We hear other natural, or grass fed producers how they don’t want or need government inspectors on their farm or ranch and say they don’t need them to tell them how to do the “right thing.” Standing firm against “big government intervention in small, sustainable agriculture” is …
Ruminations & Newsletters
Why We Do What We Do
There’s an old saying among old cowboy packers—those wizened hands who knew the craft of moving camps and gear on horseback in wild country—that if you’ve packed for 40 or 50 years of your life, you’ve actually only done half that. It’s because the other half you spent looking …
Husbandry: Alive and Well at Alderspring Ranch
Dear Friends: I'm writing this before sunup, and the light is just coming over the ranch. It's still gray, before the sun bathes the highest peaks with the rosy orange of alpenglow. I can see across the valley to the Hat Creek ranges that vault up from the Salmon River nearly …
How Alderspring Learns from the Apes
It is 7 years ago, and it had been a long day on horseback. I was thankfully aboard smooth-gaited Missy, the Morgan mare. She would die rather than give up her trot, and even after 35 mountainous miles, she still swung her front feet out proudly in her smooth Morgan-gait way. A …
The Beeves Hit the High Ranges Running!
I startle awake from a dream very unlike my reality. I'm bolt upright, eyes wide open, because the lead rope I had in my hand is gone, and the horse on the other end was my only conveyance off of this rockpile. My mare, Ginger, has light-fingered her rope from my relaxed sleeping …