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Thundering Hooves is a fourth generation
family farm in the fertile Walla Walla Valley of Washington
State. We raise and finish chickens, turkeys, cattle,
goats, sheep, and pigs on certified organic pastures
of grass and alfalfa. All our livestock are Pasture
Ranged and Pasture Finished (no feedlots), leading to
more contented animals and healthier meats. We do not
use indiscriminate antibiotics or hormones to boost
growth (see HOW WE RAISE OUR
ANIMALS).
Our environmental philosophy is that Nature knows
best. For thousands of years, multiple species of animals
grazed unplowed fields of clovers and grasses. The sod
held the moisture, the clovers added nitrogen for the
grasses, the animals recycled the plants, and the microorganisms
rejoiced! This was and is sustainable agriculture.
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(1883-1950)
Our story is an American farm family story. Many families
share a similar history to ours. Way back in 1883, four
generations ago, two brothers immigrated from Germany
and followed their American dream up the south fork
of the Walla Walla river in North-Eastern Oregon.
In 1908, one brother, our great-grandfather, moved
his family down into the Walla Walla Valley along the
Oregon and Washington border where we live today. In
the generation that followed, our grandfather opened
new ground with teams of horses and mules that he used
until the 1940's. He would hire a crew of 20 men to
harvest wheat, and put up hay from the fertile soils.
Our grandmother would cook large meals for the men,
who slept in a bunkhouse on the farmstead. Their main
income came from cattle that were driven 40 miles to
pastures. They were never rich, but our grandparents
worked long, hard hours and managed to raise a family
and make a living. They were good and honest people.
We have, of course, reaped many benefits from their
example, and have been proud of our family heritage.
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(1950-1994)
Over time, wagons gave way to trucks, horses gave way
to tractors, and organic matter was replaced by chemical
fertilizers. The new machinery required less labor and
could work more land, so the work crews moved on to
other jobs. Irrigation ditches channeled water from
the river, and the land was producing more than ever.
Wheat prices were high. There was plenty of food. These
were good times. This was progress.
But our grandparents' path of progress 50 years ago,
the same road that we took for much of our own lives,
eventually led to unintended consequences. As it turned
out, year after year of planting wheat without giving
anything back into the soil exhausted our land's natural
fertility by the 1950's; so fertilizers and pesticides
came to the rescue. They may have allowed us to produce
more for less, but they masked negative effects, which
have been generations in the making. Chemicals became
so common place and safe (we thought), that we were
quickly, and it appeared irreversibly, becoming dependent
on those artificial means to boost production. It was
a Catch 22. The more we took from the land, the less
the land had to give, so the more stuff we had to put
on the land to get the same results. Sound suspiciously
like an addiction in the making?
A similar phenomenon happened in the beef industry.
Cattle today are 30% larger than they were in our grandfather's
day. Why? Bigger is better, right? But the more the
cattle industry bred for bigger and faster growth, the
more the markets were flooded with beef, contributing
to flat-lining prices and further increasing pressure
to produce more with less. In real dollars, the price
of cattle today is worse than it was during the Great
Depression. And the price of wheat is just as bad. So,
we bought more land, spread more fertilizers, and increased
our herds in size and number.
As farming and raising cattle became less profitable,
the government stepped in with price supports. This
charity may have put a bandage on the wound, but in
the long run helped to maintain the status quo, further
entrenching our dependence upon unnatural means to sustain
our way of life. Even in hind-site, it is hard to say
that we would have done anything differently.
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As our family farm limped through the
1980s and early 1990s, something happened to Joel
(co-founder of Thundering Hooves); And what happened
to Joel, as Robert Frost wrote, "has made all
the difference." What follows is Joel's story
in his own words.
In the summer of 1994, I had an epiphany, a life-changing
realization, and I haven't been the same person since.
I remember the day well. I was out burning a field of
wheat stubble, trying to quickly rid myself of what
I thought at the time was the bothersome organic matter
in my way, so that I could plant alfalfa that fall.
