The signs are everywhere - Nature wants to grow grass.

We just wont let it...

Now, if you were in the cattle industry - wouldn't you want more grass? I mean lets think here... Grass makes Cows, Cows + Bulls make Calves and Calves make Dollars! Makes sense to me, how 'bout you?

But, in the United States, and many other countries worldwide, the exact opposite is underway. Cattle are let loose on the land to pick and choose only the grass(es) they like most, then overgraze them to extinction. The only remaining plants are those of lower nutrition, less filling and poor taste. Over a long period of time, cattle exposed continuously to an ecosystem will create a landscape less favorable to themselves and their offspring.

How do we combat this?

Well, first, we stop continuous grazing. Then we must rebuild the ecosystem, with the help of the Cow - they can build as efficaciously as they destroy, if managed properly.

​That's a big "if"...

But, to begin, we must shift that damaged ecosystem in the right direction - just ever-so-slightly.

We figured something out recently. We found that ten feet left or right of nearly any road in America has great grasslands - why?

​Because they are pruned once per year for fire or weed control (some jurisdictions spray them - lazy dopes). This is done mostly by mowing with large tractors. Trimming and mowing are what the grasslands responded to for millennia before we got here. This was compliments of nearly 70 Million Buffalo, roaming, ranging and tilling our soils.

​Now, if you know anything about grazing cattle (and really if you just have common sense) you can see that the plant systems outside the "mow-line" are much less healthy, less nutritious and more erosion prone than those inside the line. 

As show in the pictures below... 

Take a look at those pictures again... they are astonishing. Here we see the grazing area (outside the fence) in deplorable condition, with tap-rooted, fire prone and non-nutritious brush in abundance. The area between the fence and road provides much more nutrition - why? Because it has been trimmed (on a time-oriented basis) by a tractor, but that is essentially what controlled grazing is, at its root - time oriented trimming.

So, my question is this...

Can we pit a tractor against 50 Cows? Who would be better for the environment? Who would add manure back to the ecosystem? Who would not need a defined benefits retirement plan? 

​This week Eve and I are visiting Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm in Swoope, VA. 
 
Polyface is a legend in the integrity farm and food movement. Started by the Salatin family in the 1960s, Polyface became an organic, food freedom and teaching hub - long before organic was even a cool buzzword. 
 
Joel has authored over ten books, all aimed at helping turn the tide of the failed food and agriculture policy in the United States towards integrity, locally sourced small-farm success. His farm trains and equips the next generation of food freedom fighters on the East Coast. 
 
Our goal is to become the same hub of inspiration and teaching on the West Coast. Stay tuned for exciting developments in the next few years.
 
Like Polyface, SonRise Ranch cattle are fed only grass - a stark contrast to the industrial farming method used to produce 90% of all beef.

​Henry Ford is widely considered to have been the father of the assembly line method of production. With a predictable output and consistent product, his model "T" Ford became the first mass-produced automobile in history. This is a reductionist’s dream - defined inputs, predictability, and steady product. Who could ask for more?
 
The problem is, of course, that such a linear and parts-oriented approach works perfectly for any given mechanical object.

But not a biological one.

Cows were never created to be reared in a factory setting. They were never designed to be confined, to have consistent feed (called a TDR or "total daily ration") of measured corn day after day and never given freedom to roam on grass. 

How would you feel if I trapped you behind bars and fed you only oatmeal for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Every day, each day, for your whole life - you never move more than 100 feet and eat the same thing no matter what.

In human vernacular, we call this "prison."

This creates disease, poor muscle structure, harmful pathogen explosion and a host of other issues. ​So we took the 2.5 hour drive from Alexandria, VA, to Swoope, VA, to visit the legendary Polyface. For hours we passed by civil war battlefields, picturesque plantation homes on hundreds of acres, marching routes of Washington’s revolution army. Each site basked brilliantly in the full bloom of a remarkable spring day in the Shenandoah Valley. Rural Virginia is nothing like the West Coast. At nearly twice the annual rainfall of our brittle environment in San Diego County, water is both prolific and abundant. Flowing water is everywhere. Streams, beavers, dams. Farms are ubiquitous. The majority of restaurants are some variation of Farm-to-Table, and I don't mean in name only. They really are directly supplied by a farm. Polyface alone supplies over 30 of them. 

