It seems that every time I sit down to write a newsletter lately, it starts to snow. It’s as if I need to be reminded that winter is here. Yesterday, it was so very unlike winter. In the brilliant fall sunshine, while looking over a snowless ranch landscape, I planted roses around our home, and built stone walls around our terraced perennial beds. I could do this because the cattle are all settled and home on big pastures. It is probably the least busy time on the ranch, because the beeves do most of the work, serving themselves a plate of delicious greens. They are putting food by for the winter, much like we often have done, canning and harvesting those crops for winter food.
I kicked the kids out of the house and put them to work on the rock pile. They grudgingly carried rocks at first, but soon enough, took to the artisanal aspect of putting rocks on display in our gardens. The low angled sun bounced along the horizon until it reluctantly retreated to the onset of night. I let the kids go in, because when the fusion ball goes down, it gets dang cold. New, but much colder light was soon to follow with a bright Milky Way and half moon, illuminating the ranch with an ethereal glow.
But this morning I was out before daybreak gathering firewood, and the snow had just started. The mountains were shrouded in a veil of white, ghosts barely visible, and the flakes drifted straight downward in the absence of wind. The only sounds were from animals: geese in the river bottom and horses digging through the snow on pasture. As I was feeding my border pups, a low whistling from overhead sent my eyes skyward. Tundra swans, probably driven down by the storm from high altitude migration routes were flying right toward me at just 50 feet above ground level. They looked magnificent with their wingspans that can range from 6 to 7 feet across, and were quite soundless if it wasn’t for their whistling call. It was for their distinctive call that Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame, named them whistling swans in his journals.
The snow gradually increased in intensity as the day went on. By afternoon, the ranch was white, as were the beeves that cowboy Josh and I sorted for biweekly shipment. The rich fall grass had been good to the beeves, and they were laying on grass fat nicely. It was an easy sort as we picked out 20 head for harvest. As we moved quietly through them, I now could hear lost snow geese overhead, also storm- driven to the ground from altitudes as high as 15000 feet. Josh and I even spotted them later, while we were prepping the freezer for a big shipment to arrive tonight. Like the swans, they too would find landfall in the high Pahsimeroi, would have to bed down on the ranch tonight on their way to sunny California. I hoped they would find accommodations to their liking.
We aren’t snowbirds. I think we’ll just stay here and live out the winter. After all, cattle don’t have migratory blood in their veins, and since we have been charged with their husbandry, we’ll tend their needs when the squalls and frigid arctic blasts hit hard.
I was thinking of wintering on the ranch, and keeping them yielding healthy pasture fat when I was in one of the 9 stores we serve with Alderspring beef last week. There was a new guy behind the meat counter, and I reached across the meat case (that had some nice of our nice ribeyes in it) to shake his hand. I make it my business to greet everyone behind the counter in our partner stores whenever I visit, because they are the only face that many customers ever get to meet. They are our representatives, and as such, they need to know us and the hows and whys of what we do.
“Hi”¦I’m Glenn, the Alderspring guy.” We shake.
“Great to meet you. I’m Kyle. We sure sell a lot of Alderspring. And it comes very well recommended from the other guys behind the counter here. Those ranchers raising the beef for your company must be doing it right.”
“Well, um, I’m the guy. The owner.”
“Great! The owner!”
“No”¦I mean I raise the beef. I’m the guy that is on the land”¦the ranch guy. I’m the rancher. The only rancher.”
“You’re it? Just you?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, I have my daughters, and a cowboy or two working with us.”
As you can probably tell, we were both a little surprised. I was a foreign concept to this guy. The fact that I was the rep in the store, delivering the goods, and the guy who not only owned the ranch but ran it, knew the cattle, put them to grass, and selected them for finish was unfamiliar and surprising to the new meat counter guy.
I believe one of the biggest problems in agriculture is this huge disconnect between the people who grow food and the people who eat it. This results in a lack of transparency for the producer (and perhaps openings for lack of integrity) and a lack of understanding about what is being eaten on the part of the consumer. This is bad for land, animals, and farmers, but perhaps even worse for the consumer.
Case in point: I interviewed on a radio show a few weeks ago and was asked to define the difference between grass fed and grass finished. It’s a common consumer question. The 10 second answer is that nearly all cattle in the US are grass fed. Only 3% are finished to slaughter on grass. The problem was that after the 10 second answer, I gave the straight story in more like 5 minutes (radio time ain’t free last time I checked) for those beef eating listeners. I talked first about elephant, then cow.
The elephant in the living room is that all grass finished is not equal. Under its grass fed definition, USDA allows animals to eat feedstuffs in a feedlot, and eat a multitude of crop and by product residues that I would have a hard time convincing my kids (they keep me really honest) that are grass. So much for a different flavor and nutrition experience from USDA certified “grass-fed” beef.
I told my radio audience that they needed to build a relationship to be able sort the true grass finishers from the grass fakers. After all, relationship is one of the foundational tenets of sustainable agriculture. Once that relationship is established, the farmer or rancher can connect land, soil, animals, and food to those who benefit—”‹the eaters.
I’m looking out my window as I write this. Alderspring beeves are peacefully wandering our pastures, backs white with snow, eating”¦grass. That’s it. Actually, they are getting some snow too. They don’t seem to mind.
It’s icing on a great cake.
Happy trails. Have a lovely Thanksgiving.
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