Only a couple of weeks earlier I received the yield
results from a crop of snap beans. I had grown them
under contract for a local cannery and yielded 5 tons
per acre. This was a good yield, but the cannery was
only paying me $102 per ton based on the tenderometer
reading (the cannery's measure of the quality of the
beans based almost solely on the timing of the harvest,
which is determined by the cannery!) This came to a
little over $500 per acre. Then I started to do the
rest of the math per acre. Seed cost $100, fertilizer
$60, water $120, weed control $35, equipment $80, land
payment… operating loan payment… insurance…
interest… taxes… And oh yes, I got to pay
myself with what was left over!
I saw problems on my farm that weren't being addressed.
The dirt was blowing away. The soil wasn't holding moisture.
I was barely scratching a living. Worse yet, the canneries
and the fuel man and the parts man and the fertilizer
man and the aerial spraying man and even the migrant
workers were all making a living from my land, but not
me.
The way things were going; I had to ask myself, "How
long can we keep doing all this?” "Should
we get out?" We watched as other long-standing
farm families were forced to sell everything and move
to town. Were we next?
It had become painfully apparent to me that my choices
were to either get a job to support the farm and my
family, or to borrow more money and fall further into
debt until we could no longer make the payments. Our
story was not unlike countless other producer/farmers
in the commodity business across the country.
What makes this story -- and our farm -- unique is
what I decided to do about it. Remember the wheat stubble
I was burning that day? From that fire, as I watched
the land turn to black, rise in a dark smoke, and fade
into the sky, so also my dreams of making a living in
modern commodity agriculture were set ablaze and blew
away. Let's face it; it had been a failure since the
beginning - on all levels -financially, ecologically,
socially, and personally. At that time I did not yet
know where to turn, nor what to do next. All I knew
was what did not work for ME. So it was that from that
moment I resolved to do NOTHING the same again.
As the weeks went by, I came to view my farmer brethren
across the country as being caught in the same circular
living from which I had just divorced myself. We always
needed bigger equipment to farm more acres faster, and
more and more fertilizers to get bigger yields that
made greater supplies that lowered prices which meant
we needed bigger equipment and on and on.
I could see no future in this for me. Like a giant
whirlpool with no way out, I could literally hear the
great sucking sound of our finances being pulled up
from our farm if I stayed in the present paradigm.
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So, what to do? It sounded intriguing to say, "I
will do NOTHING the same again," but what did that
really mean? I began to read more and think more, and
slowly it dawned on me why my farm was not supporting
my family and I. I had broken the law. I was a criminal.
Not in the legal sense, but in a much more vast, universal
sense. What do I mean? In a nutshell, here is my confession;
I had compacted the soil, fed it artificial food, removed
organic matter without putting any back, laid the ground
bare, disrupted the soil community of microorganisms
by use of tillage, poisoned the soil with chemicals
and dumped my commodity on the market and wondered why
I got a dump price.
This may sound like common sense, but there's more
to this than meets the eye…much more.
At the beginning of our brochures we write, "Our
farm seeks to follow natural laws governing the relationships
between grazing animals and the grassland." Why?
Because there is an authority that we would do well
to follow. There are consequences if we don't. Let me
explain. Laws bring order from chaos. They protect.
They protect you, other people, and other things. Laws
are universal. They operate at all times, in all places
whether we are aware of them or believe in them. Some
laws may not necessarily be apparent. They are hidden.
Disobeying laws always leads to predictable consequences,
but some consequences may not be immediate.
There are different types of laws, and what follows
is a detailed explanation of them as they apply to our
story.
There are physical laws, like the law of gravity. You
can decide that this law may not apply to you today
and step off a tall building. You will likely find that
physical laws do indeed apply to all things.
There are civil laws, which bring order to society
and govern our relationships with each other. Consider
stoplights. If you run a red light, you could get hurt,
or someone else could get hurt; it could be costly -
a ticket or a mark on your driving record with higher
insurance premiums - But possibly nothing would happen.
