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This Week’s Story: Salt

The hungry fire crackled in the night as I fed it another small log under the stately fir trees along the shores of Hat Creek. Flickering firelight danced on the rough barked boles of the trees, and lit the foliage of the aspen and alder trees in the dense understory around us……

Store News

Next Shipping Date: Monday, May 11th

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, May 13th

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 “LEANERRIBEYE10” to get 10% off organic grass fed regenerative leaner ribeye steaks.

Use the code “FATTIERBUNDLE” to get 5% off organic grass fed regenerative 20 lb. fattier ground beef bundles.

To access these sale items, and for more deals and products, you can click the button below!

Ranch News

The mama cows began the first part of their journey this summer, hiking from irrigated ranch pasture to their first grazing location on BLM rangeland. Pretty exciting times! We’re all exhausted with everything to get done, but it’s a good feeling to have cattle turned out and the summer commencing! -Melanie

Photo by Melanie.

The beauty of the range is one of the reasons we come back year after year! There’s Jed taking it all in while we brought mama cows up to their first grazing location for the summer. It was a gorgeous day to be up there. -Melanie

Photo by Melanie.

The mama cows were getting pretty hot on their walk from the home ranch to their range pasture, so we stopped by a gravelly bank along the Salmon River and got them all a drink. Our Corriente cow, Myrtle (no, we don’t raise Corrientes; we just keep two of them around because we like them) always has to forge her own path and ended up crossing the river downstream of the herd. What she didn’t know is that the river got significantly deeper and she found herself swimming, feet knocked out from under by the current. Then Annie saw her disappear altogether except her horns sticking up above the water, before she emerged on the other side, slightly embarrassed, annoyed, and very wet. Here’s Julian, Justice, and Jed getting their horses some much deserved hydration too. -Melanie

Photo by Melanie.

Our first cow camp in what we call the White Desert. The ashy hillsides in the area are covered with an abundance of grasses and forbs this spring, and the mama cows have been thriving there. It’s kind of hard to see, but the black strip across the road is a makeshift temporary cattleguard constructed of some heavy wooden beams, fiberglass posts, bungee cords, and electric fence tape. The black tarp underneath presents an intimidating visual barrier for an enterprising cow, and we’re able to add an extra deterrent with an electric current running through the tape. So far they’ve worked great and solve the problem of passing motorists forgetting to close an electric gate or running through wire strung across the road. -Melanie

Photo by Melanie.

One of our two deuce and a half water trucks we bought from a friend in the next valley over! They’ve been changing the game for us on stock water for our cattle, enabling us to graze locations we haven’t been able to with no nearby water. They are massive, and navigating the narrow and very rough mountain roads requires some really judicious driving. So far Jed and Glenn have hauled multiple loads without too much going wrong! -Melanie

Photo by Melanie.

Our second water truck, nicknamed Big Red. Glenn and Jed set up a gravity line out of a spring uphill of the trucks, and Jed designed a float to obstruct the flow of water once the truck’s tank is full. Stock water is still a lot of work for both Glenn and Jed and requires a lot of long days and late nights hauling water to thirsty mama cows, but the system is working pretty well! -Melanie

Photo by Melanie.

Our first calf of the year! Such a cute little guy, and very strong and healthy! -Melanie

Photo by Melanie.

Cactus might not be the most aesthetically pleasing plant, except in the flowering stage! I think the flowers are among the most beautiful of the blooms up there on the range! -Melanie

Photo by Melanie.

More beauty amongst the sagebrush! Last year we barely had any wildflowers after a very dry spring. This year we’ve gotten more spring rain, and the desert is abloom! -Melanie

Photo by Melanie.

The sheep went back to grazing almost immediately after we loaded a few for the processor the other day. Glenn created a makeshift chute out of cattle panels and hog panels and wooden pallets. He constructed it so they could flow in a circular motion toward the trailer, traveling back the way they came in. It went really well and with minimal stress on them. We’re learning so much from these sheep and improving our stockmanship every time we work with them! -Melanie

Photo by Melanie.

Another awesome acquisition! This Jeep has already made quite a few trips up to the range, and Glenn really enjoys driving it around the ranch too. He used it to drag all his building materials for the sheep chute out to the field. -Melanie

Photo by Melanie.

Some multi species grazing on Alderspring ranch! You can see the sheep need to move as they’ve grazed the residual a little more than we’d like. Especially this time of year with so much going on, a little 80/20 is okay. That’s the beauty of healthy soil; resilience is built into a functioning ecosystem, and the plants and soil can rebound after an accidental overgraze. The key is to give that ground enough rest for recovery and regrowth and to not graze continuously. The cattle in the background are the happiest they’ve been for months! They’re all older cows and smaller calves that wouldn’t do well on the range, or cattle we’ll be finishing this summer. The whole bunch of them got to start grazing summer grass Tuesday evening, and they were so excited to stop eating hay! -Melanie

Photo by Melanie.

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