A few days ago I came across a very interesting idea in a book called “Soil, Grass and Cancer” by Andre Voisin. He writes, “The living organism is the biochemical photograph of the environment”. Its meaning is simple. We are a repackaging of our environment.

            Scattered in the soil there was once a multitude of different mineral compounds that coalesced and made my life possible. If in that soil a mineral was absent, it is also absent in me. If present, then it must also be present in me. This especially holds true for something like a blade of grass. It spends its entire life in a small patch of soil and in doing so, is a complete, single photograph of its environment. I, however, have never been a complete, single photograph of my environment. I more closely resemble a blurry collage of thousands of environments than a sharp photograph of just one. I’ve lived in a dozen locations and eat, on a daily basis, food that is grown all over the world. The blade of grass is the exact opposite. It lives, grows and dies within the limitations of the soil it is rooted to. Any disease or deficiency can be traced back to the soil it grows in. The old saying that a rancher isn’t in the business of raising cattle, but in the business of growing grass should be taken one step further. They should be saying that they are growers of soil.                   

             At the Sabo Ranch, we all do our best to help the soil grow right along. Synthetic chemicals are never sprayed. As a result, biological activity in the soil is high, letting organic matter build and nutrients cycle. The pastures are alternately grazed and rested, allowing for both stimulation and recovery. As cattle graze on a 100% grass fed diet, they naturally disturb the plant community, adding carbon below the soil and nutrient rich manure above. They are also given a well balanced selection of all natural minerals, vitamins and probiotics, some of which cycle right back into the soil. During the winter months when grass is sparse, the Sabo’s use hay that was baled from their own fields. This ensures quality feed, reduces feeding costs and replaces the minerals that were mined by the grass to cycling back into the soil. Great care and attention is put into this system because it is the basis for maintaining a healthy soil. Without which, the grass would not be as nutrient dense and the beef would not be as tender and delicious. The best part about Sabo beef is that it is an almost exact biochemical photograph of the Sabo Ranch environment. And what do you see when you look at their Devon herd? All you have to do is look at the soil. 

            In the last few years, I have slowly been becoming more aware of the relationship that exists between soil, food and well being. I found that once you begin to see this relationship, you cannot hide from it. Barren stubble fields once conjured up images of a vibrant country harvest and wheat being ground into flour to bake fresh bread. The realities are much less idyllic. Stubble fields are the equivalent of an open wound to the soil. After harvesting the wheat, that wound is tilled with steel or sprayed with herbicides. It is then left open to the wind, rain and sun, causing erosion, runoff and baking. It rests for a year in this state and then is put back to work. This soil is assuredly not in good health, yet it is this health that is transferred into the majority of the plants we consume. The final link in this chain of causality is that the health of the plants we eat, ultimately translates into our own health. How can you then believe that food is just food and that pleasure rests in having a full, bloated belly, regardless of what you put in it?  How can you believe that dirt is just dirt and that your health only matters when something is wrong?        

            Ultimately, food must become synonymous with place. At the Sabo Ranch, I eat good food because that food comes from a place that is cared for. The milk that I got from the cows today is tasty because it is a product of grass. That grass is a product of wind blown loess from the Tobacco Roots Mountains that has settled over thousands of years to create a productive pasture. The egg that I fried for breakfast had such a golden yolk because the chickens are allowed to embody that relationship between food and place as they scratch around for their meal outside in the Sabo‘s backyard. If Voisin were alive today to comment, I’m sure he would say only one thing. “Biochemically Picture Perfect”.

Nice, deep, and gentle, these two year old heifers are ready for breeding, never exposed to a bull. Take them home for your own sire choices.

An example of our group of Devon/Red Angus heifers for Sale, born May/June 2010. Open. Grandsire: Rotokawa Devon 688

Sabo Ranch winter chickens and ducks, outside enjoying the sunlight and space in spite of the snowy ground. Photo: Kiril Sabo age 6-3/4

One week has passed since I first arrived at the Sabo Ranch and today, as I write, the sun is shining and the snow is slowly retreating, revealing what will soon thaw into the great mud fields of spring. The ducks happily make a great deal of noise (but not much else) and the chickens are beginning to lay more eggs as the day length increases. Inside the greenhouse the peach tree is beginning to blossom above dwindling supplies of kale and swiss chard. The dairy and beef cattle are turning last season’s saved bounty of grasses into milk and meat and in a few months, will give birth to calves so that the herd will continue to grow.