In fact you might run several red lights and get away
with it for some time. The odds remain the same but
the probability mounts with each violation that bad
consequences may arise.
There are moral laws like "Don't lie" and
"Don't kill". Without moral laws, community
falls apart.
And there are natural laws that govern the created
order. Many natural laws can become apparent to us by
observation, by example, and by observing history.
Following are several examples of natural laws as they
apply to farming and certainly relate to our story.
Compaction - The heaviest impression
on the soil for millions of years was a hoof - not a
tractor track. What happens to a soil that is compacted?
Bad consequences. Water runs off instead of percolating
in. Soil moisture wicks out. The soil can't breathe.
It suffocates. There is no exchange of oxygen and carbon
dioxide. Physically there is less room for the roots
to grow and less room for soil biota - microorganisms,
worms, bugs, etc. Would you like to raise your family
in a single crowded bedroom?
Fuel - All life, soil or otherwise,
runs by burning energy - consuming fuel. Carbon is the
fuel of the soil, just like the carbon in the form of
sugar that fuels our bodies or carbon in the form of
gasoline that fuels our cars. Carbon runs the soil engine.
When an engine runs out of fuel it stalls or dies. Organic
matter is the form of carbon that runs the soil's engine.
Commercial fertilizers and tillage burn up organic matter.
The very things farmers do to produce a crop burns up
the soil's fuel! One reason weeds come to the rescue
of the soil is to refuel it with organic matter -a job
at which they are well suited! Then, if you take away
the soil's ability to feed itself, you must feed it
yourself! This could be likened to tying someone's hands
behind his back and then you spoon in bite after bite.
Yet this is what I had done. I had tied the soil's hands,
so it was dependant upon me to feed it annual doses
of commercial fertilizers, which are an inadequate food.
It would be the same as you getting a vitamin pill,
a glass of water, and a bag of potato chips every day.
Would you survive? Probably, but I bet you wouldn't
thrive!
Collecting energy to be stored as carbon
- A farmer can be first seen as a solar energy harvester.
He uses a green leaf to capture sunlight and turn it
into usable energy. If the soil is laid bare, sunlight
is wasted and falls to nothing. Modern farming leaves
the soil bare for at least part of the year or a whole
year in the case of summer fallow. The only barren place
in nature is a desert.
Maturity - Adults are better able
to handle stress than youngsters. A soil with a mature
plant community above ground and a mature soil biota
community below ground is better able to produce in
times of drought, flood or other stress. Most cultivated
crops are less than a year old and are youngsters.
Plant balance - Whatever you cut
above the ground, you cut below the ground. If you take
all of the top growth, the bottom growth - a nearly
mirror image below the ground - is also taken even though
you don't see it. Yet most of western continuous grazing
practices remove as much top growth as possible. This
takes away the ability of the plants to feed themselves
or else live under a starvation diet.
Short-term gains vs. long-term health
- Doing the minimum required to get by is usually more
costly in the long run. Yet most of farming today is
geared for the short term: the next operating loan payment,
next equipment payment the next commodity check in the
mail.
Diversity - All life requires a rich
diversity of food for best production. Yet modern agriculture
focuses primarily on three fertilizer nutrients - Nitrogen
(N), Phosphorous (P), and Potassium (K). It may come
as surprise to many that these elements are not lacking
at all but are unavailable to the chemically dependent
plant/soil. Nitrogen - the most common element in the
air is present by the ton over every acre of land. Phosphorous
and Potassium are present in the soil by the ton. The
question is not "How much should you apply as artificial
fertilizers?" But, "How do I set up the conditions
where these elements are made available to the plant
when needed and in their most stable and usable form?"
These are the very conditions modern farming manages
against. How ironic! Diversity is nature's strength.
Mono cropping is modern agriculture's weakness.
