{"id":71857,"date":"2017-03-06T21:02:13","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T04:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pray-for-rain\/"},"modified":"2017-03-07T04:02:13","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T04:02:13","slug":"pray-for-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pray-for-rain\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Pray for rain\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><!-- gallery:8c9cc7cd-0870-4d4f-ac49-b0c42e302010 --><br>\n          <!-- gallery:4d369e82-1d8a-487c-b721-d810572f0697 --><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eIa4qkPrhLc\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Hamburger. Steak. Prime rib. However you like it, beef is what\u2019s for dinner on many local tables.<\/p>\n<p>But the folks who put it on the plate are dealing with the consequences of two years of drought and looking at another one coming up if some good precipitation doesn\u2019t come our way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople who live in a city, they don\u2019t think about where their water comes from,\u201d said Mae Morley, who ranches in the southwest part of La Plata County. \u201cBut for us, whatever\u2019s in the mountains is our irrigation water, and when that\u2019s gone, we\u2019re done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morley and her husband, George, have sold off half their herd in the last two years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe folks on the west side of the county have been hurt worse than anyone else,\u201d said Wayne Semler, the recently elected president of the La Plata-Archuleta Cattlemen\u2019s Association who runs cattle and farms south of Bayfield. He has shrunk his herd between 25 and 30 percent in the last couple of years. \u201cWith no irrigation, water tables dropping and springs drying up, they\u2019re really struggling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The heavy rains last fall and a predicted El Ni\u00f1o weather pattern, which generally brings us moisture, may make this year a little better, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLast year\u2019s snow melted into the ground because it was so dry, so there was no runoff\u201d he said. \u201cThis year, at least, the soil moisture\u2019s a little higher.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morley said rain this year is more critical than ever as the drought continues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re all praying for rain,\u201d she said. \u201cTell people we all need to pray for rain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cattle ranching 101<\/p>\n<p>Most cattle ranchers run cow\/calf operations, where the calves are fattened up during the summer for market in the fall.<\/p>\n<p>Some ranchers feed the heifers, or mama cattle, on their own land all year long, grazing in the pasture for the summer, feeding them hay grown in their fields during the colder months.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe fed our cattle longer than normal,\u201d Semler said about 2013. \u201cAnd our hay last year, some fields we cut once, some none at all. We had a grasshopper problem, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other ranchers, like Brice Lee, whose ranch is south of Hesperus, move them from private pastures in New Mexico, where they\u2019ve wintered the heifers, to private pastures in Colorado for the summer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLast year, we only got four days of water, when we normally get 30 to 40,\u201d Lee said. \u201cMost everybody\u2019s had to adjust. We haven\u2019t harvested hay in two years, and we haven\u2019t had a lawn for several years because we didn\u2019t want to waste the water.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still others winter the cattle on their own land, moving them during the summer to pastures in the mountains where they have grazing permits on Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management land.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe took two trips up to the mountains to see what forage and water was available last year before deciding how many we could take,\u201d said third-generation rancher Steve Pargin, who moves his cattle from near Forest Lakes to the Piedra River Basin. His herd has shrunk about 20 percent from a couple of years ago. \u201cWe started making adjustments going from the fall of 2012 into the spring of 2013. We sold maybe 40, 50, 60 cows in June because we just couldn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Federal government grazing permits were restricted last year because of the drought to protect the forests from an environmental standpoint.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cForest Service permits reduced herd sizes last year,\u201d Semler said. \u201cThey reduced the number of days you could graze or the number of cattle or both. Some people had to sell their cattle early.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If hay crops don\u2019t come in, ranchers have to buy hay, which can drain the profits for a whole year.<\/p>\n<p>Lee is waiting to see how much precipitation we get in the next month or two before he decides whether to try to plant hay this year. He also has been watching his topsoil blow away with the recent high winds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe hay fields are just hanging on,\u201d he said. \u201cIf rain comes, we\u2019ll go ahead and make hay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Adding to the challenge in his part of the county is an invasion of army worms, which come out when it\u2019s dry for long periods.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey eat everything that tries to turn green,\u201d Lee said. \u201cThis morning (Thursday), we had about two inches of snow, and they were crawling around in the snow trying to eat. They\u2019re in a smaller area, south of Kline this year, but we had them in 2003 bad, and in a larger area, down in New Mexico, all around here and on the Florida Mesa.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even where there is some irrigation water \u2013 in the southeast part of the county, thanks to some storage in Lemon and Vallecito reservoirs \u2013 it doesn\u2019t mean there\u2019s enough to grow adequate crops.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe sold calves last year that we wouldn\u2019t otherwise have sold because even where there was water, the hay didn\u2019t grow as it normally does,\u201d Semler said. \u201cThe dry weather seems to have stunted the growth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Price of beef may rise<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFat cattle hit a record high price last month because of a decrease in numbers as a whole,\u201d Semler said. \u201cThe U.S. cow\/calf herd level is comparable to the 1950s. If and when we start to rebuild, people will retain some heifers from the market for that, which may keep prices high.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCows are kind of like a factory,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have cows, you don\u2019t have calves, and if you don\u2019t have calves, you don\u2019t have a continuing cash flow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The cost of everything ranchers depend on may also add to a higher price for beef at market and thus in the store.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverything \u2013 fertilizers, tractor tires, fuel, parts \u2013 they all keep climbing,\u201d Semler said.<\/p>\n<p>Pargin agreed, adding that it always seems to be something.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince I started in 1975, what used to cost $1,000 now costs $10,000,\u201d he said. \u201cMy sons got in the reclamation business with the oil fields because it pays lots better than farming. It\u2019s just not an easy deal; it takes an awful lot of money to operate an ag operation, and if one thing goes wrong, it really hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:abutler@durangoherald.com\">abutler@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/dur-cjweb.newscyclecloud.com\/assets\/pdf\/CJ15295747.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Colo. Dep. of Ag Cattle Info (PDF)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drought in southwest Colorado hits cattle ranchers hard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[13,4747,316],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-slideshow","tag-video"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71857"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}