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

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This week on the ranch…

Melanie (oldest daughter) took some beautiful images this week, pictured here is Glenn, loading up the outdoor wood stove which heats the house at the home ranch.

Melanie, oldest daughter, has been wintering the horses on the ranch. Most of them are turned out on one of the irrigated pivots, where they’re able to paw through 4-6 inches of snow in search of green grass. There’s plenty beneath the white, left over and faring well even after the growing season. Digging for their dinner tends to help them stay in better physical shape as well, and they maintain warmth.

We’ve never had to blanket our horses; doing so would inhibit their natural ability to grow a thick hair coat that protects them from the elements. Melanie walks through and takes a look at every animal closely to make sure they aren’t losing weight and staying warm dry and happy. If they needed extra, we would supplement with hay.

A few of the horses (mainly four geriatric horses – included April, pictured above – and two long yearling colts) need a little extra nutrition. So they are in with the cattle, where they get a little extra nutrition through the hay we feed every day. Melanie also gives them grain, and a selenium and vitamin E supplement to one of the more senior horses.

As Glenn mentioned in last week’s newsletter, 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! We’ve got somewhere around 10 calves now, and for the most part they’re all fairing well with little to no help from us humans.

There’s Linnaea, pitching hay to the main herd over at the home ranch. We’re still feeding specifically in the stock pile and substituting with hay. The goal is to encourage the herd to take in the stockpile before the days get warmer, since they won’t want to eat it then.

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

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Quote of the Week

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”

–Woodrow Wilson

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Dear Friends

The carbon conversation is heating up, and we are finding ourselves getting sucked into the middle of it. Two weeks ago, Caryl and I presented at the International Society for Range Management’s annual meeting about how grazing on Alderspring is creating ecological health, and in doing so, locking carbon in the soil.

At the conference were expert scientists from around the world who are figuring out how to invert the carbon equation by taking the element out of the Earth’s atmosphere and placing it back in the soil.

I got to hang out with an old friend of mine, Peter Donovan. He is a ground breaking (puns are really quite awesome) pioneer on the measurement of soil carbon, and presented at the conference as well. Our meeting reminded me of a write-up I did awhile ago. I’m sharing it today, mostly to send all of you the latest about how the carbon conversation is progressing. It’s pretty cool stuff, and that’s simply due to the fact that there is hope!

And it is in all of you. It has to do in part with the food choices you make. And more than ever, eating Alderspring is part of that answer. That’s because the story is even better than it was since I first wrote this. Measurement of our soil organic matter this summer showed a NET increase of nearly 20% from just 4 years ago. That means for every 1 pound of beef you consume you put 8 lbs of CO2 equivalents in the soil. That’s net, after subtracting even the large amount of methane that our cows belch! We even subtract the emissions from plastic vacuum packs on our beef and UPS jet fuel. Everything we could think of is in the calculation.

See, dear reader, you are part of the solution. There is hope, and it’s real. Read on for more fun facts while you happily and quite without guilt enjoy an Alderspring “Possible” burger!

Cows can help save the planet, friends!

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.