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Our website is extensive. You can head right to our store or explore further. About
Us
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Alderspring
Ranch
Alderspring Ranch gets its name from three sources. First, it is named for the original people who homesteaded the ranch in Tendoy (Claude and Josephine Alder) and from the elderly couple we purchased the ranch from in 1993, Ron and Francis Alder. Ron and Fran lived on the ranch until their deaths several years ago. They taught us a great deal, and loved the ranch dearly. The name also comes from our name, Elzinga, which means in Friesian “from the alders.” Finally, the Tendoy ranch supports alders and contains several springs. We worked and cared for the 145 acre Tendoy ranch for 15 years. While Alderspring Ranch Grass Fed Beef was growing, however, the opportunities for ranching in the Lemhi Valley around Tendoy were decreasing. We lost several of our long-term leases to subdivision. We began to deal more and more with conflict between ranching operations and subdivisions. Land became prohibitively expensive. We realized that we would either have to shrink Alderspring Ranch Grass Fed beef to fit on the Tendoy ranch, or find a land base somewhere else. We began exploring a long-distance move to states with less expensive agricultural land. Things changed dramatically in the spring of 2005. After negotiating for several months on a new, larger property owned by a land trust organization in the nearby beautiful Pahsimeroi Valley, we have moved the entire operation to this new location, formerly known as the Moen Ranch in May, Idaho. The ranch is only about 20 miles from the Tendoy ranch as the eagle flies, but because the roadless Lemhi Mountains separate the two valleys, the new ranch |
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We spent the summer of 2005 moving our operation and learning a new ranch.
The Moen Ranch was initially purchased by the land trust in the fall of 2004 because of its many unique natural values, the most notable of which is that the ranch hosts one of the largest areas of functioning Chinook Salmon spawning habitat in Central Idaho. One of the organization's objectives in purchase of the ranch was to find a conservation-minded buyer that would agree not to develop the ranch and preserve and enhance the unique habitats found on the ranch. The land trust selected us from a pool of other applicants as best fitting their goals in their search for a new owner of the ranch. The ranch has 1700 acres deeded ground and grazing permits on some 46,000 acres of BLM and Forest Service lands. We feel that the ranch is more productive, with better vegetative communties and water systems than those that we had on the Tendoy Ranch. About 600 acres are grass/alfalfa/clover irrigated fields; the remainder is in dry grassland/sagebrush steppe and wet meadow areas. It is on the 600 acres that we finish our grass fed beef; the excellent quality of the grasses and our practices of moving them daily ensure quality. Caryl thinks that because we can more efficiently manage moves, our beef quality will even improve more compared to what we produced in Tendoy. The young calve and their moms live on the range for the summer. Last summer, Glenn spent 2-4 very long days each week (often from 5:30 AM to 11:00 PM) on horseback with intern Tim Grant moving cattle, fixing fence and caring for the nearly 50 miles of creeks that cross the range. The range area is in the nearby Salmon River Mountains, about 10 miles away from the main ranch, and covers an area of some 70 square miles. Due to its remoteness, Glenn sees very few people up in this wild country (He saw only 14 people up there over the entire summer grazing season). Instead, the area is occupied by a number of wildlife species: elk, deer, wolves, cougars, coyotes, antelope and black bear to name a few. Watch for more on this website about our new ranch as we learn more about it! |
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