My Dad turned 90 yesterday. He’s traveled a long, diverse path through life, often tortuously narrow and littered with pitfalls. He’s had brushes with death in many forms: cancer, heart attacks, and tropical diseases like malaria and amoebic dysentery. He’s been blown up by a hand grenade that instantly killed his comrade in arms, burned multiple times by chemicals, and narrowly escaped Nazi work camps. He’s been an accomplice in the hiding of Jews during WWII and survived searches and interrogation. Dad spent months on deck in the high seas in all kinds of weather conditions, sailed cargo vessels singlehandedly in the dead of winter, and been in several capsizes and nearly died of cold water exposure. He’s fluent in four languages in spite of education that ended at age 13, worked all over the world, and carries no prejudice for any human. He landed in North America an immigrant, with only his bride of a few weeks, a sea chest, a shipping crate, and 64 dollars. He embraced the American dream. He raised four solid young men who still walk in integrity and loved a wife he stayed true to without fail for nearly 60 years until he lost her. He is a survivor, and a difference maker.
Incredibly, he will probably read this tome on his smart phone (how many 90 year olds do that?). So here’s to you, Dad! May God grant you the grace to continue the journey of a life well-lived. Thanks again for breaking the molds that others would put on you. And for being an awesome example, and difference maker.
We met with family and friends to celebrate his 90th in Boise on Saturday. It was there that I met Frank, a good friend of Dad’s who was about 15 years younger. He asked me what we did for a living. I related that we raise cattle and finish it to beef. I could see that his wheels were turning, and his eyes lost focus like they often do when folks recall distant memories. He was seeing something. He took a sip of coffee and turned to me. “Do you ever get stressed out in your line of work?”
I paused; most people don’t ask me that. “Well”¦yes. Ranching is full of things you can’t control that create setbacks and razor-thin margins. Sometimes I don’t sleep at night, but after nearly 25 years we are still here.” He smiled. I smiled. He understood. “Why do you ask?”
“I was remembering back on the Kansas prairie when I would ride with my Dad in his truck, hauling cattle off the ranch to market. He always seemed stressed, worried that that the truck would break down, and whether or not the cattle would sell well.”
A butcher isn’t the meatcutter you see in Costco with the white hairnets on. A true butcher was a craftsman who knew all there was to know about the entire animal breakdown. Meat came in the store on hooks and ceiling rails; not in boxes. Every part was used and nothing was wasted. A good butcher knew how to extract every cut and how to make it the best it could be. They understood aging. They knew where the flavor in a beef was, and how to best represent it. When asked by a customer across the counter, they knew how to prepare, as in actually cook, each and every piece of beef they cut and placed with care in the case before them. Nick was one of them. Nick was an artisan.
Though such grass fed beef was occasionally tough (I certainly remember such fare!), it often packed some serious grass fed flavor because ranchers like Frank’s dad were paid by the pound. Good ranchers mimicked the natural seasons so their young cattle would finish at the same time young native grazers, like deer and antelope, were packing on the pounds in preparation for winter.
Come with me back to summer, 2016 on the Hat Creek Ranges. At 79 degrees, it’s a hot day, for 7200 feet elevation. I’ve been in the saddle for most of the day on the back of my buckskin, Ginger. I’m actually shaded up”¦in her shadow, sitting on the mountainside with my border collie, Davey. I learned this little cooling trick from the dogs years ago. Ginger is trusty enough that she’ll mind us below her on the ground as we grab a bit to eat from saddlebags.
It’s because I know I’ve done right by them. And I feel compelled to carefully continue that walk by turning them into the very best of fare—not only tender and tasty, but brimming with wellness for my partners—you—in the circle of life that we share with even those animals below the soil that feed the plants that feed the beeves that feed us.
You see, those pictures of those pens stretching to the horizon in Kansas City are unthinkable for me. It wouldn’t be doing right by our beeves. It wouldn’t be honoring their place in that circle. So I had to spend time, and a lot of money trying to find a processor who would share my vision. And I think I’ve finally found them in Dewey and his son Jayson.
This is wild beef, and the raising of it. The living soils they walk on thrive under their feet, as the beeves themselves do. I am so delighted that I can harvest the fruits of the land-sunshine, soil, grass, animal-in a nutrient dense package of wellness that I can share with you. I consider it a calling. Thanks for being my partner. And in celebration of diversity, try something new this week!
Happy Trails.
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