FINAL REFLECTION
November 2023

Often in life we are presented with opportunities that we choose not to take because they are inconvenient, hard, or require the ability to admit we don’t know as much as we wished. The NAP apprenticeship was such an opportunity for me.  I finished graduate school and found myself under qualified for most of the jobs that interested me.  I thought two more years of school would inspire a passion for office work or a “real” job.  However, completing my thesis only reinvigorated my need to be out on the land. I was not at peace with the idea of sitting in front of a computer most days and frankly, can’t imagine a future where I ever will be. 

Spending the last seven months with the Mannix’s in Montana’s Blackfoot Valley helped reaffirm my love of ranching. I fixed fence, doctored calves, rode through a lot of wet pine branches, asked many stupid questions, raked hay, and washed more dirt off my clothes than my washing machine was comfortable with. I didn’t love every minute of it, but the good days more than made up for the hard days and my “why” never wavered.   

I felt sunshine on my face nearly every morning.  I listened to the summer rain trickle down the tin roof of my log cabin. I had quiet moments of solitude atop my horse, listening for cows bawling in the distance.  I watched my dog frolic amongst the new spring growth of sagebrush. I shared meals with four generations of good, honest people, eating beef they raised with their blood, sweat, and tears. I tagged newborn calves, still wet from birth and hidden mindfully against the brush. I drove hay trucks that were made well before I was born. I stood in ditches and pushed irrigation tarp into mud. I spent every day with people that are committed to doing what’s best for their animals, the land, and their family. I learned patience and respect for the grit it takes to ranch through five generations. 

I ignored calls from family and friends because I was too tired. During calving, I kept my kitchen in a state that I know would make my mother cry. I ate more mac n cheese during haying season than I ate in my entire childhood combined. I held scoury calves on the back of the 4wheeler as they shit down my leg. I spent endless hours in the walk-in freezer with numb fingers packing beef. I watched sick calves die despite all our best efforts. I got way less sleep than is medically recommended. I fell asleep to the whine of mosquitos climbing through my window screen. I greased a lifetime of wheel bearings. I felt guilty for not working as hard as I wished I could. I felt the weight of every decision, knowing it could affect land and animal well-being. I witnessed many hard truths of ranching.

It’s easy to miss the sacrifices that farmers and ranchers make. The older generations have gone without time for hobbies and vacations for most of their life. They have worked from dawn to dusk every day and many days past dusk. Their bodies have paid for it. Their wives have raised kids who wished they saw more of their fathers. They have spent countless hours agonizing over every decision that concerned the health of their animals and therefore, their families. They have felt alone, isolated and confused when things go wrong, and it felt like there’s no one to talk to. But they have also grown up on a land they’ve known and loved since birth. They have hauled kids around on stubborn old ponies to check cows. They have watched thousands of sunsets against mountains with golden cottonwoods streaking down their draws. Every old barn, rusty truck, and bend in the crick hold memories of generations past and the potential for new memories with future generations. They have watched their family grow and move home and enjoy more moments with grandkids than most. They know and love their land more deeply for it.

This lifestyle isn’t for everyone. I’m still not certain that it is for me.  It’s wonderfully seductive and beautiful. Ranching forces you to encounter realities that others often deem irrelevant. People don’t always truly see you when they buy your beef in the grocery store. I hope those that live in town, trapped between rows of hot cement and the cacophony of the city take a moment.  A moment to slow down and be outside, to sink their toes in the dirt and feel the earth breath beneath their feet. I hope those people truly see the farms and ranches they drive past while speeding down the highway. I hope they see those farmers and ranchers who show up every day to make their world better, the sacrifices their families make to ensure their land doesn’t end up suffocated with asphalt—the only visible nature left, a row of introduced trees forced between two medians. If there was ever a time to value the members of our society who work on the land, for the land, that time is now. 

