Welcome to Alderspring’s Weekend Newsletter. Thank you for partnering with us in what we do!
This Week’s Story: Death on the Ditchbank
The long ditch was on. We had diverted a cleansing flow from the Lemhi River, and now it was going to be several days of shepherding the water with a pitchfork down the 6 miles to the ranch. It was early Alderspring, when we were running on 650 acres of rented rocky terrace land pasted against the abrupt uplift of the Continental Divide. Summer was pressing hard against winter in this time called spring, and we needed to get irrigation water, fresh from melted snow, down to the ranch to nourish the fields thirsty for those waters…..
Store News
Next Shipping Date: Monday, March 23rd
We generally ship every Monday, holiday weeks excepting (see calendar). You’ll get a tracking number when we ship your order. UPS may initially show an extra day of transit time, but will correct late Monday night when orders hit the Salt Lake hub.
Next Restock Date: Wednesday, march 25th
We restock every Wednesday and send out a sale flyer on Wednesday in the early evening with the week’s deals.
This Week’s Reader-Only Deals
Use the code “GROUNDROUND10” at checkout to get 10% off organic grass fed regenerative extra lean ground round when you buy 10 lbs!
To access these sale items, and for more deals and products, you can click the button below!
Ranch News
Melanie took a trip up to the Little Hat country smack dab up on the range this week to check out the beaverworks and see if the dam builders handiwork still was holding back water after the cold and freeze and winter. As you can see in the pic, the dams are holding firm, and will spread out the velocity of snowmelt in a month or so, preventing streambank damage. Photo by Melanie.
The low light of the sun won’t be forever. Spring starts tomorrow! Photo by Melanie.
The beeves have pretty much finished grazing the dry stockpile–the last of last year’s summer grass. They trample a lot of it…but that’s a great thing when we finally realized that it is just as important to feed the microbes underground with dead plant material as it is to feed the megafauna above (aka, cows). Photo by Melanie.
Our mountain guardian, May Mountain, at nearly 11,000 feet, stands over the ranch and gives us the mountain snow report every day by the looks of her face. From that we can tell how much snowmelt we can figure on to water our beeves and the ground we irrigate. Photo by Melanie.
If you look closely, you can see the mantra that is one of our founding principles. “Eat Beef” , the sticker reads, clearly placed on the headache rack of the feed truck. It’s important that people keep eating it, because that is part of the circle we run in our production. It goes something like this: People eat beef. We keep raising it. We graze it on our expansive lands. The plants respond to our short cattle and sheep grazings and long rest periods. The cows trample some plants, and by grazing release dead material into the soil profile, feeding microbes and building humus. The ground captures more carbon. The plants grow back with new efficient growth–a solar panel in leaves, sending more sugar down to the roots. The roots feed the microbes more. The microbes create a sponge out of mineral soil that receives and holds more water, restoring rainfall and broken water cycles. We grow more grass. We raise more cattle that eat the grass. We get more partners eating beef. And so on… Photo by Melanie.
Sunsets are something we never take for granted. Photo by Melanie.
They bring peace and joy to the end of days. Photo by Melanie.
Wesley and Maddy are transitioning to take over management of shipping and fulfillment, as Wesley has detailed in the past newsletters. Caryl and I aren’t stepping away–just continuing to be able to better focus and be less scattered about the growing Alderspring. We’ll continue raising the best beef. And I’ll continue writing half (or more) of the newsletters. We will continue to stay on the land, working with the next generation. – Glenn
Photo by Melanie.
Your purchase supports our regenerative work. For more information go to https://www.alderspring.com/regenerative/.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for being ardent conservationists. I hope this good work and your good words spread out across the West.
Love your writing
Handoff to the next generation always a bit dicey, for both the elder-company founders, the newer, younger generation managers/future owners––and us customers! Glad to see process beginning at what appears to be a slow and manageable pace. Guaranteed our physical bodies only last “three-score-and-ten” and if healthy?––maybe another creaky ten?
But you want some nice retirement space/time to do-things-you-always-wanted-to-do-but-haven’t. I had this doctor who literally worked until four days before he died (around low-80s if I recall). When queried why? he always said he never liked golf.