Dear Friends and Partners,

Welcome to Alderspring’s weekend edition newsletter! Thank you for partnering in what we do!

Below you can find beef discounts, Glenn’s weekly story, and lots of photos from the ranch this week!

Scroll down for this week’s story:

“Forbidden Fruit on the High Ranges”

This Week’s Store Update & Coupons

NEXT SHIPPING DAY: Monday, August 19th

What’s In Stock

Beef was restocked earlier this week. Unfortunately, many cuts have already sold out, but we still have:

Wild hunter
Chorizo, kielbasa, garlic, bratwurst, and hot Italian beef sausage
Summer sausage and sliced summer sausage
Eye of round roast
Regular ground beef
Extra lean ground round
Beef bones (organic and not certified organic)
Leaner ribeye steaks and Leaner New York steaks
Top sirloin steaks
Flatiron steaks
Beef sticks
Pork chops
Pork shoulder roast
Pork Italian sausage
Ground pork
Pork spare ribs
Lamb baby back ribs
Leg of lamb
Salmon
Cheese
More a la carte beef cuts

This week’s coupon cuts

Use the code “SPECIALTYGRIND” to get 10% off extra lean ground round.

Use the code “CHORIZO” to get 10% off beef chorizo sausage.

Click the green button below or the green words above to access these cuts!

Get this week’s cuts + more here!

If you have any questions, observations, or comments, just send Kelsey an email at help[at]alderspring[dot]com.

Photos from the Ranch This Week…

Glenn grabbed this shot of prime steaks just in Tuesday fresh off of the summer ranges! Note yellow-orange beta-carotene fat; it’s indicative of the wide diversity of wild forbs and grasses (there’s literally a thousand nutritional compound-rich species in those rugged mountains).

Throughout the summer, we move into higher and higher elevations in search of green grass. The low country simply dries out too quickly in the heat. Linnaea snapped this shot yesterday from our current camp location high in the mountains, with an excellent view of the Lemhi Range.

During a day of grazing, the cattle all lay down once they’ve filled up with grass for the morning. They chew the cud and relax for an hour or two, which means nap time for us humans! Here, Josh (left) and Maddy (right) are passed out on the ground taking a nap while the cattle are settled.

Though we’re mostly grazing timber at this time of year because the grass is greenest in the shade, we occasionally hit a sagebrush meadow in between stretches of timber. Here, the cattle are spread out on this mountainside. They don’t seem to mind the grass…and we don’t mind the view!

Sometimes one of the crew has a lucky find! Maddy (youngest daughter) was doubly lucky yesterday when she found these two elk sheds in a timbered draw. Every year, an elk “sheds” (loses) its antlers and grows a new set. It’s a rare thing, however, to find two of them in quick succession, especially big ones like this!

Want to follow along more day-to-day? Find us on Instagram and Facebook.

Quote of the Week

“The health of soil, plant, animal, and man is one and indivisible.”

– Sir Albert Howard

This week’s story:

“Forbidden fruit on the high ranges”

Dear Friends

Cows know stuff.

Nearly every time I’m horseback riding herd on the range, I learn from them.

What to them is absolutely obvious, I can be completely lost. As a matter of fact, we humans would absolutely be dead if we had to graze alongside of them.

To learn more about near human death (one inch from, actually) and how cows deal with life on the edge (to them, it’s really nothing) you may want to check out this week’s story. It’s a reprint from some time ago, but even today, on the High Ranges, cows are ‘walking the line.’

Happy Trails

Click here to read this week’s story: “Forbidden Fruit on the High Ranges”

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.

Why is Inventory Low Lately?

Here’s where we’re at on the “low inventory” situation…and why it’s low in the first place! We know many of you have been with us for a long time and rely on us as your source of protein (and we’re so grateful)!

In the last few months, we’ve been hit by a lot of unexpected demand.

When it comes to raising beef, changes in demand can be very difficult to respond to quickly. It takes us 2-3 years to raise an animal to finish. That means we plan our inventory needs about 2 years in advance.

Many companies and producers we know of that sell direct-to-consumer respond to sudden increases in demand by buying outside cattle (often at sale barn auctions) and then selling that beef under their label. This is VERY common.

But this kind of “cow flipping” isn’t something we’re willing to do.

We know the entire history of every beef we sell. That’s important to us, and we know it’s important to you and part of why you trust us to raise your beef.

We’re working right now to gradually increase our available inventory to hopefully provide more beef! But at a certain point, we actually can’t expand further without compromising our standards.

We know that the reason many of you order from us is because we’re small scale. We butcher our cattle at a small processor that only does about 80 head of cattle per week (compared to thousands at a big facility). This also limits our capacity to expand, because they, too, are functioning at capacity right now. We also raise only as many cattle as our pastures can support without degrading our soils. And we’re still small enough that Glenn personally looks at every single steak before he puts it in your box to ship to you. These factors are why you order from us! But it also means occasional inventory limitations.