What Mother’s Day looked like on Mother, Earth Day, at Wild Idea Buffalo Companies, Cheyenne River Ranch.
It's a Baby Buffalo!
Finding the first baby buffalo of the year, in a thousand acre pasture with last years remaining four foot grasses, is a little like finding a needle in a haystack. The new baby was greeted by many of the other buffalo with licks and soft grunts. The mother tolerated a few at a time before pushing them off and welcoming the next bunch. This was a new experience for us and it was fantastic to witness. A close by, Short Eared Owl, kept a watchful eye over the exciting welcoming party. *Short Eared Owls nest in the Great Plains grasses. The mother kept nudging it along as she grazed, until it had to stop for a little nap. She allowed me close enough to get a photo, before she moved it along into the dusky night. Help us welcome Wild Idea’s first baby buffalo of 2015!
DREAMING LIKE A BUFFALO
I watched my paint horse, Camo, stretch his nose out and sniff the nose of a young bull buffalo. They sniffed deeply and then, in unison, turned to look across the Cheyenne River and into infinity. It was hard to tell what was in their minds but I want to think that their daydreams are like mine: an enormous blue sky and rolling grasslands to a distant horizon. There is a steady breeze bringing the scent of possibilities. There are no restraints, no boundaries, and no limits. History merges with the present and the past. I don’t think that my daydreams are unique. I think that, many Americans dream like horses and buffalo. It is as if we can stand in their skins, stare with their beguiling dark eyes, and let the rare prairie rains drip benignly from our sturdy coats. We imagine ourselves as country boys or strong, young women with long smooth muscles – solid bodies, and steady hands. We feel a kind of innocence, tempered with confidence and power. There is the thousand-yard stare of wisdom, patients, and endurance. When we dream like horses and buffalo we can imagine ourselves as the center of the world. Yet the horse stands a little taller than the buffalo and there is something sad about the buffalo. They have long been misunderstood, exploited, commoditized, mystified, and abused. Even their identity has been hijacked by a succession of cultures. They are the animal with two names, buffalo and bison. The first name stems from the confusion of the Europeans who landed their puny boats on the eastern shore of America. Those crude men thought they were on a different continent and that the large, shaggy animals they found were a variant of the water buffalo they knew from Asia or the Cape buffalo they had heard of in Africa. It was centuries later that stuffy European taxonomists decided that the American bovine was a unique specie and named it Bison bison. A better name might be Tatonka, the name given by the nomadic natives of the Great Plains that, at least for a time, knew the buffalo best. It is a word that embodies not only the animal but also the habitat and the spirit of the animal. There is nothing erroneous or taxonomical about the name Tatonka. The buffalo that we know have been the center of a huge, continent-wide drama for perhaps 5,000 years but, before them, there were several other varieties. The first buffalo were native to what is now Asia and Europe and crossed into North America on the famous Baring land bridge. It is hard for us to imagine how different the world was back then – the continents all ajar, molten rock surging up from below, and sea levels rising and falling as a result of ice caps varying in thickness from mere ice sheets to gigantic water repositories many miles thick. But there was a window of about 50,000 years that all sorts of creatures made the trek across the land bridge. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of species moved. They traveled both ways – the ancestors of animals like camels and cheetahs heading for Asia and mammoths, ground sloths, and like on their way to America. Later, a few wretched humans trailed along behind the mammoths. I like to think of the tiny, eight inch tall great-grandmother of the modern horse moving carefully beside the giant ancestor of our buffalo, Bison antiquus. Did they size each other up in a long grassy valley between two mountain ranges somewhere in what is now Alaska? The ancient …
Real Food
