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…

Melanie (oldest daughter) took this series of photos on Thursday, when Glenn and the home ranch crew met to evaluate the stockpile by the river bottom. To calculate feed, we measured and calculated the nutrients the beeves can obtain by eating this leftover stockpile grass, then supplement the rest with hay.

Here’s Annie, taking a look at some of what the cattle will be consuming along with the hay we feed. The cool thing about utilizing this stockpile grass is that whatever the beeves don’t eat, they will end up knocking over and trampling, allowing for the soil to use up the rest. None of it goes to waste.

That’s Josh and Linnaea, running some numbers and recording the results of the calculations that go into paddock size, feed quantity, etc. After the planning stage was done, Josh, Wesley, and Maddy built the next two hot wire paddocks for the beeves. Whenever we have cattle near (or drinking from) a river, we take extra precautions to keep them out of the river bottom. For their current pasture, the beeves have a double strand wire limiting their access to the Pahsimeroi River to only their mouths. Meaning they can’t wade, cross, or disturb the pristine condition of the bank, surrounding habitat, or streambed.

It’s not our choice to calve in the middle of the winter, but sometimes nature gets the best of us. A partly castrated would-be steer apparently had enough chutzpah to be bull like enough that he could breed some of our yearling heifers last April, so here we go!

I think we’ve had 10 calves so far through some of the coldest winter we’ve seen for awhile. Nearly all of them calved nicely out in the meadows, and are doing well. We’ve yet to lose one. But a few nights ago, the incessant subzero wind was too much for one newborn, so Maddy and Wesley whisked in and grabbed the little red guy before he froze to the ground (he would have). Soon afterwards, they had him in the warm bunkhouse sucking down a bottle of warm colostrum that Abby saved from one of her dairy cows. That meant the next day, we would have to reintroduce baby to mom. Jeremiah, Wesley and Josh grabbed her from the meadow where she calved and gave her a bus ride to the barn.

At the barn, it was readily apparent that baby was having trouble latching on to the milk bar. It didn’t help that mama was waffling around sniffing her pride and joy. So into the head catch they went so one of us could “suckle” baby to mom and get what winter and subzero wind so rudely interrupted the night before.

Montana took the above photo over at the ranch in the Lemhi’s. On Wednesday disaster struck and the front axle on the backhoe snapped. This piece of equipment has several beloved nicknames, from mashed potatoes to stegosaurus, it is from the 1960s – the very first generation of CASE backhoes.

Thursday morning Jeremiah headed off on the hour and 20 minute drive, just one mountain range over to weld it up. Now the ‘ole thing is back in business, just in time to once again load bales onto the hay wagon from which the beeves will be fed.

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Quote of the Week

“The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.”

–Gaylord Nelson

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Dear Friends

We just moved 348 head of yearlings down along a fork of the Pahsimeroi. Josh, Wesley and Maddy put a 2 wire fence all along the open watercourse that is comprised of literally thousands of warm springs from up our high valley. Despite subzero temps and incessant wind, the river flows unfrozen. It’s a gift in a high altitude fairly arctic feeling valley. Just one 20 foot river bank will be accessible to only their mouths for drinking. Even their feet are fenced off, because we see the river as critical habitat for steelhead and salmon who ply 900 miles of dam-strained waters from the Pacific ocean, returning to their birthplace of gravel emergence to spawn on the ranch.

Fact: Cows wreck rivers. Cows kill fish. I’ve seen it. Thousands of eggs in deep gravels in the shallow flows of the river get mixed with mud from cow traffic on the banks and literally suffocate from oxygen deprivation. The reason the hen (female) fish spawns in such clean gravels is to allow oxygen passage to her eggs. All that is for naught when cow generated mud goes downstream and stuccos the gravel shut.

And a generation of fish ends. Right there. 1800 miles of river travel, surviving from seals, orcas and thousands of miles in the open oceans over two years ends because of the feet of a cow.

And we don’t want ours to be culpable. So we go through the trouble of carefully fencing out all access to protect the habitats for fish, birds and anyone else who lives there.

Besides, we would hate it if our cows would get down there. They would be hard to find. It’s a wilderness down there festooned with endless tangles of brush, moving water, bogholes, quicksand, and beaver swamps.

Ethan and I went fishing down there a few years back and discovered that it was actually dangerous. The sweeping quick waters, overhanging trees, poor footing and unrelenting cold spring water made it fine for otter, beaver and trout, but hardly a place for human. Deep overhanging banks sheltered dark holes 12 feet deep with oppressive undercurrents that could trap an unsuspecting fisherman who loses footing.

So we’re not fans when any of our animals go down there. It’s the place of moose, not bovine or horse. Or even dog, even though there’s been times. This tale is about one such time. Come with me on a rare trip along the river bottoms.

Happy Trails,

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.