Ground Cover - The soil is meant
to be covered. The only barren place on nature is a
desert. The earth will do anything to put her clothes
back on once she is laid bare. This is one reason why
weeds exist. If you don't cover her with plants of your
own choosing, she will use plants of her own. Often
times, if we observe how and where the weeds emerge,
we may learn something of what the soil's needs may
be.
Open Wounds - The soil surface is
very much like our skin. When you scrape or cut yourself,
you bleed. As healing begins, you form a scab. When
the soil is cut, life bleeds away. Water and dirt wash
away and then the dry soil that is left blows away.
Another way to look at it is if a child comes from a
bad home, he may also run off. Where there is violence
and destruction, things are blown away. These images
are graphic, but do well to tell the story of unintended
consequences. As with the soil, the life-giving nutrient
water will show the consequences of a bad soil home.
This is erosion. Rather than staying, growing, and becoming
productive, it runs off.
Healing - When you are scraped or
wounded your skin forms a scab, an ugly protective covering,
which remains until healthy skin can grow again. Weeds
are the “scabs” of a wounded soil. They
may be unsightly, but are absolutely necessary to aid
in the healing process. Different weeds have different
root systems. Some types use a taproot to assist in
breaking up compacted soil and move nutrients and moisture
from deeper soil to surface soil. Other types have roots
that grow more horizontally creating an environment
for healthy topsoil life. Yet much of modern agriculture
– including myself prior to my epiphany –
has had a zero tolerance for weeds. So, the weeds were
eliminated with herbicides, without thinking about the
question: "What were the conditions that brought
the weeds in the first place?" Herbicides are a
band-aid that masks the wound. They do not – indeed
cannot – cure the ailment. The healing that is
needed can only come from within. How does skin feel?
Usually healthy skin is soft, warm, and moist: so also
the soil. But modern farming practices manage for a
skin that is more hard and cracked. How does this feel?
Which is more appealing? A healthy soil should feel
like a soft carpet beneath your feet. Not concrete.
Time-tested success - If it worked
that way for millennia, it's a good bet it will work
that way tomorrow! Millennia of successful genetic and
cultural evolution cannot be replaced by decades of
machines, technology, and modern practices. Some evolutionary
traits may have come into existence by accident, but
they remained because they were successful. They remained
because they could naturally reproduce and were efficient
users of energy, nutrients and space, and could out
compete other species or outlast the predators.
Balance - In the physical world it
is well understood that if there is equal pressure on
all sides of a focal point, balance is present. The
amount of weight or demand on each side makes no difference
so long as there is balance. The needs of plants and
the needs of animals on the soil, our focal point, are
perfectly balanced to each other and are complimentary.
The wastes of the one are the food of the other and
vise versa. Separating this most basic relationship
leads to all sorts of ill consequences. Yet modern farming
practices remove these far from each other. We remove
foraging animals from the land and wonder why we have
a fertility problem with our soils, and then we concentrate
our animals in a confined feeding operation and wonder
why we have unhealthy animals and environmental problems.
It doesn't make sense. Instead of buying all that equipment
and spending all of that energy swathing and bailing
hay to transport it to the cattle, why not just allow
the cattle to graze it where it grows?
Giving back what you take - If you
take life from the land you must put life pack. There
is no known substitute for the real thing - artificial
fertilizers or otherwise. This means no more harvesting
alfalfa and sending it to feed someone else's cattle.
It is time now to build the soil, not deplete it.
Good business - By letting someone
else sell for me, I never knew or developed a relationship
with the people who would ultimately purchase and eat
the food grown on my farm. Two essential questions in
good business are, "Who are my customers?"
and "What do they need?" I had no idea. I
had never asked these questions. Furthermore, all business
begins with the premise that you have something to sell
or offer at a profitable price. Instead of researching
their customer base and creating a marketing plan, most
farmers, myself included, would market using phrases
like, "Well I guess it's time to get rid of the
hay now" as their only marketing strategy! Yes,
I was as guilty as anyone in breaking the laws of good
business.
