Tammy Basel is a fourth-generation Meade County rancher. She and her husband, Dallis raise sheep and cattle near Union Center a ranching community about 50 miles from Rapid City.
Along with caring for livestock, Basel continues a legacy of implementing range management practices that enhance habitat for the wildlife who also call her ranch home. In this Take A Moment segment she talks about all of this and more.
“We have a lot of really strong-willed women in my history.
Goes back to 1917 when my grandmother was the homesteader. And she took the homestead patent out next to her dad.
At that time there were no fences. She raised sheep and horses for the military. Kind of cool, her husband was a homesteader a few miles north of here. And he had to move to her homestead.
I married the neighbor-boy, so for many years it was Dallis and I, and we had “his” and “her” places. Just like History repeated itself, my husband had to move to my place.
What I learned from the strong women and men in my family, was the importance of liking your own company. If you like your own company, you can live in the middle of nowhere. If you like your own company, loneliness is not a problem. And you can really enjoy all the beauty the prairie can bring.
I take great pride that much of my property has never seen steel, it is native sod. When you think about pollinators and how important pollinators are, well when the prairie wakes up and the rains come, you have flowering plants that feed pollinators.
Does grazing have much to do with pollinators? Yes. If you are properly grazing - your soils are healthy and you are getting diversity in your plants and your species which draw the pollinators provide great habitats.
If you have bunchgrasses where the birds can raise their eggs, if you have dugouts and water sources where you can have a variety of ducks and geese and all that wildlife, it really comes together.
In life, I think about how often if you take care of the smallest things, when I think about feeding my livestock, if you think about the rumen bugs, if you make the rumen bugs happy, the whole animal is happy. If you take good care of your soil health, you get water and sunshine, the plants will take care of you.”
