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:

“Life Rests on Leaves of Grass”

This Week’s Store Update & Coupons

NEXT SHIPPING DAY: Monday, January 13th.

What’s In Stock

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

Sixteenths
Quarter beef: lot 3269 and lot 3254 (leaner)
Ground beef bundles
Regular ground beef
Extra lean ground round
Wild hunter
Chorizo sausage
Beef sticks
Leaner ribeye steak
Leaner New York steak
Delmonico steak
Top sirloin steak
Flatiron steak
Flank steak
Tri tip roast
Eye of round roast
Rump roast
Beef liver
Pastured pork liver

This week’s coupon cuts

Use the code “ORGANMEATS” to get 10% off organic grass fed beef liver!

Use the code “GROUNDROUND” to get 10% off organic grass fed extra lean ground round.

Use the code “#4SIXTEENTH” to get 5% off #4 grass fed (not certified organic) family box sixteenth.

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

SPECIAL MENTION

We have gift certificates and greeting cards available to add to any order!

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…

This last weekend the fresh fallen powder in the mountains was beckoning. A group of us headed up to Lost Trail Ski Area, which straddles the border between Idaho and Montana.

Winter provides the time we need to catch up on lots of tasks like cleaning out and organizing the storage sheds and outbuilding on the ranch. Photo credit (two above) Rose Morris.

Scott’s weekly run to pick up the dry ice we use to ship our beef takes him over 245 miles of remote Idaho and Montana back roads. The road conditions can be very iffy in the winter, but the views make up for it!

These pups are definitely related! Photo credit Rose Morris.

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

Quote of the Week

“Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.”

– Vesta Kelly

This week’s story:

“Life Rests on leaves of grass”

Dear Friends

Despite the pitch darkness, the boys headed out on the windswept polder, together pulling a narrow wagon bearing 8 empty milk cans. “Polder” was the word they all used when referring to land taken from the sea.

All of them lived and worked below sea level in this place; some of the more well-off farmers had dirt and rock built up high enough to keep their homes and barns above light flooding. Towns were always relegated to higher ground for the same reason. For the most part, the dikes held fast, but rogue storm tides occasionally breached them, and the possibility of the polder going underwater was real.

It was 1938. Up until a few years ago, all the subsurface flowing water that inevitably leaked under the sea walls (what they called dikes) was handily moved back into the sea through windmill power. Those archetypical white-winged windmills in low countries like the Netherlands nearly all pumped water; a few others served to grind grain. But now, electric and steam-powered pumping stations were starting to cover the needed water removal maintenance, lifting water over the sea wall back into the North Sea.

If you’d like to read on to see who these boys were, and what that has to do with Alderspring, click the link below.

Click here to read the rest of this week’s story: “Life Rests on Leaves of Grass”

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.