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This Week’s Story: When Typical Tests

With the rain increasing in intensity, I gave my mare, Natalie, her head as she picked her way across the steep, slick and rocky mountainside, bent on catching 25 recalcitrant cattle that clambered high above us near the peak of the volcanic dome. They had cut from the main herd, in search of what God only knew as the rain ratcheted up a few notches with wind that coursed in waves across the grassland below…..

Store News

Next Shipping Date: Monday, July 28th

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, JUly 30th

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 “GROUNDLAMB” to get 5% off grass fed (non-certified) ground lamb!

Use the code “#5SIXTEENTH” to get 5% off grass fed regenerative (non-certified) #5: family box sixteenths (top sirloin)!

Use the code “BONES&ORGANS” to get 10% off organic grass fed regenerative beef bones and organs, grass fed regenerative (non-certified) beef bones and organs, and grass fed (non-certified) lamb bones and organs!

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

Ranch News

No… they’re not cover crops! But they were, and now Alderspring’s Tendoy ranch is entirely converted to perennials. Many of you readers probably remember that this place was bare dirt just five years ago–a burned out potato farm. Now the soil is covered with a continuous spread of a tangle of forage varieties that the crew planted. It was a concerted effort that the Rains family did most of the work on (Scott and Rebecca and their kids): prep and planting of cover crops, intensive paddock grazing by cattle, irrigation, and planting of perennials.

It doesn’t look like much but the crew says that this is the very best springwater on the Range. It is icy cold, crystal clear and nicely mineralized. We placed that little poly pipe in a spring in those distant aspens in the photo. It serves as our horse water here in this tank, but also our crew water in Aspen Springs camp where we’ve been spiked out for the past 3 weeks in the backcountry of the range. These little pipelines ensure that none of our horses or cattle enter these sensitive spring areas as we protect them with a temporary poly wire fence. In just another week all this will be gone, and no trace will be left of our presence.

That’s the young gelding Charles awkwardly standing there to get his photo taken next to our temporary cattle stock tanks in the backcountry of the range. He’s also showing off that cedar plank that’s floating at water level along the edge of the tank. If you look closely you can see a little string that keeps it close to the edge and it adapts to whatever level the water is in the stock tank. This allows songbirds to be able to climb up out of the water if they happen to land in the tank–rather than drowning there after the exhausting circuit around the perimeter of the tank with no way out. The little board allows them to climb up, dry off, and fly away. The rough cut cedar allows them traction.

It’s first light in Cow Camp, and the days horses are caught and saddled from the 20 head herd that graze in the forest and meadows around camp.

This is a grazing plan for the next two days from this past week. It’s kind of interesting giving these maps to some of our new range riders– it seems our digital age has disabled some of humankind’s map reading skills, and some of them have to get their head around how maps work! I should mention the interesting note at the bottom of the map about a deadhead– that’s an elk or deer winter or wolf kill skull with intact antlers on it that’s a prize sought-after by many a range rider along with a nice matched set of antlers– also called “sheds.”

The Alderspring herd in the Hat Creek Range backcountry.

It’s a little abstract, but this is the kind of orchardgrass green hay that goes into the hay bale for winter. This dry hay is cured, getting twin raked, and will bale tonight!

Your purchase supports our regenerative work. For more information go to https://www.alderspring.com/regenerative/.