A friend of mine asked me on Saturday: “Have you ever noticed the pineywoods grazing on acorns ? Some folks I was talking to today at the market said acorns will mess up the cows gut. I was surprised to hear that !”
 
My friend Chris Dorsey at Red Wolf Farms has seen his Pineywoods herd eat acorns. They don’t eat many. A few years ago there was a flurry of panic from farmers saying some of their Angus had died from eating acorns. I’ve heard the same about Angus dying from eating wild cherry. Our Pineywoods only eat the green leaves of wild cherry, the cyanide is much higher in the wilted leaves.

A Food & Medicine Forest attempts to mimic nature. It provides bio-diverse, perennially growing food and medicine and tools. The benefits of growing a Food & Medicine Forest range from carbon capture to self-reliance to increasing biodiversity. We have started started converting an old hay field intoto a Food & Medicine Forest. This area of the farm contributes heavily to our health and is one of the reasons Sue, who is a cancer survivor, has not taken any prescription or over-the-counter drugs in 8 years.

We’ve allowed wildflowers and ‘weeds’ to grow and added native species of shrubs, trees and flowers, and perennial food plants. Our goals have been multi-fold. In no specific order, these include:

One of the key measures of environmental health is biodiversity. As of June 2023, Ozark Akerz is home to over 600 species of plants, insects, reptiles, birds, fungi, mammals etc.
Our strategy for increasing biodiversity at Ozark Akerz has taken many forms. This includes but is not limited to:

• Selectively mowing pastures to preserve Milkweed stands for Monarch Butterflies
• Converting an old hay field to a Food & Medicine Forest
• Improving Soil microbiome biodiversity by planting cover crops and amending the soil with raw milk to add Lactobacillus
• Increasing Dung beetle population for healthy pastures and Pineywoods Cattle

In terms of labor, planting native perennial plants in the food and medicine forest has been the most intensive. We have planted 130+ trees, shrubs and other perennial plant, all of which require regular watering, weeding, and hand picking insects like Japanese Beetles every morning for 3-4 weeks during summer to ensure they have a fighting chance to grow. The increase in plant species has had a knock-on effect on the increase in insect, reptile and bird species.