1. Welcome to Sol Ranch!
Hello everyone,
It’s time for new beginnings. What better day to begin this blog than on the day it has been raining for 24+ hours? There’s nothing more rejuvenating, more healing, more mind-shifting than the start of monsoon season here in northeastern New Mexico! This means we managed to squeak through another period of dry, dusty, brittleness. We can see bright green grass growing amongst the last leaves of last year’s grass stockpile. Our growing season has now kicked into full gear and we can now rest, we can now recover. And how better to enjoy this new growing season than to share those cool drops of wonder with most of our neighbors in northeast NM. Things are looking up for the present.
So in light of this context of monsoonal beauty, I want to invite you to share in the recalling of little moments in our lives here on the ranch. We believe in a holistic goal for our lives and for our business. One of our goals for the soul behind the Sol Ranch is to connect with our community and to make sure that we are doing our best to be transparent about our land management practices, our animal husbandry, our meat, and our motives. We feel that it is our duty to let you know what it is that you are eating, because after all, we are what we eat.
Many of you are aware of the trials we all face as humans on Earth right now. One of the rights that cannot be taken away is the right to choose with our dollar each time we make a purchase. The businesses we support have an impact on our local community. There are plenty of uncertainties in life nearly everywhere we turn. Luckily, there is one thing that has always been clear: when we band together and support growth and healing at every turn, our chances of finding balance and coexistence in life as a community greatly improve.
We consider ourselves rooted in northeastern New Mexico. I have lived nearly my entire life in this area. I left at one point only to realize how lucky I was to have grown up in one of the most beautiful places on this earth. Our life here is supported by the productive grasses of the plains. Our constant work each day of each year is to strive to do right by this landscape and our community. We believe in making the best of the opportunities that greet us in life. Part of that process is to think about ourselves as only part of the web that supports and connects each part of the universe. Our place here is not just to serve ourselves, but to serve and support the soil, the plants, the wildlife, the livestock, the humans, and all other creatures great and small with whom we share our resources, just as one cell fulfills it’s role in the overall health of the body.
We want to share more than just the seasonal beef harvests with you. We want to share the story of our land’s revival, the restoration of our foodscape and interwoven foodshed. We promise to try our hardest to do right by the land that sustains each of us in one way or another. We also promise to promote the long-term health of the land so that our distant great-great grandchildren’s children can still live in this beauty and be sustained by the fruits of this corner of New Mexico. We know, though we don’t live in a town, we are still part of a greater community with whom we share resources and have common interests and goals as humans seeking to live good, happy lives. As each cell in the body has a role, each of us as beings in the universe plays a supportive role in the promotion of health and function of both itself and everyone else.
So please join us for this conversation between various members of the Sol Ranch team, both past and present. We will start out next week with a blog written by former apprentice, Shannon Maes, who currently works up at the San Juan Ranch in Colorado with our friends in the regenerative ag world, George Whitten and Julie Sullivan. Shannon worked at Sol Ranch in 2021 as our apprentice through the Quivira Coalition’s New Agrarian Program. We are so proud of Shannon and honored to have her write a series of blogs about her 8-1/2 month experience here at the Sol learning about our take on ranching . Going forward, we hope to share with you great cooking tips, info about our beef, insights into the flora and fauna of the ranch, and tons of great photos capturing the beauty and culture of the region.
With that, thank you for joining us and happy Summer Solstice!!
Cheers,
Emily Cornell
Sol Ranch LLC
Wagon Mound, NM
solranchnm@gmail.com
solranchnm.com
