Second Year: What is your land ethic?

I’ve always loved being outside. When I was in high school, I wanted to lead backpacking trips for a living, and, being from Austin, I lamented the lack of public land in Texas and relished the opportunities I had to explore the public lands of the West and all the raw beauty they had to offer. 

Like most high schoolers, I later changed my mind about where I fit in the world and found my way to regenerative agriculture and the Quivira Coalition. I am interning for a second year at Western States Ranches, located on Colorado’s west slope, and I spend most of my time working on flat, irrigated pasture surrounded by conventionally farmed corn and hay fields. In other words, not the kind of landscape I pined for in high school, and not the kind of landscape that would excite most backpackers – I see plenty of sprinter vans on the highway, but they rarely pull over to admire our pastures. 

Because of this work, I see land differently now. While I can, of course, still appreciate a jaw-dropping mountain vista, I’m learning that there is more than one kind of beauty to be admired in a landscape. You can find land beautiful and have no connection to it whatsoever, and you can form a beautiful connection with land most people would not take a second glance at. These two are not mutually exclusive, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with running cattle on gorgeous country (some days you might say I’m jealous!). It’s also true that spending every day on the irrigated pastures causes me to recognize so much beauty in them that has surely always been there, I just never paid enough attention before. 

These days, I find a deeper beauty in trying to immerse myself in a landscape or ecosystem, and it is through the process of working day in and day out on these irrigated pastures that I begin to know each of them intimately. 

My ideal relationship with the land is one founded on hard work and a humble attempt to understand its complex ecosystem, beyond its value for tourism or home development. Through that kind of relationship, I plan to form deep and beautiful connections with whatever landscapes I find myself working on.

Final Reflections
November 2022

I have probably learned more during my apprenticeship than during any other year of my life. I’ve learned new concepts, gained substantive knowledge, and acquired new skills. I’m also struck by how much more there is to learn, and I’m definitely eager to continue down the path I’ve begun through the NAP program. 

I began my apprenticeship working with Tony Prendergast at X-Bar Ranch in Crawford, Colorado. Tony runs a small, 30-head operation that directly markets grass-finished beef to his local community. He was an excellent mentor and helped give me a valuable foundation in ranching knowledge and skills. I learned how to install electric fence, drive a tractor, install carrier pipe for irrigation systems, use a ditch irrigation system to support livestock, and more. Tony was very thoughtful about his work and was open to discussing it, and he helped me understand the value of being situationally aware and in tune with the huge variety of factors that are part of managing a ranch – the animals, the land, the weather, the equipment, etc. He articulated how important it is to be detail-oriented and observant while doing this work, and how to read the land and make the necessary judgments. Unfortunately, unexpected circumstances arose and he wasn’t able to continue participating in the apprenticeship program, and he helped arrange my transfer to apprentice under Brandon Dalton at Western States in April. I have kept in touch with Tony since my departure and am grateful for his mentorship.

Western States is a much larger operation: the main ranch is located in Cedaredge, Colorado, out of which the operation manages an approximately 3,000 head herd over 15 irrigated properties and several public land summer grazing permits. I arrived there at one of their busiest times of the year, so I was certainly grateful for the foundation my time at XK-Bar ranch provided me as I stepped into a slightly more independent role. One positive about apprenticing at such a large-scale operation as Western States is the extensive opportunities to practice the stockmanship concepts I have been taught by both mentors. Naturally I’m passionate about the cattle management practices that lead to healthier and more productive soils, but it is also uniquely satisfying to guide the flow of intelligent, reactive animals that are highly attuned to one’s every movement. As many of the herds came back from the summer mountain permits in September and October, I was especially able to practice stock handling and sorting in the corrals, and it is extremely satisfying when everything works smoothly. Of course, I am by no means an expert in stock handling or any of the other skill sets I’ve been exposed to, but it is a special experience anytime in the animal handling process I get that feeling that the cows can read my mind and know exactly what I want them to do. 

