Scroll down for Glenn’s weekly story and updates from the ranch this week!

A QUICK SUMMARY OF THIS WEEK’S FEATURED CUTS:

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This week on the ranch…

Above are the mama cows, captured by Linnaea, just after feeding. We’ve got about 12 calves on the ground now. Scroll down for more on these gals!

We received two different snowfalls this week, as spring continues to skip about, seemingly just out of reach. It’s pretty rare for us to get this much snow this time of year. It’s beautiful, and we remind ourselves to be grateful for the moisture as it is well needed (despite our longing for warmer days).

Here’s the yearlings crowded around while we’re feeding one of the snow days this week. With the colder weather, we’re feeding in a spiral pattern for wind protection since they’ve started losing winter coats and are more vulnerable to these cold snaps now.

Linnaea took this photo of the mama cows at the home ranch. The cows are peaceful and relaxed out there. We’ve started calving (12 out there now), and seeing the whole herd laying down is a really good sign for us because it means these cows are very relaxed and comfortable out there. An unstressed cow is way more likely to calve easily with no problems. We check from a distance with binoculars to make sure new calves are thriving. Other than that they calve on their own without our interference; they know what to do.

Linnaea took this photo of a Ribeye from a 16th this week. These packs contain some premium steaks; that bulk package doesn’t mean you’re getting lower quality beef. Some of our best marbled steaks can be found in our sixteenths. We have some more sixteenths available this week!

Here we’re adjusting a float shutoff valve on a tank because the tank was overflowing and forming a mud hole around the tank. With little calves out in the field this time of year, it’s absolutely essential we avoid mud around tanks. The calves won’t wade through the mud to get to the clean water in the stock tank. They’ll just drink the muddy water and will get sick because of it. If we have a mud hole forming around a stock tank we need to do something immediately. This photo was taken around 7 PM (quitting time!) but Annie and Linnaea stayed out there to fix the tank overflow problem while Montana and Josh spread fresh gravel around the tank to fill in the mudhole. It’s worth an extra hour or two of work and some cold hands to keep one of those calves from drinking mud and getting sick.

Meanwhile over at the Tendoy ranch, (our other place about an hour away), Scott and Jed have been hard at work building our new walk-in freezer. Our current walk in freezer and warehouse is too small. We need a new setup to pack and mail your beef orders from! Walk-in freezers are pricey though, so we’re building our own from super thick insulation foam blocks.

The freezer is inside of a big shop that we’ll use to pack and fulfill orders. Scott took this picture this week of the progress he and Jed have made. You can see the freezer floor is made up of 1 ft. thick foam topped with boards. Here you can see the walls are starting to come up, with a ceiling piece in place. This will be full of shelving to store lots of beef arranged systematically to help us quickly pick the cuts for each of your orders.

Another shot of the freezer, with some more wall pieces and the door in as well.

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Quote of the Week

“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.”
— Hal Borland

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Dear Friends

I’m often amazed by how little folks know about the food they eat. There’s a complete absence of knowledge about the reality of how far our meals are detached from the farm or ranch.

For us, it became a matter of honoring the animal. With our beef cattle, we literally live with them for most of the days of their lives. We watch some being born and later camp out on the ground with them as they graze the summer in the wilds. We fork green grass hay to them in the winter to supplement their winter grazing, and feed them out of the wind when subzero storms strike.

And eventually, they are “finished.” It’s 26 or 30 months in their lives, and their yield is lovely mountain pastured beef, filled with a carefully curated harvest of plant diversity.

And then, we would bring them to our processor. They continue the honor of our husbandry practice.

But in years past, we tried processors that entirely ruined those 30 months of husbandry. They dishonored not only our work, but the animal themselves by not taking care. We would discover that their facility was dirty, mold infested and inhumane.

And we would immediately quit them.

This was years ago, but still very disturbing to the point of anger. Basically, we poured our lives into those animals, and it all came to a screeching halt.

After working in the many spheres of agriculture, I’ve been privileged to witness many aspects of the processing stream. It’s not all bad, to be certain, but some of it is. It’s dramatically changed how we eat as a family.

It’s why we find out where our food comes from. This week’s story from the archives is about the mix of the color red, in terms of red meat. And there’s a lot of that going on, to be sure. And it’s to the demise of the eater–you and me.

Happy Trails, friends. There is hope in good food. You just have to find it.

Glenn

Read the story on our blog by clicking below!

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And that’s it for this week!

Thanks again for partnering in what we do!

Glenn, Caryl, cowgirls and cowboys at Alderspring.

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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.