​As we approached Polyface in our awesome and formidable compact rental car, Eve and I both commented at nearly the exact time - Where are the rotational graziers? Where are the temporary electric fences, Cows groped in small compact grazing structures that cause perennial grasses to proliferate and grow in abundance (all the while sequestering 15% more carbon than unmanaged, continual, dispersed cattle on pasture)? Where are all the pastured chickens?

The hours soon gave way to minutes on the GPS estimate time for arrival.  By now for sure, there would be plenty of farms and ranches (we call them ranches on the West Coast, back east they call them farms) that replicated, modified and repeated Joel's practices.

I mean, really folks, here you are within a stone’s throw of the father of the environmentally friendly land stewardship movement of the 20th century and you’re running a confinement, factory chicken house with 35,000 hens living on top of each other and a manure lagoon to catch waste runoff!

To set an accurate context here, you must understand that Polyface is the Jerusalem of the clean food movement. Joel has been featured in numerous books, movies, and high profile articles. He is sought by theologians and earth lovers alike. His methods have been replicated across thousands of farms in the United States. The day we stopped by, he had just returned from a two-week speaking tour in Australia. His influence in our ranching methods alone has been legendary.

As we turned the final left onto Polyface’s drive, we passed a confinement dairy with perhaps 1500 cows. The bare land erosion was stifling. Cattle left to pasture, with no management or rotation, had denuded the grass to zero.
Zero - really... nothing was left. Precious topsoil was eroding downstream.

For over two hours, our senses were bombarded with poor land management. We were acutely aware of the lack of eco-friendly farming surrounding Polyface. It was astonishing. When we finally arrive on Joel's farm we exhaled with a deep sigh of "finally." His farm was teeming with life, from bugs to chickens. Life was everywhere, the grass was the deepest and most vibrant I had seen yet.

I guess the light shines brightest in the dark. The contrast was palpable. 

With neat, orderly equipment placed as we would on our ranch, it was readily apparent that this was a working farm. We were just two of 15,000 annual visitors from nearly 20 different countries. The nearest gas station is a substantial distance, groceries are even further, and we hadn’t seen more than a few vehicles in the last 20 minutes. The farm is remote by any standard. The hum of activity and birds chirping greeted us as we exited our car and headed for the Farm Store.

Following a brief visit to the farm store, we ventured out. Walking out past the car, I spotted Joel from a few hundred feet.
“Joel” – I shouted, as he turned and walked towards us. “We’ve come all the way from California to see you!”
“Well that’s great,” he replied in his quintessential southern drawl. After a short introduction, we explained, rather quickly, the impetus for starting our ranch. Eve’s autoimmune disease and the dearth of valuable, righteously cultivated, local foods. We told him of the inspiration he provided us when we first viewed FOOD INC, and of reading his books feverishly, so as to boot-strap our fledgling business into what SonRise is today.
​
After the monolog, I embarrassingly stammered out, “Sorry, I am probability keeping you from work.” He was fixated on our story, as if we were the only ones around that day. It was humbling, to say the least - he kept asking engaging questions.

“Actually, we’re filming a documentary here today,” gesturing towards the film crew that had been listening intently. “Why don’t you jump in the back of my truck and join us?”

We traveled with Joel and the film crew in the bed of his truck up to the top of the farm, where the watershed and catchment ponds collect excess runoff from the mountain’s aquifer, supplying irrigation via gravity for a few thousand acres. It looked like a super-sized version of our Ranch. Innovation was everywhere. Healthy, well fed animals in plenty. Life was abundant.
​
What I hadn’t known, until later, was that Joel had only hours before disembarked from a 25-hour flight from Australia, a nation in desperate need of his counsel. He had been there for two weeks on a speaking tour. This film crew had booked their appointment four months in advance, and he was gracious enough to include an entire afternoon of his time with us.

I was stunned.

