Dear Friends and Partners,
Welcome to Alderspring’s weekend edition newsletter!
In this letter is Glenn’s weekly story, a suite of pics about work on the ranch this week, what’s happening in our freezer, and a recipe to cook!
Want to follow along more day-to-day? Find us on Instagram and Facebook.
And, as always, if you have any questions, observations, or comments, just shoot us an email to Kelsey at help[at]alderspring[dot]com.
Next shipping day is September 27!
Place your order by Sunday at midnight to get it shipped out on Monday!
Looking for this week’s featured cuts? Head to the page below. Scroll on down for Glenn’s story and other newsletter stuff!
This week’s cuts include steaks! 10 off on Filet mignons, ribeye steaks, and sirloin tip kabobs! Also, weekend flash sale on ground chuck! The lamb went fast, but don’t worry, there will be more in soon!
This Week on the Ranch
It’s fall, and the elk are bugling. I can hear their ethereal calls echo through the river bottoms from our bedroom window with the onset of morning light. They share pastures with our cattle through the night until light gives them away. Just a few nights ago, Darrin spied a couple of majestic, well antlered bulls as they emerged from the timber of the river bottoms to join the Alderspring herd on the night-time graze.
That’s not normal, you see, because there’s a harvest moon on. Our smoke has finally dispersed complements of some well-timed rains and cooler weather. Streaks of snow deposited a few days ago still hide in the gullies of the peaks that ring our valley despite the warm fall days resplendent with bright sunshine.
I think it’s our favorite time of year. And it’s fitting that it is the very best grass of the year; it’s like everything culminates in the fall. Our predominantly cool-season grasses find new life in the reduced temps of autumn, and catch up with the heat loving legumes.
The beeves lay on weight like no tomorrow, and despite their fill, they beg for more. I looked at Ethan and Abby’s hogs; they are reaching a lovely roundness. And those lambs—they, too, stuff themselves as if running out of dining time. And they all are; winter will come. Hopefully, a little later than sooner. I look to the crags; see the snow, and I know the clock is ticking…
-Glenn
Quote of the Week
Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.
―Louis L’Amour, Western Author
Glenn’s Story This Week: SecretS in the Soil
“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 thin line along the county road, cross the county road bridge over the river to arrive on the south side of Alderspring, just above the wilderness of the Pahsimeroi River bottoms. We wouldn’t be grazing that; we leave the riverbanks and thick habitats of willows and grasslands for the elk, moose, and deer that range there (and even for the mountain lions that wander with them). But just above, on the drier volcanic rock bars along the river, we had hay meadows and pasture lands.
Their two young boys bumped along with us in the back seat of the carryall. Riley, the younger one asked “Why won’t we graze in that tall grass, Mr. Glenn?”
“It’s because it is all Great Basin Wildrye.” I looked at him in the rearview mirror. “It was the grass that I believe covered the valley before it was settled in the middle 1870s. We’re trying to recreate a small piece of it back.” I launched into one of my ecological talks, unable to help myself even when not sure how interested my companions are in my discourse.
Featured Weekly Cuts
A quick summary of this week’s deals
(As always, only you newsletter readers have access to these discounts)!
This week you can get 10% off on all 3 of the following cuts!
- Filet mignon! Tenderness like no other is found here!
- Ribeye steak. Some of the best of Alderspring, and Glenn’s personal favorite steak.
- Sirloin tip kabobs. Great on the grill as kabobs. Also excellent in stir fries!
- Ground chuck. This are simply our super flavorful chuck roasts, ground!
Remember, our inventories are VERY dynamic! Our goal is to turn it over 2 times a month to offer you the very freshest product right off of Alderspring’s pastures.
Weekly Happenings: Photos from the Ranch
Just as last week’s newsletter story was about beavers, the week ended with beavers, too! We went up on the range in search of a beaver sighting to hopefully get a video op for a visiting documentary videographer. After a long wait, we did end up catching a glimpse of two of them, and hopefully a video shot as well! The dam you see above is one we found that is still under construction. There were fresh tracks and still wet mud from a beaver who had been at work not long before we arrived!
Yep, that’s Glenn looking at some cow manure while Emmie, who visited last weekend to capture some footage, is filming. You can find Emmie on instagram here, where she documents her travels in agriculture!
Might seem pretty unexciting, but inside of that cow patty is a world of life worth catching on camera! Life that thrives (and makes the soil thrive, too) because this is a chemical-free cow patty. Things like pesticides, antibiotics, and wormers tend to end up in a cow’s manure…making it unappetizing for the bugs (both visible and invisible) that live in the soil. But at Alderspring, bugs thrive in clean manure!
Linnaea (3rd daughter) captured this shot just after bringing the herd on horseback to some new pasture. In front of her, Maddy is closing the hotwire paddock gate while Darrin and Steff’s oldest boy watches from the back of the gelding George. For those of you who missed it, Darrin and Steff and their two boys moved out here to work on the ranch with us several months back. This was their older son’s first time riding solo on a cattle drive, and he did great! Watching him learn to ride brought back some fond memories for us from when the girls were little. They learned in much the same way on some very steady and kind horses.
It’s ancient…as old as Glenn at almost 60, but Darrin and Jeremiah are keeping the old hunk of metal alive. It’s a Case 580B, a diesel backhoe that still plows snow, handles 1 ton bales of hay, and digs ditches. It’s old reliable needing just a tad of TLC!
And that’s it for this week! Thanks again for partnering in what we do!
Glenn, Caryl, cowgirls and cowboys at Alderspring
We’ve been crafting our pastured protein here in Idaho’s Rocky Mountains for nearly 30 years and delivering it direct to our partners for nearly as long. This is wild wellness, delivered from our ranch to your door.
Your partnership in Alderspring helps us maintain what is unique in today’s agricultural world; Alderspring is a Carbon NEGATIVE and Climate POSITIVE operation. We ran the numbers, and our cows help us capture more carbon in the ground each year on our irrigated pastures than we release!
How inspiring! A place with a tremendous amount of labor but a place where you can breathe the stars.