Growing up in the little town of Halifax, I knew my neighbor Ned Strange built bluebird houses that brought back bluebirds to our fields and woods. But I had no idea of his ingenious cattle operation or the museum-quality reproductions that he crafted after he moved out to his farm in the rolling countryside of Alton, Virginia.
To check it out, I drive out to meet him and his wife Donna at Cedar Grove, about 17 miles from my stomping grounds in Halifax, past the industrial section of the county, down a one-lane road dotted with decaying tobacco barns and fields of soybeans and finally through a beautiful lane of tall cedars.
Ned and his wife, Donna, greet me in front of their house, Cedar Grove, listed on the National Registry of Historic Places The lime-green lawn is dotted with over 200 emerald green boxwood, and the sky is blue, full of bluebirds and swallows.
“We were driving around looking for a farm and happened to come here,” Ned explains. “They were using the house for hay storage. Windows were all boarded up. We found out who owned it and got the house and five acres for $3,000.”
Over seven years, Ned and Donna worked to restore Cedar Grove to its 1779 glory. In town raising two children, Ned Jr. and Anne Marshal, they spent most of their vacations working on the house—shoring up the foundation, adding a roof. Ned, who was working full-time as a vocational rehab counsellor, managed to find time to do all the handiwork as well as the basic foundation, salvaging flooring, molding and sills from ruined buildings. With the smokehouse, privy and home back to its original federal style, the family moved in in 1978.
Cows on grass: the most sustainable crop
The cows came after they moved in. Here, the cows do most all of the work. “It is the definition of sustainable,” says Strange, as we tour one of the nine paddocks. Strange, who has a BA degree from Randolph Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, is as inventive as he is efficient. As Donna noted, “Ned worked it out so it’s not that much work.”
We drive in a yellow and green UTV out to the rich green field where the cows are feasting, with a1800-pound, fearsome-looking, Black Angus bull, the father to all the calves.
On this bright summer day, his cattle are dining happily on a gourmet salad mix: tall, white-flowering Ladino clover, and tall fescue with a hint crabgrass and Bermuda grass. Crabgrass is not exactly desired for neighboring lawns, but the cows don’t mind. The tough grasses endure drought. “Cows will eat anything. Peanut butter sandwiches, if they have to,” explains Strange.
With the grass crop established through years of reseeding, the cows have a steady diet. They feed themselves and fertilize the pasture.
“We move them every three or four days. It’s like mowing your yard,” says the Halifax County Virginia native. “The grass grows back.”
The beauty of this arrangement recalls an earlier era of farm practices, before the rise of high-powered toxic fertilizers, and before most cows were force fed in feedlots.
While he has used his share of fertilizers in the past, Strange refrains from the use of any growth hormones, vaccinations or fertilizer, except organic lime and nitrogen. “I look at all the chemicals sprayed on fields prior to planting. They are killing before they plant,” he says. “A lot of herbicides are just not effective, so they get more powerful stuff. We don’t use any chemicals and it makes a big difference.”
Grassfed vs grainfed
Taste and demand are growing for grass-fed beef which flourishes in a humane, no-stress environment. According to the Mayo clinic, grass-fed beef is low in total fat and higher in omega three fatty acids. With its grass-cover year-round, it reduces global warming, erosion and methane release into the atmosphere, new studies show.
“By feeding on just grass, it makes sense to me. Grass is worthless, [as a food] but keeps the land from washing away,” says Strange.
Grass-fed cattle are supposed to bring higher prices, but in the current system, they are not always distinguished from the corn-stuffed, according to Strange, who had a full-time job in vocational rehab, before devoting full-time to cattle and furniture making.
“I keep the replacement heifers about two years before breeding, and calves are sold at approximately 600 pounds. I’ll get about $1.74 per pound. In 2014, it was $2.64 a pound. My costs are going up. Equipment. Diesel fuel. Seed and other inputs. Some prices have doubled. It’s a fine line to making a profit.”
For grass fed beef, he avoids the major expenses of fertilizer and seeds. Strange points to the darker green spots spread across the grass in the empty paddock behind us. “See that dark green spot. That’s a spot of manure,” he said. He used to try to distribute the manure throughout the pasture. Strange figured out a better way to spread it out. When snow is on the ground, he unrolls a large bale of hay like a carpet so that the cows spread out to eat the hay—and the manure is spread out consistently across the field, about the size of a football field.
If the cows need to be weaned or separated for breeding, he herds them into a circular paddock which he designed interlocking built. It is a sleek design, resembling from a distance a wooden Chinese puzzle of interlocking circles.
“You have got to have good fences,” noted Strange. “Today my fences are high tensile electric fences, five layers total, two lower ones keep out coyotes and dogs while the upper three prevent the cows from escaping.”
At one time, he had a herd of Boar goats.
Goats and cows commingle
The goats and cows worked well together and drew the attention of an article in Progressive Farmer as a good collaboration. The goats trimmed the pasture of invasive weeds.
The organic meat, sold to the ethnic trade, provided a good source of income. Moslem customers would pick live goats at the farm during their religious holidays. But the goats fell prey to coyotes. A worm parasite added to their problems. Strange opted to sell the goat herd to the local prison farm to use in a program to train prisoners how to farm and harvest the meat.
Now he has 85-100 brood cows at three different locations, shared with his son Ned Jr.
After checking on the cows, Strange spends most of his afternoons in the workshop, an office built in the mid-1800s, with Sue, his huge Engilsh mastiff, lying across the floor.
Master carver
Restored by Strange to its original details, the office has large paneled doors and a handsome mantelpiece which may be traced to the workshop of Thomas Day, a free Black craftsman who lived nearby in Milton, North Carolina. Day has been the subject of furniture exhibits at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
Strange bought a sawmill, so he could supply wood for farm structures. With wood from the many trees on his property, he also cuts and processes trees for furniture-making. Give him a picture, and he can make a replica of just about anything, from an intricate chest to stone steps.
Back at the house Donna takes me on a tour of the house, a mini-museum of Ned’s work, from the hand-made box with dueling pistols to exquisitely carved “valuables” or spice boxes with secret compartments. There are pie crust tea tables and sleek hand-carved birds. The chests feature dove-tailing and meticulous inlays.
While he does not sell it, his work is highly coveted by children and grandchildren as Christmas and birthday gifts, Donna says.
Ending up back in the kitchen, where Ned relaxes at a long wood table, a stream of fresh vegetables overflow on the counter. “It’s like we’ve hit the lottery,” comments Donna.
They rarely go on vacation; both said they are happy to stay and work on the farm.
“What would I do?” says Ned. “I can look out the window and it is just as pretty as anywhere. So much easier to stay here.”