I soon learned that we held the same philosophy with respect to people and the leading of our hearts for our constituency. In a later conversation, I found him agreeing with me when I quipped that as integrity farmers our “greatest ability is availability” – a saying I am fond of teaching each person in our employ. Our people need answers, they need to be heard, and they need someone to take the time to focus on them, even if just for a moment, to see them through this difficult process of finding a food shed for their sustenance and healing.

Joel and I had a kindred spirit. For both of us, this was more than land stewardship, animal care and environmental engagement - it was a calling.
​
The day meandered on. Our conversation was rich and diverse. We shared our dreams with him. He offered only encouragement and insight. I don’t recall even a word of caution. His zeal for a food-freedom world and farms that honor creation was astonishing. In a short afternoon, we bonded. As Eve and I left, Joel jumped on a four-wheeler and made his way to a pasture with cows in it. He was checking the mineral lick for the cattle as we passed him in our car. We waved, he waved. After hours on a plane, hours of interviews, deep, thoughtful, meaningful conversation - his respite was to go check on the cows.

Kindred spirits indeed.

We reluctantly started the long journey back. Inspired and motivated, the same countryside greeted us in our return trip. This time I saw it differently. I was not saddened by the lack of regenerative and sustainable posture of the neighboring farms; Eve and I were too busy discussing the renewed hope and enthusiasm we had for SonRise. It may be true that no prophet is accepted in his hometown, but when you are the one who encountered the prophet – it doesn’t really matter. 

We've been hearing it for years, those of us in the integrity food movement - Bone Broth, its the best thing going.

Right?

Well, yes, no, maybe... let me explain.

Let's think logically for a moment... What is the densest part of an animal?

If you answered, "The bones" you are correct - (congratulations, here's a sticker).
Bones are very dense, they hold the animal upright, don't deteriorate quickly and have been there since the beginning of its life.

So, if the animal has a history of mistreatment, stress, drugs, poor feed, bioaccumulation of chemicals (these are all factory farming side effects by the way) then, where, pray tell do those thing accumulate?
​
Right, again - in the bones.

So don't eat them.

Here is where I digress to being a lunatic Rancher again.

You know, the lunatic who says to the Vegan passing by my Grass-Fed and Finished Booth at the Farmer's Market: "Why don't you eat meat?"
"Because I don't agree with the way Animals are treated in our Modern Farming Systems", they reply.
"I wholeheartedly agree, if we didn't raise our own animals the right way, I would encourage everyone to be like you"
At this point, they are stunned. Blinking their eyes with astonishment they can't believe a Rancher wearing a cowboy hat would advocate the the world go vegan. Not sure whether to hug me or run away scared, they stammer the only word that comes to mind..."Huh?"
I take that as an invitation to excitedly explain how farming can be done with integrity, truth and dignity towards the animals and environment entrusted to our care. How this can heal our hurting earth, and how these methods produce an exceptional tasting, nutrient dense product far superior to any vegetable available, all-the-while sequestering 10x the carbon we produce.

So, why would I campaign against something as food righteous as bone broth?

Because well meaning folks read a nutrition website heralding the benefits of Bone Broth then run off to their local industrial grocery store, find the poorest quality, "organic" factory chicken or beef with no thought for how it was raised, kept, fed or cared for and make an easily digestible direct injection of bone broth, laden with chemicals and antibiotics directly into their digestive system, all the while proclaiming "health".

Are you kidding me?

I am now in that awkward position of having to tell people the truth - and boy-oh-boy is that unpopular in this current climate!

So, here we go...

Just like the poorly informed but well intentioned Vegan, "Bone Broth-ers" are lost in the clutter of commercialism. Doomed to poison themselves if not tossed a life line of common sense. They drink gallons of industrial "organic" Broth simply because it has a fancy label confident that it will heal their every ailment.

Lord help us!

When you drink broth, made from a factory-tortured animal you are consuming the greatest nutritional density you can find of that animals mistreatment, poor health and shoddy feed regime. If you don't start with the best possible elements, from the beginning, you are hamstringing your efforts from the get go. With nutritionally dense products, like bone broth, you must start at the apex of quality before distillation and rendering (same goes for making lard and tallow from fats by the way).