Brandon is an excellent mentor and has helped me gain a great deal of knowledge and skills. He spends a lot of time on grazing planning, and he has taught me a great deal about forage assessment and the many considerations that go into that decision making process. It is already obvious to me that this aspect of regenerative ranching is an integral component to both the ranch’s financial success and the land’s health, so I’m eager to continue learning about it. I was also fortunate enough to shadow several ecological monitoring employees as they conducted ecological surveys of the ranch’s properties, and it was fascinating to learn about that process and all of the indicators and factors they consider in assessing soil health. 

I’ve gained both soft and hard skills during my apprenticeship; I’ve learned basic things that would be needed on most ranches – how to drive tractors and ATVs; how to set up and repair electric fencing; how to move cows, etc. The two soft skills that come to mind for me are observation and ingenuity/resilience. In this kind of work, the details in one’s surroundings can matter immensely, and I notice a change in myself as I make more of an effort to pay attention to the small details that can make a big difference. When I refer to ingenuity and resilience, I am thinking about all the situations where I’ve been alone, something has gone wrong (like broken fence and cattle scattered everywhere) and I’ve had to figure out how to fix it. Of course, I haven’t always been successful, but I’ve gotten a bit more creative and confident in those higher stress situations.

I’ve come to realize that there is always more work that can be done on a ranch. Brandon seems to do a great job of prioritizing what tasks must get done in a day, and his conversations with me about the overall work on the ranch and my own responsibilities have helped me understand better when something is ‘good enough’ and we can move on. He absolutely believes in doing something the right way, but I have learned a lot about where to draw the line between perfectionism and pragmatism. I think of this as a valuable kind of resilience that is particularly useful on a ranch – learning how to balance too many demands, respond to the most pressing problems, and plan for the next day, the next week, and the next month.

My conversations with Brandon have been fascinating and have broadened my perspective, and they are some of the highlights of my apprenticeship. I’m returning to the same ranch for a second year, which says a lot about Western States and the people I work with. It also shows my commitment to furthering my immersion in the ranching world. I’m always becoming more aware of all the thing I don’t know, and one of the reasons I find ranching so compelling is that there is always so much more to learn. Being a good steward of the land is an incredibly complex and multi-faceted challenge, and I’m excited by the idea that “nothing worth doing is easy.” I am very grateful for the opportunity Quivira is giving me to prepare for a path in regenerative agriculture. 

REFLECTIONS AFTER THE FIRST MONTH

May 2022

I studied anthropology in college and ended up writing my thesis about the origins of agriculture. During the time I was reading articles and books for that project, I also volunteered on an organic vegetable farm. Both my studying and my practical work increased my prior interest in agriculture.

Since I began college, I’ve thought about ways to find a meaningful career and lifestyle that do not cause as much damage to the health of our planet as most Western lifestyles seem to do. There are thousands of worthy causes, but when I think about some of the true necessities for humans to survive (and hopefully flourish), the ability to sustainably and healthily produce food jumps out at me. There is a great deal that needs to change about our lifestyles in developed countries, but it is hard for me to think of many things more important than achieving sustainable food security. This fundamental importance, coupled with my increasing certainty that I want to pursue work that is more engaging and active than sitting behind a desk, are big parts of what has led me to agriculture. 

Of course, sustainable agriculture is still a broad field. I enjoyed my past experiences working on an organic vegetable farm, but the scale of such operations is usually relatively small. I became interested in livestock and grazing management because it offers ways to regenerate soil health while caring for and managing larger swathes of land. That combination of sustainable food production with ecologically sound land management is such an exciting prospect!

My goal for this apprenticeship is to increase my knowledge and practical skills and learn as much as possible about grazing management, caring for livestock, etc. Before I started working at XK Bar Ranch, I had never worked with livestock and I was new to practically all the skills required. I have already learned a great deal and understand that this apprenticeship is just the first step in a (hopefully) long process of learning. 

My more immediate goal is to gain enough experience to truly be useful on a regenerative agriculture operation. I hope eventually to become qualified enough to manage a regenerative operation, even if I never own one outright. With each day I learn more about all the things I don’t know, but that’s what makes this process so invigorating.

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