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.

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Next shipping day is Feb 14, 2022!

Place your order by Sunday at midnight on the 13th to get it shipped on the 14th!

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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 that wild sockeye salmon, chuck roasts to warm you up in this cold weather, ground beef, and sirloin tip kabobs (our favorite for stir fries)!

Just this weekend: flash discount on leaner Ribeyes!

Also this week we’ve added some discounted intro “sampler packages,” back by popular demand for those who want to try an introductory sampling of Alderspring in a grab-and-go package! You can also find those on the page below.

Also, scroll to the bottom of the page for an announcement about our annual “range riding” internship!

We’d love it if you forward the opportunity on to young people who would benefit from the experience.

Maddy, youngest of the 7 daughters, out feeding cattle and enjoying the warm spell we’ve been having lately! Underneath that flannel shirt, Maddy is just wearing a t-shirt. In weather like this, feeding hay every day one of our favorite chores.

Here’s the horse herd picking at some leftover hay flakes. These swaths of brown leftover hay and manure might look ugly, but to us they are a good thing! As you can see, we’ve spread hay pretty widely over this field. As the snow melts and spring hits, all that hay and manure will break down into nutrients that feed the soil. It’s part of why we have no need for synthetic fertilizers or chemical inputs here at Alderspring. Organic hay and manure help do that fertilizing work for us.

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Quote of the Week

“Foolish people waste their time searching for greener pastures…wise people cultivate their land and grow their own.”

―Charles Friend 

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This Week’s Story From the Ranch: When You MIght Need a Rock

In winter, hay feeding can get a little monotonous. It’s every single day, as long as the fields are frozen and covered with winter white. We got to keep the green of grass in front of these our growing beeves; indeed, they could survive on leftover grass from the summer, but we need them to grow. To put on weight. And then, the beef will be good: full of flavor tender, consistent with the flavor of summer (after all, it is that grass that we put in a bale).

But sometimes, even hay feeding can get very interesting. I mean, almost life and death. Don’t believe me?

If you do or don’t, let me take you back via a reprint of one of my favorite cow feeding stories that transpired about 35 years ago along the Continental Divide..

-Glenn

The view outside our back door. No matter the season, we never get tired of it.

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Featured Weekly Cuts

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We’ve been talking about soil health a lot this week over on our Instagram. Soil health is one of our highest priorities here at the ranch because we believe it’s the underlying (literally!) ingredient for the future of agriculture. When we pursue better soil health, we accomplish so many other objectives. We sequester carbon, we improve the health of our cattle (and, we believe, the nutritional complexity of the resulting beef), and it makes economic sense, too (turns out that good soil pays dividends in higher grass productivity).

You can read through our recent posts over on our Instagram here! And if you’d like to see more of the day-to-day of exactly how we raise your beef, Instagram is where we share about what’s going on the ranch!

Little side note on our carbon sequestration:

We get questions from customers asking whether we are participating or not in carbon credit programs. Short answer: we are not. Here’s why: we simply believe that it is up to each of us agricultural producers to be responsible about building the soils on each of our operations. When we do that, the carbon ‘credit’ can then come from where it should be coming from–our customers, our partners in ranching–who purchase our products knowing that they are helping to fix the problem by supporting us, rather than adding to it by supporting operations who are extracting from their soils.

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Calling tenacious young people interested in regenerative agriculture, working outside, and ranching!

The deadline to apply is February 14th!

We’re so excited to once again be offering our “conservation range rider” internship for 2022!

If you know a gritty, hardworking young person who is interested in learning about regenerative agriculture, horsemanship, stockmanship, living in the backcountry, and other facets of what we do here at the ranch, please forward this opportunity on to them!

Range riding interns will live with us up in cow camp throughout the summer for several days at a time. Each day, they’ll herd the cattle on horseback to good grass while focusing on regenerative objectives and controlling the herd’s movement to prevent grazing in ecologically sensitive areas. Crew members will learn about living and camping in the backcountry, coexisting peacefully with predators and range wildlife, getting along with a horse, and raising great beef!

This is a great experience for individuals wanting to get a “foot in the door” in regenerative ranching, those pursuing a future in ecology who wish to get hands-on experience (especially range or wildlife ecology), or simply people who generally hope to pursue a future involving livestock handling or Western landscapes.

No previous ranching, horsemanship, or cow experience is required to apply. However, physical and mental endurance is a must! This isn’t an easy job, and it requires someone with tenacity, “try”, a sense of humor even after getting rained on for 8 hours straight, a love for people and working with a team, and a real passion for animals and the outdoors. The days are long, the sleep is little, but the work is rewarding.

If you know a young person who would benefit from a summer on the range with us, forward them the link below! Applicants must be over 18 to apply, deadline February 14th.

A sense of humor and love for the outdoors is essential on the range!

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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.

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. For every one pound of Alderspring beef, we put a NET of eight pounds of CO2 equivalents into the soil. We’ve done the numbers & had them vetted by soils & carbon experts.