"Well," you say, "My beef bone broth is "Grass-fed"." So it is just fine, right? Wrong. Read this article to find out what "Grass-fed" really means.

In this and the following blogs (parts 2 and 3 will follow) I am going to detail how you, at home, can make the very best bone broth in large quantities with very little money and effort. You can have significantly greater quality, for a fraction of the price you will find in any store. It will take effort, but no, you will not collapse from exhaustion. We've done this for years in our home and get better each time we process a batch. It can be done on a Saturday with a leisurely amount of exertion. Watch the football game, or visit with the family and process a batch of broth to keep your system well fed and going for 6 months.

Efficiency comes with practice. Practice requires patience. Your health is worth it. Trust me.

Ok, let's begin...

First you need good equipment. Notice I said "good" not expensive. I believe in frugality. Experts tell us that our Grandparents lived in the generation of resource extraction, and we live in the generation of resource recycling. It is astonishing what is being thrown away by our generation.

One aspect I love about bone broth is reuse - it tickles the little environmentalist deep inside my Rancher heart. You get to re-use the jars, process an exceptional product, from a somewhat unwanted byproduct (bones) on your own, with used equipment, and all for the price of pennies.
​
It's a win-win.

Your task is to find the following:

1. Used canning jars. All shapes and sizes. Look on Craigslist. If Craigslist-ers give you the heebie-jeebies then use Facebook Marketplace. You can view the profile of the person you are buying from with Facebook Marketplace, so at least you can see who the person is and judge whether they are reputable or not. My wife feels a little better about her transactions on Facebook Marketplace rather than Craigslist because of this. Anyway, use one of the apps/websites that has used stuff for sale. It's a great way to conserve resources and keep things out of landfills. Plus, you're buying canning jars - axe murders usually don't have canning equipment for sale, so you are probably safe anyway.

2. A pressure canner. I found one on the side of the road one time. Really, like as if someone was waiting for the trash guys to pick it up. This stuff is so unused, in today's society, that I've found them for $3 at a garage sale (they sell new for $200). They look like this... make sure it has a pressure gauge.

Or buy one from an elderly lady who loves to garden and "put up" the extra larder for winter. Go over to her house, have a great talk with her and make her day - it will make yours too (trust me I know from experience). She has probably forgotten more about canning than I will ever know. She will most likely enjoy giving you all her canning secrets.

3. A bunch of lids. New ones - don't reuse old lids, regardless of how good they look. If you do, your jars won't seal right and your broth will go bad. Go to any store as common as WalMart and get a box of new ones. You might spend $5 on a dozen. 

4. Rings - for the size jars you have. 

5. Jar lifter. This handy little invention makes lifting a very hot jar from your pressure cooker/canner a breeze. Your jars can get to 250 degrees inside the canner. After the canner depressurizes, you will need to lift the jars out (more on that later), so you will need this lifter. 

6. Pastured, non-GMO fed, non-Soy fed chicken bones. If you've raised them and fed them on your own - good, use those. You will be the sole guarantee that they are fed and pastured correctly. If you don't or can't raise chickens because you live in a nanny-state that tells you what you can and cannot do with you land, then try to find a highly reputable source for bones. Ask to see the feed bag labels. Feed bag labels are very common. You don't have to be a genius to read them either - they read like food ingredients. You can read a label and know exactly what ingredient the chicken is eating. Look for the word "organic" before each ingredient. This will guarantee non-GMO. A feed bag label should be as common as a shovel on a pasture based ranch. If a farmer cannot furnish a feed bag label he or she is a fraud and is most likely buying commodity chicken and passing it off as their own. 

Do not settle for "Organic" chicken bones from a grocery store. "Organic" when it comes to fruits and veggies means everything. When it comes to animals it means almost nothing. The health of an animal stems from its environment and interaction with its environment. Animals can survive on almost anything, but coop them up, remove natural light, dirt, the ability to move around (a lot) and normal animal function and their health (plus the health of anything consuming that animal - like you) will plummet.  We say 80% of animal welfare is environmental. The remaining 20% is what they are fed. 

