The Salmon River was starting to swell with the first release of spring snow melt, and it flowed like a ribbon of liquid cold steel. Twelve-year old Melanie and I stood horseback, wordless, in the spitting rain on the rocky shoreline and eyed the 20 or so cattle on the opposite bank across the …
When Beef Goes Wrong
"Do you guys ever process cull dairy cows from big dairies for beef?" I waited patiently for Amber's answer. "No, we don't. We occasionally do a dairy type cow, usually like somebody's family milk cow that somebody fed out to fat for their own beef consumption, but we don't have any customers that …
The Way of the Wolf
The wolves are back in force. Jerry, a wildlife biologist friend of many years, cut the fresh tracks of a large pack on the snowy deck of the Hat Creek Bridge yesterday. Just hours before he arrived there, they quietly padded over the wooden structure that spanned the frothy cascade of Hat Creek in …
Ranching and the Whims of Weather
The weather flipped to fall. Snow blanketed the high country over the last few nights, and the aspens and cottonwoods are gilded with gold. The air is thick and clear. I love this time of year. I fired up the wood stove for the first time this year with daughter Emily yesterday. She was the wood …
Why Cheaters Rarely Prosper…in Organic
The sun tired of shining high and bright in the sky, and started its now deliberate descent to the horizon. It was springtime in Idaho, and as was often the case just before dusk, a breeze was picking up, evidenced from the left-drifting trail of dust emanating from the pickup on the road …
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When Codfish Nearly Replaced Beef
On an exceptional chilly and gloomy late morning of Tuesday, April 16, 1935, Juan, the Portuguese fisherman quietly rowed his 16-foot saltwater dory back through wisps of fog to his home vessel. Home was a two-masted wooden fishing schooner, anchored in nutrient rich waters off Maritime Canada's …