the abundant lush green grass was still growing a little; it was just enough to make good milk.

Soon, winter would come, and the polder journey would be over. The 20 cows would be brought home to their grass-roofed abode that was a combination home and barn. The Friesians believed that cows belonged with them through the cold season. A typical farmhouse layout meant that when you stepped out of the kitchen, you stepped into the warm barn. It was simple Friesian ingenuity. The salt-box shape of the house/barn combination was easy to keep warm; short 5-foot walls and steeply pitched roofs of thick mats of tied rushes held heat in and the rain out. From a distance, an abode resembled more a steep grassy hill than a home.

Part of the design was simply to manage for the scarcity of fuel for heat. When times were good, German coal made its way to the polders by barge. When times were hard, they burned “turf,” or peat dug from the multitude of wet meadows that populated the low country. In winter when the polder wind grew fierce, and the sun would scarcely grace the daytime of such northern latitudes, the cows would spend the entire winter under the roof of their common abode, their bodies ruminating and making heat for the barn and house together. Every day, hay and water would be brought to them; the milk and manure would be carried out.

In the lantern light of the pre-dawn, the shapes of the fence-posts became visible as they approached them on the path. Some of the cows were already waiting at the rendezvous point, chewing cud, udders tight. The boys were still half asleep and silent over much of their journey to the cows grateful that it wasn’t raining. Yesterday it was, and by the end of the chore, their white hands were icicles, despite handling the warm teats. They desperately tried to keep their hands warm, pocketing them whenever they could, because their father would be angry if they handled a cow with cold hands. They knew that she might not let down her milk if facing the uncomfortable prospect of cold hands every day.

It had to be early, because they needed to be in school by 8. That meant the cows must be turned out, their buckets needed to be washed and the milk cans latched down. They would leave the wagon for their father, who would take a dog-team down to the fenceposts to bring them back. A truck would pick up their cans later that morning at the barn.

They milked the cows, one by one, by hand, into buckets, that then were emptied into the larger cans. The boys could hardly pick up the big milk cans onto the wagon, but together they could muster them. At the end of their cows, their hands ached. Milking was hard work, and their muscles and bone structure adapted at their young age accordingly. Granted the cows of that day and age were much smaller than today’s, so each cow only yielded one or two gallons at each milking. Friesian Holsteins that the boys milked were half the size of today’s mega dairy cow, but 20 head that were fresh, or “in milk” was a large herd for the polder.

But the cows seemed to be made for the grass, and the grass for them. It was a different time and that elegant combination had likely reached perfection—not so much in production, but in quality. The milk had a distinctly yellowish color, and the butterfat was rich in flavor. This was milk made of plant diversity, on the thick, black polder soils extracted from the sea hundreds of years prior. The soil rarely saw a plow of any kind; instead the thick sod responded to two things: the sun and grazing.

This was the daily ritual nearly 90 years ago. The older boy was my Dad, and the younger one my Uncle Garry. The proof of the story above was in their hands; they were some of the largest, most muscular hands I have ever seen; even as an adult, I often made a mental note about how remarkable they were; when they clasped my extra-large hand in theirs, it was summarily swallowed up. The place was Friesland, the northernmost province of the Netherlands. The two lads were the fruit of some 800, maybe even over a 1000 years of dairy agriculture—their way of life, their civilization, their culture and health, more than most others, was founded on one thing: the leaves of grass. 

Their staples of milk, cream, buttermilk, yogurt and meat came from grass. Their warm and dry roof shelter was made of grass. Even their fuel was composted grass. Their clothing was produced by grass, through sheep. Green grass can underpin civilizations. I think today’s culture has lost the recognition of that simple possibility. Most agriculture economists don’t think it is possible, but when I run the numbers, it is. Industrial or factory agriculture is extremely wasteful, and in terms of the net, is very unproductive. Soil is left bare and unpopulated by green plants for most of the year; grassland agriculture is always producing—even in the dead of winter. We might not see it, but underground in healthy soils, life is still active, preparing, staging for the next year of sunlight capture. We see it on Alderspring. Although we have an extremely short growing season with 60 days frost free, our production per acre rivals that of conventional, chemical-based operations of the American Southeast.

Grassland needs no petroleum or chemical inputs to be sustained, but it does need management.

Those two boys in the story above were enough. They could practice a husbandry that doesn’t require tractors, combines, chemicals, diesel fuel, GPS, forage harvesters, silos, ethanol plants or feedlots. And it is easily scalable. I have a friend who grass-finishes yearlings in Texas. They run over 5000 head in one herd, and they move them once or twice a day.  One or two people suffice to get it done. I have a brother who handily ran 1500 cattle on only grass this past summer. Their weight gains approached that of a feedlot.

The elegance of grass capturing sunlight is unmatched by all technology. And it can heal the earth.

Happy Trails.