To learn more about what a chicken should eat click here. 

We take the breasts, wings and legs off the chicken. We use the backs as pictured here for broth. This does two things; first, you get a ton of meat and fat with your bones. The fat is drenched with Omega-3's (the same reason we eat salmon). These fats are perfectly suited for assimilation by your body as you digest the broth. Your gut lining can easily recognize this and digest it quickly for healing. 

Secondly, this portion of the animal is often wasted. You are conserving resources when you use chicken backs. They really have no other purpose than broth - so be a green warrior and use the chicken backs. 

Now that you've gathered what you need, we can begin the make the broth broth. This will take a day - but it is very easy work. In part two of this blog I will detail how to make the Broth using a pressure cooker. This will ensure an extremely high quality broth with much more nutrient density than crock pot, or conventional methods provide. 

In part three, we will pressure can our Broth to USDA standards. This allows a large portion to be made at once, keeping cost and effort to a minimum and allow us to safely store our Broth as a shelf-stable item without using any energy to operate a  freezer or refrigerator. 

Stay tuned, we are going to save money, save resources and heal our guts all at once... 

Recently my blogs have been somewhat shocking – even to the point of being accused of “scaremongering”, by some readers who, for whatever reason or motivation, just can’t deal with the awful truth that your government is not interested in your personal health. Fair warning to all who read, the next series of posts will be a real shocker.  If you’ve got thin skin or a queasy stomach - this one might not be for you either. We are going to take a look at conventional chicken production and how it differs from the Free-Range, Organic fed model used here at SonRise Ranch.

The density of chicken production in the United Sates has changed drastically since the 1950s and 60s. The Pew Research Center has published a report titled Big Chicken a report that details a number of startling statistics that consumers of chicken and chicken products should know;

• More Chickens but fewer farms - in 50 years, chicken production has increased 1400%, while farms that raise chickens has decreased 98%., thus increasing chicken production density by a staggering number, as you might imagine this means overcrowding. Compare the photo above with the video below and ask yourself; which animal is healther?
• Average conventional (even certified organic) chicken comes from a mega-farm that produces up to 605,000 birds annually

• The wages for such production have plummited. Fifty years ago, one could make a decent middle income wage from chicken farming. Not today, the average chicken farmer is a slave to the big producers

Drugs are killing us. The baltent overuse of antibiotics in the farming industry has created an epidemic of drug-resistant bacteria strains. This chicken industry has been one of the main culprits.

Tyson foods, one of the larger chicken producers in the US recently announced that they would stop using antibiotics used in humans – but the damage may have already been done. Currently 25 million pounds of antibiotics are used in animal product annually.

When you eat meat treated with antibiotics, you not only eat the antibiotic but the bacteria too, in fact 22% of all antibiotic resistant cases are related to food borne illnesses.

​What makes SonRise Ranch chicken different?

First, and most importantly, our chickens live outside, where they should.  If you’ve followed us for anytime now, you know about our innovative “Chig-tractors” a solid knock off of the traditional Chicken tractor designed and made tough enough to handle free range pigs too.

This solves the problem of density immediately since our chickens are given a new patch of land every 24-48 hours. This is great for the chicken’s growth, quality of life and overall health. But it is also necessary for good grass growth (the primary goal of a grass-fed beef operation). Conventional farms use Potassium, Nitrogen and Phosphorus, made from chemical compounds and petroleum. Nitrogen occurs naturally and in high concentrations in chicken manure. At SonRise, if our fields need Nitrogen, we move the chickens through and let nature supply the need.

Secondly, we don’t use antibiotics – period. This is pretty simple. Outdoor chickens don’t get sick because they are exposed to the elements and nature. They are very well adapted to “roughing” it and the last thing we want is to bring them in out of the sunlight and away from green grass, bugs and dirt. Thus we have no need of medicine for them. Our biggest worry is predators, which we mitigate with well build tractors the chickens occupy at night.

In our next installment we will look at bacteria, chicken waste and the fate of over 200 million chicks annually the system deems unmarketable.

​Stay tuned.