Stories

Now we move into spring. Both the Ides of March and the Vernal Equinox have passed. Dawn comes a little earlier each morning; the sun eases itself little-by-little northward in the eastern sunrise sky. The prairie winds blow and whistle and sometimes howl. But, if you are going to live on the prairie, you will live with the winds.

Although winter has held us in it's clutches for far too long, spring is starting to show itself. 

Like a lot of Americans, I have been paying close attention to the kids who survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It’s very unlikely that I will ever experience anything like what those kids have gone through. But when I watch their faces as they stand up and speak truth to the legislators who hold the power and responsibility to see that our schools are safe and about the need for society to do something to protect them, I see something in their postures and in their eyes that is vaguely familiar.

The prairie winter continues. Here are a few winter Buffalo images, along with other photos on the ranch.

A few years back, when we moved our buffalo to their winter pasture on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, we left seven behind. 

In a recent blog post I characterized “the hot air emanating from Washington DC” as more dangerous than the smoke from California’s devastating forest fires. (I was talking about some of the tragic proclamations coming from the White House, not the comedy of the even more recent government shutdown.)

After less than nine hours of daylight, the sky reaches down, touches the earth and the two seal up like a clam—leaving us in the premature, murkiness of night.

Wild Idea Buffalo is on the top of my list as high-quality meat purveyors to recommend to clients. As many of you know their practices go far beyond the gold standard of the paleo/primal world’s “grass-fed” and create a category of their own.

My seventieth birthday fell on Thanksgiving, 2017. It had been a tough year, with destructive wildfires destroying the canyon lands above my California friend’s homes and even more dangerous hot air emanating from Washington, DC, and some of my own health issues that reminded me constantly that I was now seventy years old.

A few weeks ago, we moved the buffalo into the pasture that borders the Cheyenne River in preparation for moving them onto their winter pasture on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands over Thanksgiving weekend. Each time we do this, I am reminded of the first epic event that took place 14 years ago. 

We often get the question, “Do all of the animals you harvest come from your ranch?” The answer is no, but the ranchers that we source from, have the same standards in animal husbandry and manage their rangeland for conservation and ecological bio-diversity.