Did you ever have something you see or hear that just doesn't sit right? And it takes a little bit of time to sprout into a nice little bloom of quite unexpected red rosy anger? Well this one took just a little over a month, and it started when I watched another producer's seemingly innocuous video …
All Quiet on the Western Ranch
The half-moon high overhead intermittently beamed through the clouds last night as Annie and I quietly navigated the lumbering hay rack wagon loaded with 4000 lbs of preserved summer grass out to our waiting beeves. Red and Jingle, the hugely muscular draft geldings walked out in cadenced rhythm …
Frankenpies and the Death of Dirt
The wind blew our half mile long lane to the main valley road shut with drifting snow again today. This is the second day without mail; we are effectively stranded. It's a good morning to put some observations to paper about life on earth as I see it. As a rancher, things can sometimes look pretty …
Coons, Pigs, Corn, and Cows
It was in the late 1980's and Caryl and I were in the Midwest so Caryl could work on her Ph.D. It was late fall, and I was looking for a little harvesting work in the corn belt while she finished up her research and dissertation. Now, Midwestern October weather wasn't exactly what we had gotten used …
Snowbound Beeves
Hat Creek Range: 47,000 acres. It's a big chunk of country, and in 2005, we certified all of it as organic. In fact, even today, in 2016, one acre out of every 100 acres of organic land in the United States is part of Alderspring. More exactly, 1.4% of all organic land in America is on Alderspring …
GMO’s Aren’t the Only Problem with Alfalfa
I rested my arm a moment while Allan pounded the next stake. We had been setting concrete forms for three days in what was often solid rock, and swinging that 2 pound head continuously with my right arm had my fingers locking in a cramped hammer handle position. My finger bones ached with a dull …
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