Each day I awake to the sounds of the ranch; birds, dogs, an occasional horse whinny and the morning news. I drift in and out of consciousness between tweets, barks and the sound of David Greenes voice on NPR. My attention hones in to the radio voices, reporting on the horrific wars. I am relieved when the stories change to children heading back to school. Now fully alert, I’m shocked by the statistics coming from the small black box: “The average child spends 4 minutes a day outside and ten hours in front of a screen”. “This is creating disconnect with the natural world”, the voices say. They go on talking about the ramifications this will have. If intimate relationships are not cultivated with mother earth, who will we pass the baton to too care for her? Where will children think their food comes from? Water? And so on. Last Sunday we were featured on the Food Networks, “Great Food Truck Race,” a reality competitive food show. Although we were thrilled to be featured, we learned that there is not a lot of reality in reality TV. My favorite “stand out line” from one of the producers during the week that they spent on the ranch was, “This is a food show, it’s not that critical if we don’t get a good shot of the buffalo”. What’s that you say??????? I guess it’s not only our children that have a disconnect. The night of the airing of the “Great Food Truck Race”, a group of Wild Idea Buffalo employees and friends gathered to watch the show, including my friend Mason. Mason is 12 and has just started junior high. He is quiet, a bit shy and very thoughtful. Before we sat down to view the show, we went out to visit the buffalo and to offer them thanks for helping us get on national TV. We took a rawhide buffalo drum, as we have learned from our Native American friends, that if you beat the drum and have an open heart, the buffalo will come to you. I explained this to Mason as he started our heartfelt concert. Within minutes, we were circled by 300 buffalo. They stood around us as if they were thoroughly enjoying themselves, offering their soft grunts for applause. As we headed back for our buffalo feast before the show, we stopped along the way for grass tutorials from Jilian and Colton. We watched prairie dogs and burrowing owls. We rolled in the soft sand of a Buffalo wallow and talked about what happens when the wallows fill with rain. Tight on time and Mason now behind the wheel, we drove a little fast, back to the ranch. Smells of braising buffalo meat greeted us from the kitchen. We filled our plates with cucumber, melon salad, and buffalo stewed in garden tomatoes and green beans, from Jilian’s garden. We ate on the deck and watched the golden light fall on the hillside. At last it was show time. We headed inside and turned on the TV, putting our faces in front of a screen to watch an unreal, reality food show. This month’s recipe is Buffalo Chuck Roast Stewed in Tomatoes with Green Beans. Dan loves this cut and also this recipe, as when necessary he can get dinner on the table! A real treat in more ways then one! Enjoy! Jill Buffalo Chuck Roast Stewed with Garden Tomatoes and Green Beans (serves 6 to 8) A great family dinner that says goodbye to summer and hello to fall! Recipe by Jill, but prepared by Dan with …
Moving Buffalo
This past June we moved the Buffalo from one pasture to the next. Buffalo are roamers and have come to understand what an open gate means – new digs to roam and fresh grass. We believe in a gentle approach of simply opening a gate, offering a little incentive with cake (a small cube of pressed alfalfa with some minerals), and having a subtle presence on the back end. When babies are little we are very careful to guide in a very slow manner. The lead herd cow is usually the first to approach and once she has moved through the herd will start to follow. The babies stay close to their mothers and instinctively shoot to the outside. The wind was blowing on the day we moved them, which added extra excitement for the babies who frolicked, leaping through the air, bucking and kicking. A few stragglers held up the back end with the largest herd bull completing the move. They quickly joined up with the herd, and found their way to their new pasture. They other day we moved the buffalo again. What struck me, was not only their calmness with the babies now two months older, but the beautiful healthy pastures, still green and plentiful with grass, thanks to continued summer rains. The baby buffalo are now kids, in a varying stages of golden to black, with sprouting new horns. They are gaining independence, but will stay close to their mothers and remain in the family group until they are two years of age. They vocalized their happiness with their soft grunts and grazing noises. Listening to 300 buffalo eating grass is pretty amazing! We wrapped up our task under a pink sky of a setting South Dakota sun.
"FIFTY" (This got a little long, but you only turn 50 once.)