Finally, I want to acknowledge the hope and
task of reconciliation. I had resolved to find
a way to start over, to begin with a clean slate, to
waken to a new day, to bring things back into harmony
with nature. The soil has the capacity to heal itself
if just given the chance. I was determined to give it
that chance.
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After Joel's epiphany in 1994, he began
to read more and think more about how our family could
survive and even prosper on a 225 acre farm by using
the laws of nature to our benefit. Thus began several
years of trial and error… and lots of family
meetings.
We knew that we needed to bring animals back onto
the land, because successful agriculture must begin
with a healthy soil. The soil needed to be fed by nutrient-rich
organic matter, not artificial fertilizers, and it could
no longer be plowed up every year. Plowing destroys
the culture of microorganisms, which are necessary for
a healthy soil. We couldn't grow and harvest crops anymore,
because that process robbed the soil without giving
anything back to it and broke several other natural
laws in the process.
 For a while, Joel and his brother Bryan experimented
with teams of Percheron and Belgian workhorses. No more
tractors compacting the soil, using fossil fuels and
polluting the air with exhaust and noise. The horse
idea seemed great until Joel was disking a field one
day and something spooked the horses. They bolted, the
back of Joel's carriage seat snapped, and he fell backwards
to the ground. In the next terrifying seconds, Joel
was himself disked by 50 sharp steel orbs designed to
slice into the soil. Cut, bruised, but alive, Joel realized
that for the protection of his family, these very strong
and willful horses needed more training and attention
than he had time to give to them. These horses had a
place in the big picture, but not yet. A balance had
to be found between ecologically sound farming methods
and the advantages of modern technology.
On the marketing side of things, we knew that we wouldn't
earn a living if we sold our product to someone else
who would store it and eventually sell it to someone
else who would put it on a train to somewhere where
some wholesaler would sell it to a company that would
use it to make something that they would sell to a retailer
who would sell it to some customer 1,000 miles away.
That type of marketing wasn’t going to create
the sense of community and connectivity between our
customers and us.
To summarize our situation, we needed a business plan
that would allow us to improve the soil and work with
Nature's laws (not against them), to sell directly to
our customers, and ultimately to make enough money to
raise our families on the farm.
About this time, we read a book by Jo Robinson entitled,
"Why Grass Fed is Best." In this book, Ms.
Robinson lays out several compelling arguments explaining
the benefits of eating meats that are finished on the
pasture. She also articulates the unhealthy effects
of eating beef from cattle that are fattened on grains
in feedlots for the last 1-4 months of their lives (see
HEALTH BENEFITS).
Adding her insights to a growing list of literary sources,
a big picture began to come into focus. We would rotate
cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens and turkeys on
our pastures, and market the meats directly to a growing
market of consumers who were eager for a source of healthy,
local and sustainably grown foods. The animal diversification
would be wise both ecologically and economically. The
land would benefit by receiving large amounts of organic
matter. Crops would only be harvested the old-fashioned
way: by animals grazing the land. The compaction of
the land would cease, as tractor-use would be minimized.
Earthworms would now plow the pastures and aerate the
soil. Without the seasonal harvesting, plowing and planting,
a mature sod of grasses and clovers would be established,
covering the earth and enabling the soil to hold moisture
better. This would allow for less watering of the land
and more water in the rivers for the salmon. Wind could
be used to pump water into small reservoirs in the fields
during months when fish weren't spawning. Gravity could
then distribute the water. The need for herbicides would
also disappear, as a covered, healthier soil would discourage
weeds and the goats would thrive on the few weeds that
did emerge. The clovers would provide nitrogen for the
grasses. Both would be converted to organic matter for
the soil by the animals, and so on...
Thus, Thundering Hooves was born. Nature would be made
happy and she would reward us in many ways for being
good stewards of the land. There remains much to do
and to learn. So here we are now, embarking on this
new journey, thankful for our heritage and looking with
hope to the future.
— The Huesby Family
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