Organic Beef Matters
News from Alderspring Ranch, with an occasional rant about American agriculture
Dear Friends The horses have run ranch-rampant. But they're on vacation at this time of year. They've put their time in on the range over the summer season. There, they worked off fat and built muscle mass from carry rider and camp gear over nearly a 1000 miles during the grazing tour. But that's …
Continue Reading about When Horse Runs Rogue (It’s Usually Our Fault)
Dear Friends and Partners You could feel them with your back against the black prairie earth before you saw them, and even before you heard them. All else was silent, except for the occasional song of a prairie warbler. A stunning dome of cloudless blue azure sky filled your vision beyond the …
"Take the hotwire fence around that area of tall grass," I told Darrin and Steff. They would be in charge of the 550 head of finish beeves in two days when the cattle were herded from the north side of the ranch. They would be brought on hoof, herded again by riders on horseback, trailing in a long …
Dear Friends and Partners As we made our way through the switchbacks cut into the rock pasted against the cliffy bluffs, the crystal clarity of the Salmon River rolled lazily by below. An orange sun worked its way down to the horizon. Like us, I think the sun may be getting tired of forest fire …
The forest-fire-smoke-induced-orange ball of sun broke the jagged 10,000 foot spine of the Continental Divide as I braked my truck and trailer to a gentle stop. I had the big gooseneck with 8 horses on board, and I chose the open grassy spot next to a massive crack willow trunk. The spreading …
August 17: three of us, standing over a six-inch diameter pipe sticking out of the ground, in the middle of the broad field, staring at the 1 inch of water in the bottom of it in a windstorm. Boiling, threatening clouds of green, brown and gray rise up in the west. We all cast furtive glances to the …