 The winter weather in Harrison, MT has been mild. Snow storms blow in one moment and then pass to reveal blue skies. Nights have been cloudy and cold, ensuring that in the morning, ice will have to be broken off the watering tanks, nature’s way of providing me with a certain level of intern job security. The sun is beginning to shine more often, powering solar panels and allowing the cattle to shift their energy use away from protecting themselves against the cold to putting on more weight and growing their calves. According to Jenny, the wind has been unusually still for this time of year and as evidence, the wind turbines outside of my cabin have remained, for the most part, in a state of motionlessness. It is amazing how aware you become of the weather patterns when they directly influence how much energy you can consume and also when they are the motor that drives your business, the business of turning grass into quality meat products.

The routine of daily life here at the ranch is sheltered on one side by the Tobacco Roots, at times veiled in clouds and at times stark against big sky. It is sustained and nurtured by South Willow Creek, whose waters wind through now dormant pasture but in the spring and summer will create a microclimate for excellent grass production. The routine has been designed to exist within a framework of practical self sufficiency, tempered by the realities that face a business whose ideals fly in the face of our multinational, industrialized food system. This framework rests atop a family economy that has struck a harmonious balance with the natural world. It is one that moves and grows at Mother Natures pace. It works to slowly build the soil over time as poisons and pesticides are replaced with patience and passion. It is within this framework that I am trying to learn as much as I can so that someday I can create a routine built around similar ideals.

But like any good routine, it is often thrown out the window. In grade school, these are called field trips. In college, these are called internships. On the ranch, these are called any number of things.

For instance, one such break in the routine occurred last week in the form of a visit to the veterinarian. We loaded up one of the horses to have his foot looked at because he had a severe cut. When we arrived there was already another trailer in front of us waiting to unload a cow into the chutes. An old time rancher poked and prodded the unseen cow out of the trailer and low and behold, the poor girl’s vagina was dangling inside out, outside of her body. I would later learn that what I was looking at was a vaginal prolapse, which occurs in pregnant cows when they are suffering from increased pressure in the abdomen, most likely associated with the approaching birth of her calve. The vet secured the cow and then proceeded to push it back in. After much effort on his part, everything was back inside and over with, or so I assumed. He looked around, asked for a volunteer and then in the same breath, picked me. What I then performed was something that I will never forget. He gave me a quick rundown of the tools I would be using for my end of the operation and how we would then proceed once it got underway. I was armed with a scalpel, a plastic cap and a pin. He moved his arm into the cow’s reproductive area holding a long plastic tube that had a plastic cap on the bottom and a removable needle coming out of the top. Once he reached the designated area with the tip of the needle, I cut a small X into the cow’s side, pulled the needle out and then capped the tube, securely fastening what had once been outside of her body to the side of her stomach.

SABO ABBY (Sire: Rotokawa 93, Dam: Rotokawa 958) photographed Feb 2010, after a winter eating only standing grass and 20 lbs/day of 1st cutting hay.

SABO ABBY, just after she was born in a May Montana snowstorm, the first of our 2008 calves. Abby is an ET(embryo transplant) calf, borne and nursed by one of our Red Angus heifers.

SABO ABBY is the first of our growing herd of purebred Rotokawa Devon cattle.  The eldest of our 9 current Rotokawa Devons, Abby is gentle, intelligent, and remarkably easy keeping.  Although she was carried by and born to our most slender Red Angus cow (in her first pregnancy!), Abby is showing her Devon genetics well.   We will be harvesting embryos from Abby this summer.   We look towards increasing our Montana-born Rotokawa Devons for ourselves, and other cattle ranchers seeking their easy keeping, easy fleshing, tender, 100% grassfed genetics.

ABBY is not for sale, as we are building our current herd, but her full brother, SABO BEN, will take over as our herd sire this summer, for our Red Angus cows, and our Devon/Red Angus first-calf heifers (born May/June 2008).

We have more Rotokawa ET bull calves (born May 2009) here than we will need, and will be selecting which to sell next spring, 2011.  They are looking terrific at the moment, even in the dead of winter!  Look for a post coming soon with photos of our 2009 crop of Rotokawa Devons!

For more information about our Rotokawa Devons, or our Devon crossbred cattle, contact us at (406)685-3248, saboranch@gmail.com

 

Jules, log splitting completed, is ready for a hot woodstove on a cold winter morning.