REFLECTIONS AFTER THE FIRST MONTH
April 2023

The hard plastic seat of the children’s swing cupped my lanky nine-year-old legs perfectly. My fingers curled around the rough, vinyl rope that suspended the swing from the arbor. It attached just below the grape vine, that although beautiful, would come to be an abounding source of food for our Norwegian roof rat infestation. I could sit in that swing endlessly. Legs pumping back and forth, aiming for that the pivotal height where your butt just briefly leaves the seat. In that moment, simultaneously suspended by excitement and fear, I could forget everything else. Next to me was an almond tree, much less enjoyable to climb than the other fruit trees due to its gnarled and uneven bark. Its fruit was similarly protected. First, by a soft fuzzy shell. Hidden beneath a nearly unbreakable woody covering, a sweet nut tucked inside. I often underestimated the strength of the inner woody shell, frequently bending a fingernail backwards as I tried to pry it open. But the true gem of the yard was the peach tree, which served as my own personal climbing gym and vending machine. A close second to the thrill of the swing, there was nothing like thrusting my hands up through the leaves to procure a sweet soft peach.

Those homegrown peaches were much more than a coveted fruit held together by delicate velvet skin. Canning and dehydrating our prolific backyard harvest provided a steady stream ofintrigue throughout those school-less summer months. I remember peaking around the kitchen corner in earnest as I watched my dad stand dutifully in front of the hot water bath, the occasional swear word just a whisper on his lips as a jar would slip from the grasp of the canning tongs. Those peaches and nectarines I had helped pick hours before, as I wound my fingers around the branches and flung myself up into the canopy, were now sitting halved in airtight mason jars. The adventure didn’t end there. In the coming months, I would forget about those peach halves, glistening in sugary peach juice, cloaked in darkness along the bottom shelf of our pantry. Inevitably summer would end, and the dark, rainy days of winter would descend upon Yolo County. Just as winter became comfortable with its dreary days and early sunsets, my dad would crack open a jar of peaches. And as I sat on the kitchen floor, hands and face sticky with peach juice, eyes wild at the sudden influx of sugar, summertime shot into the sky. The warm mornings, the backyard barbecues, the cool delta breeze that brought frog “ribbits” in through open evening windows, summer camps, and weekend fishing trips up the hill would all come flooding back with the pop of a single mason jar.

When I reflect on my life, the fleeting moments in which I was filled with joy and belonging, all of them involve food or wild places. Often a combination of the two. Enchanting moments from my childhood picking peaches, finding an egg tucked under a hen, and watching tiny seeds turn into vegetables on the dinner table all helped me understand what it meant for me to lead a meaningful life. The many summers I spent in the alpine forests of the Eastern Sierra packing mules and cooking meals over a fire inspired an intense love of wild places. My relationship with the land became the cornerstone of my value system. When I first discovered the story of those practicing regenerative agriculture it felt like I was coming home. I had found my “why.” Land stewardship and the production of ethical food felt like the radical culmination of my values and passions. 

I believe that a life built around an intentional relationship with my values will always be meaningful. I chose to pursue the NAP program because I believe Quivira cultivates relationships with ranches that are similarly passionate about land stewardship and ethical food. Many of the stewards I have met are also driven by nostalgic childhood memories and a passion for raising food in balance with nature. Much of our relationship with food has become fragmented and extractive. For me, part of the appeal of regenerative agriculture is the opportunity to reconnect people to what’s on their plate. Small farms and ranches offer an intimacy and opportunity for intentionality that corporate agriculture lacks. The culture around regenerative agriculture is often one steeped in community and respect for the land. Regenerative agriculture offers an agricultural paradigm that feels meaningful to me.  

Apprenticing at the Mannix Ranch offers me access to generational knowledge and a timeline of management strategies that would be otherwise unattainable in my lifetime. I am grateful to join a community in where a deep respect for the land is rooted in the business model itself.  While this is not a path I imagined for myself whilst sucking down peach juice on the kitchen floor, I could not have envisioned a more perfect intersection of my values than joining an industry revival founded on the production of conservation and ethical food.

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