Dear Friends and Partners,
Welcome to Alderspring’s weekend edition newsletter!
In this letter is Glenn’s weekly story, a suite of pics about work on the ranch this week, what’s happening in our freezer, and a recipe to cook!
Want to follow along more day-to-day? Find us on Instagram and Facebook.
And, as always, if you have any questions, observations, or comments, just shoot us an email to Kelsey at help[at]alderspring[dot]com.
Next shipping day is November 1!
Place your order by Sunday at midnight to get it shipped out on Monday!
Looking for this week’s featured cuts? Head to the page below. Scroll on down for Glenn’s story and other newsletter stuff!
This week’s cuts include Rumps, Fatty grind, and Flatiron steaks! Also, the first pork is trickling into the store.
This Week on the Ranch
The mountains got slammed with the white stuff this week, so much that at high elevations, we could detect avalanche tracks in the high alpine bowls. And the moisture came just at the right time. The grass got marvelously soft, even as some of it is going to dormancy. And the beeves put their heads down in response.
The air is thick. The shadows are deep. The colors are vibrant. Can fall be our favorite time of year? If you ask me today, I would give a resounding “Yes!” -Glenn
Quote of the Week
“Organic farming appealed to me because it involved searching for and discovering nature’s pathways, as opposed to the formulaic approach of chemical farming. The appeal of organic farming is boundless; this mountain has no top, this river has no end.”
―Eliot Coleman, organic gardening and farming pioneer.
On Barbeque and bees
Most of the Alderspring daughter crew is island hopping today on ferries and bicycles on a beautiful day on the Maine coast. (they wanted to experience some culture shock and hear real Mainers talk “down-east like, (“A-yuh”)” and eat some fresh lobster. As a result, we’re a little short handed, and the old boy gets most of the work done around here. As a result, I pulled one from the archives.
It’s story we posted some years ago. I’ve been watching the high Hat Creek Country get covered by snow this week. When it snows, the relief stands out dramatically, and more than ever, memories come rushing back from this hill, mountain or canyon where a day is etched in your mind. Taylor butte rises prominently, with it its pyramidical snowy summit. It hides a deep draw we call willow springs where this story begins:
The watercolor azure skies above our little band of cattle and riders were rapidly degenerating into a threatening black of charcoal on this particular August afternoon. Little did we know then what chain of events it would set in motion that would deepen in each of us cowboys a respect for the wild country in which we were riding. We were all a little green in this particular piece of the Rockies, and had a lot to learn. Even though there was no way of knowing what would befall us, intuition brought us to the place where an uneasiness quietly nagged under other thoughts, just as the cloudy skies above obliterated all of that blue. And so a light tension developed in each of us as we picked our way up the draw, and silenced our usual cowboy banter.
Featured Weekly Cuts
A quick summary of this week’s deals
(As always, only you newsletter readers have access to these discounts)!
This week you can get 10% off on both the following cuts:
- Rump Roasts. Stock them up for that cozy kitchen for chill days of fall and winter!
- The Flatiron. OK. We are in denial. We’ll still grill in the snow, but these grill fast.
- Fatty Grind (phytochemical and flavor-packed pasture fat…stock up for winter now. Think February Fajitas. It’s a good thought.)
Also note: Ethan and Abby’s Alderspring Pastured PORK is trickling into the store!!!! This week, we have chops and Italian Sausage!
AND…The Legend. The most massive grass fed organic steak online: The Ribeye Nation. It’s back. Tested and vetted…only 3% of this week’s harvest qualified.
Remember, our inventories are VERY dynamic! Our goal is to turn it over 2 times a month to offer you the very freshest product right off of Alderspring’s pastures.
Weekly Happenings: Photos from the Ranch
Oh…That weather. But the cows don’t care. They are hairing up, as are the dogs and horses. But humans….not so much. So on horseback on a several mile gather to sort harvest beeves, you are kind of out there in the wind.
But it is so beautiful.
Maddy isn’t a really big fan of pouring rain, but she knows we need it. And her Flint gelding is haired up and ready. The hands get the coldest. Sometimes, a rider will tuck them under their chinks (the type of chaps we wear). But Maddy’s got her fall flannel lined gloves.
Linnaea and Annie seem to be taking that rain in stride. Even the Buster dog is raring to go. We usually find that the animals we partner with love the brisk weather, and move out and love the work.
6th sister, Annie. Oilskin canvas cotton slicker with Shetland wool underneath. They’re not space age fabric. But they’re tried and true, literally for centuries. We live our lives in the warm and dry with the traditional. It’s more than the warmth and dry–it’s the smell, the feel of lanolin on the wool. Oil on the leather. The crust of the treated canvas. They become part of who we are with the land.
The Porkers were too busy eating to check out all the new snow in the peaks. Too much green to enjoy.
The rest of the porcine crew. Abby (first picture, on top of the newsletter) is the only one missing. I will say that these are some of the best raisers of pig on the planet. Happy Pigs, indeed.
Our colors lack a lot of the bright oranges and reds many of you have. But when the Tamaracks (or Larches) turn in the Bitteroot range in nearby Montana, we take notice. Caryl and Glenn couldn’t resist a foray up into the color on a nearby logging road to take in the yellow spires.
Clyde is on a “down” here, and I am watching him to ensure he stays honest. It’s all he can do to hold, as the lamb licks him. But he somehow pulls it off, despite his uncontrollable quaking.
And that’s it for this week! Thanks again for partnering in what we do!
Glenn, Caryl, cowgirls and cowboys at Alderspring
We’ve been crafting our pastured protein here in Idaho’s Rocky Mountains for nearly 30 years and delivering it direct to our partners for nearly as long. This is wild wellness, delivered from our ranch to your door.
Your partnership in Alderspring helps us maintain what is unique in today’s agricultural world; Alderspring is a Carbon NEGATIVE and Climate POSITIVE operation. We ran the numbers, and our cows help us capture more carbon in the ground each year on our irrigated pastures than we release!
Ribeye Nations for this week, getting sorted off the blast frozen lot of this week’s ribeye yield. Marble, thickness, taste, tenderness, confirmation. If they all score perfectly, the steak makes the grade. It’s birth of a Nation.
Clyde is a good one! That is too funny.