Jules’ favorite Auracana hen, sitting in the laying box ready for her fresh morning egg.

Jules drives the manual shift Mitsubishi hay feeding truck with Kiril, Riley, and Jet the Labrador in the back

Jules feeds the birds in the chicken house, his daily task since he arrived.

Jules milks Jersey cow Lila

 Throughout my first week here on the Sabo Ranch I have done many significant things that benefit the ranch, ranging from occupying the boys, to feeding chickens and ducks, to driving cattle. The job I do the most is feeding chickens and ducks before my breakfast. It is a simple but essential task. I have to make a judgment about how much they are eating from the amount of feed that is left over from the day before, and check on general health for the flock.

On my first full day at the ranch one of the three horses got very sick with colic (accumulated sand in its intestines from eating hay off the ground in the bare corral). Because of this, Jenny Sabo was a little agitated and nervous so she gave me rushed instructions that I did not fully understand.  As a result I did not give the calves the correct feed.  After a bit we sorted things out and got on the right track.  Earlier that day there was a mother cow and her bull calf that needed to be moved to a lower field.  We droved them into a long fenced-in area and picked out the mother and her calf. We then pushed (scared) them into the trailer so they could be transported to a better grazing field, where the bull calf would not be able to breed the heifer calves.

In the first few days I was asking many questions so that I could get more acquainted with the place, the people and the way things work. However, after a while I became more comfortable and was able to asses a situation and make a good choice on my own. For instance when I noticed a tub of water tub that needed to be refilled I jumped to do it.

The work that is most challenging is milking cows. There are four dairy cows but only three are producing milk at this time.  All of these cows have calves that need to become more comfortable with humans, this is accomplished by grooming each calf with a curry comb, which I have started doing while Jenny milks the mother cow.

Over the next week I hope to master the art of milking and to become more independent with more things than just feeding chickens and cows. Something that I have been learning on the side is how to drive a manual transmission vehicle. I also hope to master this in the next week.

Jules practicing safe shooting with Mark's rifle. 8 shots in the bullseye at 70 yards, his first time shooting a rifle. What a ringer!

Jules at the edge of the Buffalo Jump at Harrison Lake. There is a steep 100 foot drop beyond the edge pictured here.

Entry Three

Febuary 11th 2010

By Jules Feeney

Jules Feeney at “Montana’s Best Meats” cutting room with Wayne Worley, manager

Entry two

February 3, 2010

                                                                                                            By, Jules Feeney

As the days progress everything begins to flow more easily. We wake up; we do early morning chores; feeding chickens and moving horses and cows. Lately, I have taken charge of the chickens and ducks; refilling their food and water pails. When I’m finished feeding the chickens and ducks and Mrs. Jenny with the cows we head in for breakfast.

When breakfast is finished we Mark, Kiril and sometimes Riley and I drive down to the hay barn before feeding the cattle located on the lower fields. I have taken to driving the little white manual pickup truck that distributes the feed. When I return from this I usually assist Jenny with the grooming and milking of the dairy cows.

Only this morning I woke up at around five O’clock, did the early morning chores and hit the road; our destination, the butcher. Only 45 minutes later we were there. I was not sure how I would react to the slaughtering of cows, but I managed. What I did realize was that these cows have only been bred to be beef cows so they have been treated as such. This learning experience has been one of the best because I now know the way in which the beef is treated in its last minutes.

The ranch continues to be a constant flow of learning and experience that never stops.

Kiril Sabo and Jules Feeney start a snow fort on a winter afternoon

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

This is my first day on the Sabo Ranch and these are a few of my first impressions. Only some things are consistent. The cows and chickens need to be watched on a daily basis. The way in which the runts interact with the other animals effects the way the feeding is done. The overall rhythm of things is considerably consistent, every morning the cows and chickens are fed and checked on.

            The family is very much just a family with a significant amount of chores that need to be done. Kiril (age six) and Riley (age nine) help, play or work all the time. Riley seems to know everything there is to know about his ranch. Kiril is still learning the way things work from his brother. Both boys have their own set of things to do around the house. Every evening someone goes out to the chicken coup to collect the eggs.

The family could not have been more welcoming or better teachers. I look forward to more days of work and learning with this kind family.

For more information on Sabo Ranch Internships, contact us at saboranch@gmail.com,

(406)685-3248.