By Cary Sims, County Extension Agent for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Angelina County

I’ve often heard it said that one of the best things you can do for your garden, pasture or lawn is to put your shadow on it.

Not fertilizer. Not herbicide. Not the latest gadget or piece of equipment.

Your shadow.

Of course, your shadow doesn’t actually do anything for the plants. But it represents something that can make a tremendous difference in how well you manage a piece of property.

It means you’re there, observing, and paying attention to what is happening.

As I look back over more than three decades of working with agricultural producers and home gardeners, I’m realizing that one of the most valuable things I’ve learned isn’t a particular treatment for a particular insect, a fertilizer recommendation, or the name of so many plants that grow in East Texas.

It’s how to look.

And perhaps more importantly, I know that I still don’t know much.

I didn’t know everything when I started, and after all these years, I’m also realizing just how much I still don’t know.

In fact, the longer I’ve done this work, the more comfortable I’ve become with saying, “I don’t know.”

That may sound strange coming from someone whose job has been to help people find answers. But I’ve learned that not knowing the answer immediately isn’t the same thing as not being able to help.

Sometimes the most useful thing I can bring to a situation is a fresh set of eyes.

A landowner may have walked across the same pasture every day for years. They’ve watched the same trees, driven the same road, and looked at the same fence line countless times.

Then someone else walks up and says, “Something doesn’t look right over there.”

That doesn’t mean the person who owns the property wasn’t paying attention.

It means that sometimes we simply stop seeing things we’ve become accustomed to seeing.

Over the years, I’ve learned to look for those little differences.

What does healthy grass look like? When does a particular weed normally show up?

What does a tree look like when it is simply responding to the season, and what does it look like when it is under stress?

How long does this soil normally stay wet after rain? Where does water normally stand?

When does the pasture normally start growing again? When do insects normally appear?

What does this property look like when everything is going right?

Those questions matter because you can’t recognize something abnormal until you have some idea of what normal looks like.

And here’s another thing I’ve learned: Different doesn’t always mean wrong.

A yellow leaf isn’t automatically a problem. An insect isn’t automatically a pest. A weed isn’t necessarily an emergency. A plant changing with the seasons isn’t necessarily suffering.

Observation comes before diagnosis. That may be one of the simplest lessons I’ve learned as a County Agent.

Some of the best “environmentalists” I know probably wouldn’t describe themselves that way. They’re farmers, ranchers, gardeners, and landowners.

They pay attention.

They know whether the rain that just fell was enough to change the soil’s moisture. They notice when the pasture isn’t responding the way it normally does. They see when a tree canopy doesn’t look quite right. They notice animal activity, erosion, standing water, insects, and changes in plant growth.

They don’t necessarily have a scientific explanation for everything they see.

But they noticed. And noticing is where learning begins.

I’ve been fortunate over my career to have people ask me to look at all kinds of things. Sometimes I knew immediately what I was seeing. Other times, I didn’t.

Those were often more valuable experiences.

I’d look at a plant I’d never seen before. I’d see an insect behaving differently than expected. I’d walk into a pasture that simply didn’t look right.

And I’d ask questions: What is this? Why is it doing that? Is this normal? Have I seen this before? What does the research say?

That’s how I’ve learned much of what I know. By looking, noticing, asking questions and learning what normal looks like.

And after so many years visiting fields and landscapes, that may be the part I’m most grateful for.

Agriculture and natural resources have a funny way of reminding you that you will never have all the answers. Every year brings a different weather pattern, a different insect, a different plant problem, a different pasture response or a different question from a landowner.

You can work at this for decades and still walk onto a property and learn something new.

I’ve been a County Agent for over three decades, and, come Monday, October 19, I’ll start a new chapter in my career as the Regional Program Leader for Agriculture and Natural Resources. I will still be working for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, just officed in Stephenville, Texas.

Of my 32 years as a County Agent, I’ve been blessed to have served the good folks around Angelina County for the last 28 years. I know I’ve learned so much in the field and grown tremendously as a professional.

I trust that as I have visited pastures, landscapes, ponds, and properties, that I have learned a little each time and tried to be humble in what I “knew” and honest about all I did not know.

You don’t need a degree in agriculture or expensive equipment. You just need to spend enough time out there to notice when something changes.

After all these years, I know I’ll never have all the answers. So, I’ll keep putting my shadow on the land, and I hope you will, too.

Cary Sims is the County Extension Agent for agriculture and natural resources for Angelina County. His email address is cw-sims@tamu.edu.

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