Welcome to the Field Journal, where we leave the workshop to spend time with the people and places that share our way of looking at the world. First stop: a cattle ranch in the Sierra foothills.
Earlier this spring, the three of us flew up to Grass Valley to spend a few days with the Richards family at Richards Regenerative, a ranch that's been raising cattle just outside Sacramento since 1941. Five generations in, they're now one of a small handful of operations in the country that's American Grassfed Certified and verified through the Savory Institute's Land-to-Market program, which is the rigorous, soil-sample-and-data version of "regenerative," not the bumper-sticker kind.
We came to cook. We left with something harder to put on a plate.
Over a few days we toured their 6,000-acre ranch, watched how hogs and cattle and grass and water all work on each other in a kind of slow rotation, seared their beef in our pans over an open fire, and (eventually) pulled out a guitar and some bongos and butchered "Hotel California" under the stars. You can watch all of it here:
Our founder Dan came home and couldn't stop thinking about it. So he wrote it down. What follows is his, in full. It's about metal and land and guitar strings and why hard work might be the point rather than the obstacle. We didn't want to tidy it up.
Here's Dan.
One Hell of a Life
By Dan Patterson
Metal has injured me. Burned me, cut me, scraped me, crushed toes and fingers. Even tiny bits too insignificant to register on a scale have found their way into my eyes, my wounds, my fingernails, my ears, my pillowcases. Metal is a medium that needs to be contended with, literally bent to the will of the wielder. The reward is more than just the object at the end of the journey, it is the struggle leading to the finish line imbued in the final product. There's a story in the object, an intimacy shared by the artisan that can never be fully understood by the end user. There's a camaraderie with "those who know." Those who know the pain. Those who understand the struggle. Those who count the cost in blisters, sweat, frustration, and when the day is done, the reward. It's not the money, as necessary as that is. The money isn't seen for weeks, sometimes even months. It's not the pat on the back or any sense of gratitude… those are extrinsic motivators. It has to be intrinsic, from a deeper sense of purpose and mission.
As I sat next to Tom Richards at his farm house in Grass Valley, after a day spent flying over central California into the Nevada County airport, touring their 6,000-acre cattle ranch and getting a glimpse into the inner workings of Richards Regenerative, I understood that I was in familiar company. My medium is metal, theirs is land, cattle, hogs and family. To work the land… to contend with it, is primal. "Working the land" is a phrase that barely scrapes the reality of what it means; there is an almost infinite amount of factors that affect the survival of a modern farm or ranch, and just as many approaches to doing it. There are those who would beat nature into submission, and those who, like the Richards, look at the delicate layers of the natural order and act as stewards to cultivate something beautiful, healthy, and sustaining.
It is the path less traveled, for sure. But I was struck by the beauty of how the hogs "till the earth," that is, create little divots into the soil as they forage, which slows the water runoff in the wet seasons and creates favorable conditions for grass to grow which then feeds the cattle. The rancher curates this constantly rotating gallery to the benefit of all. As a musician (okay, drummer. But I have hung around musicians all my life), I have been witness to countless tunings of instruments. Many are the band practices when a guitar player tunes harmonically. You can hear the oscillations of the frequencies as they approach perfect tune, at which point the sensation of "in tune-ness" is palpable. This is precisely what I was witnessing at the ranch; a synchronicity between livestock, land, water, grass, and human that was "in tune." Animals thrive, grass grows, and the land goes through its seasonal cycles. Imbued in all of this are early mornings, mist on the grass, the afternoon sun, the happy lolling of dog tongues as they run alongside the side-by-side, late afternoon cooling off and evening quiet. But to take the guitar string analogy a step further, you can't have a string in tune without it being under tension. That string will sit politely silent until it is strung through the bridge, wound around the tuning peg and stretched. Only then will it resonate. It is an act of violence, in a way, but central to its purpose. Look past the scenes of pastoral perfection on the Richards ranch and there is plenty of tension. Things break constantly. There are droughts, cattle diseases, the occasional family drama, mountain lions; an almost infinite amount of chaos swirls around them each day.
It can be overwhelming and profoundly disheartening at times for sure. As I listened to Tom describe the way he and his family have tended the land, it was like I was listening to a passage from my own mental treatise on work. Work is hard, sometimes extremely so, but it ennobles us. It gives us purpose, a challenge. In my experience, the most sterling examples of humanity have been people who have humbly done the work they chose over the long term, and not viewed it as an obstacle in their path to unfettered leisure. I love my work, but I'd be lying if I said I liked it every day. Have I wanted to quit at times? Absolutely. Do I constantly look for ways to make my work easier? You bet. But I believe work is a type of institution central to human thriving; it's the tension on the string that allows it to resonate, a guard rail that keeps the spirit from wasting away in the pursuit of unmitigated pleasures. Tom recalled to me a scene from the show Yellowstone in which John Dutton and his grandson Tate are discussing the profound difficulties of ranching, everything from unpredictable diesel prices to half the herd trying to drown itself, and then wolves… at which point young Tate looks up and asks his grandfather why, if ranching is so difficult, do they do it? He replies, "Because it's one hell of a life, Tate. One hell of a life."
Precisely.
The Richards live this out daily, and that is one reason I not only like them, but respect them. They are travelers on a very similar road, a kind of spiritual one. We are anachronistic together, and are somehow making it work. It is an encouragement to me to see them produce what they produce because they have principles, not because it is the easiest or most profitable way to run a ranch. They believe meat should be naturally and sustainably grown because we are not only stewards of our own bodies and those of our children, we are stewards of the earth. These principles matter to them, and they matter to me. Their work has value, both extrinsic and intrinsic. Tom, Carrie and Noelle do it as a family, as messy and wonderful as that often can be. Their product is infused with authenticity, tenacity, and (dare I say it?) nobility. Sitting around the dinner table, I was a true believer. Not only in what they are doing, but what I do in my own work, both professionally and as a father and husband. Principles matter, values have profound meaning even if the string feels like it's being wound too tight. It felt good to share a meal with these fellow travelers, and as we sat around the campfire having cooked some of their incredible steaks on our pans, pulled out the guitar and bongo drums (bongos! Haven't played those since high school), and launched into Hotel California, things felt very much in tune.
Richards Regenerative raises their grassfed beef on the same principles Dan wrote about above. If you'd like to taste what we tasted, use code COLLAB25 for 25% off at Richards' shop. And if you want to cook it the way we did, over open fire in cookware built to outlive us, use code RICHARDS10 for 10% off our cookware through the next two weeks.
One hell of a life. We'll see you at the next one.
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