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

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This week on the ranch…

That’s Annie and border pup Ginny overlooking our last camp in Larkspur. It won’t be long until we’re grazing the highest reaches of the range, amidst the timber.

Ned, one of our summer riders took this photo aboard Roxy the mare. Here the cattle are lined out, heading in for water at one of our satellite tanks. When it’s midday, we water the herd and let them trail in nice and slow. By not putting pressure on them, they hit the tanks at their own pace, grazing along the way and not emptying them. It allows time for the tanks to refill from the first of the herd to arrive and drink, all the way to the back.

Ned took the above photo of the infamous canvas cook tent, where many a meals have been shared under the stars, with cattle and horses nearby, safely bedded down for the night.

Montana took the above photo, while fixing fence along the highest reaches of our grazing allotment. Because this is Forest Service and BLM land, we are not the only ones to use it, and fences don’t always get maintained well. Though we keep careful watch over the herd all day while grazing, and they bed in our temporary hot wire at night, these fences are important because they keep neighbor cattle out.

Another photo from Montana, overlooking the timber that believe it or not, we’ll be taking the cattle through over the next few weeks. Though it’s thick and high in elevation, it is full of grass and diverse species for the beeves to enjoy. It takes a little extra work from our riders to keep the herd together in the timber, but the results are more than worth it.

Maddy (youngest daughter) took the above and below photos during a stint on the range. We like to see heads down like this – it means the beeves are grazing well and not stressed.

Pictured above are the midsummer cover crop seeds being mixed at the ranch over in Tendoy. It’s been a very late season here in the mountain country of Idaho. There’s still a few snow speckles on the peaks around our valley, but the heat has finally come on. It means that our summer cover crop plans have been pretty much dashed until now. A wedding in the family didn’t help either–preparations for that took more than we expected!

But finally, we are getting covers in. It’s all annuals this year, in another year of soil building. If you remember from last year, most of our cover crop ground was potato ground, and devoid of Organic Matter (O.M. for short). Last year’s crop was a success despite droughty conditions, and this year, though late, is looking good. Soil moisture is up, and soil temps are primed and ready for cover crops to rock and roll, and do their soil building magic.

It was wedding time this past Saturday, and Becky, one of our middle daughters, took the hand of Dillon, a fine young man from nearby Salmon, Idaho. Dillon is related to many Salmon folks, and we had many friends attend, and as a result, we had nearly 350 people join us in celebrating with them on their great day. It was on the ranch, and, of course, Alderspring beef was served to all! It was a beautiful day of celebration, feasting, live music (Becky sang lead on several) and dancing. A great time was had by all!

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Quote of the Week

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

-John Muir

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Dear Friends,

We wrestled with adversity today. I wasn’t sure where it came from–whether it was outside forces or from within ourselves. No matter. We sort of prevailed through a day of cattle sorting and loading in ramshackle 100 year old corrals flung far in the middle of nowhere.

It was a dry desert journey through canyon and sage to get there. Melanie had one pickup pulling gooseneck, trundling up the dirt track in the heat; I had the other. A rearview mirror shot of the dust convinced each of us of one thing: there was absolutely no way we would follow each other closely. We’d wait until the dust settled.

And it had plenty of time to settle today. Melanie blew a front tire. My transmission cooked. I had to drop my cattle trailer (loaded) while Evan brought another truck to switch to. Then a tire nearly started on fire on my trailer, and I had to go home with 12000 lbs of beeves (who seemed to be content through it all, by the way, chewing cud) with only three wheels on rock-strewn dirt (I drove slow).

The crew was waiting for us at Little Hat Corrals, where they had gathered the cattle to stage them for climb to the high country.

The grass has been exceptional this year, brix testing in the mid teens (that’s really good) and the cattle show it. There’s about 36 butterballs that Linnaea peeled of the bunch at Little Hat–we needed them to fulfill orders on the webstore. She evaluates each of the hundreds of beeves that the horseback crew sends by her, and these are ready.

They’ve been dining on richly flavored diversity, manifested by spring and early summer rains. Our crew of seasoned expert horsewomen and horsemen not only understand how to move cattle, but they also understand how to graze them.

And as they gain the next 1500 feet in elevation, it will continue to get even better. There will be different plants and many of them more lush as the leathery protective coatings of some of the low elevation plants are needed to maintain life in the harsh low altitude desert sun. But not where they are going. Rainfall is much more plentiful in the high country–up to 3 times more than where we start grazing in the spring. And the result is that the plants are different, and often a little more palatable.

But apparently to the beeves, there is no place like home. As Melanie and I opened the trailer gate to let them on our home pastures, the black Angus steers took exactly 2 steps out on terra firma and put their heads down in the bottomless green of their longtime home.

I was scanning through previous newsletters, and one story caught my eye. It’s a super short story about a steer named skunky. I was reminded of it, because one of the steers we brought home today had skunky markings (he was a half brother!). But in that story, I quoted my friend Dr. Fred Provenza about his observation about shepherded animals vs non. You’ll have to read it for yourself. And like me, you’ll be reminded of just how different Alderspring beef is.

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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