It’s been said that life is about the journey and not the destination. I’ve always been kind of a destination girl myself and am often accused of burning the candle at both ends. As a friend of mine once said, “You are always trying to pack ten pounds of shit into a five pound bag”. I do not dispute either charge, they often remind me of a Jack London poem that I am fond of. “I would rather be ashes then dust! I would rather that my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dryrot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of a man (woman) is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time”. My natural talents are in creating, in making people happy and in entertaining. Since I was a kid, I have been a participator. I knew that I would be a part of something, and hoped it would make a difference. After a brief unfulfilling modeling career, I turned my attention to what I knew best, food (now you know why my modeling career was so short); and started learning the in’s and outs of the hospitality business. For research and pleasure, I dined at some of the fanciest of restaurants where the food was marginal and ate in some of the dirtiest beer joints, where the food was exceptional, and vise versa. My entrepreneurial spirit caught fire and I soon took off trying to create/make my own life. Although it was often at my expense, it was a great ride. I have had the opportunity to cater all kinds of events, from Baby Showers to Weddings to Film Sets, for Senators, Actors and Cardinal’s. I have owned/operated 3 (at the time), cutting edge restaurants, each with their own successes and failures. All of this seemed to fit with my plan. What I did not ever think, was that at the age of 50 I would wear a hairnet, a hardhat and butchers frock. But don’t let the outfit fool you – this is important stuff. Being a dairy farmers daughter, big landscapes and hard work were part of my genetic make-up, so it was easy to join Dan in his quest to restore/preserve our ranch back to health, and hopefully impact others to do the same. Although this too has often been at our expense, it has been worth every penny and has also been quite a ride! I’ve had the opportunity to: move buffalo on horseback, assist in creating a moveable harvester that would provide humane harvest of animals, develop cooking techniques for grass-fed meat, open a processing plant, get to know some of the coolest conscious carnivores on the planet, and watch the transformation of what care of environment and of animals can do for a landscape. It’s good work – if you can get it! In addition to all the above, I have a great family, a handful of good friends, two kids and a son in-law that I’m crazy about and who are crazy about me too. And, I’ve had the great adventure of running around with Dan O’Brien. Dan has also loved my children and has been a true father in every sense of the word. Thank you Dan. This Father’s Day, on the 16th I will turn 50! Woop, Woop! And before I blow out the brilliant blaze of 50 birthday candles, I will …
The Displaced Bison
Last winter I wrote a monthly musing that talked about a group of buffalo that had recently been gathered on a cattle ranch in south Florida. A buffalo producer that we work with here in South Dakota had sold some buffalo to that ranch and, since I had driven around those buffalo as they happily grazed on big pastures of native grass in northwestern South Dakota, I wondered where they ended up and how they were doing. My brother and his wife have a retirement condominium in Fort Myers and during a visit, when I got bored with all that humid sunshine and sea food, I set out to try to find that lost tribe of South Dakota buffalo. There isn’t much farmland in the immediate vicinity of Fort Myers but I knew there were fruit orchards and some cattle farms north and a little inland. I set out in that direction and by asking gas stations cashiers and guys with cowboy hats, I finally found myself out of the urban clutter and into an odd, savannah-like country, surrounded by citrus trees and dotted with short haired, long eared cattle that looked as if they had come from Africa, or India. I wandered around hard surfaced country roads, searching the horizon for buffalo as I would do on the Great Plains. But the earth down there has none of the gentle curvature or grand vistas that buffalo have thrived on for tens of thousands of years. It’s difficult to see at the scale I’m used to, so for a couple hours all I saw were those floppy eared cattle and the strange palm trees that rim the pastures. I had nearly given up when a familiar dark line of animals appeared a mile ahead and another mile off the road to my right. I was pretty sure they were buffalo even before the rusty cattle fence along the road turned to new, taller, buffalo fence. I pulled into a set of buildings and right into the noontime break of a group of Florida cowboys that was the most familiar thing I’d seen all morning. They were a fencing crew and they told me that they had been building buffalo fence for months and had miles more fence to go. I asked questions about what they thought of the idea of bringing buffalo into that country and I got the universal cowboy shrug and non-committal comments. They weren’t too sure about the whole idea. They didn’t see what was wrong with the cattle that were being moved off to make room for the buffalo. “Them old brahma crosses are kinda bred to stand the heat,” an older man said. “Bugs too,” an Hispanic looking guy added. “There’s some nasty bugs around here.” He shook his shoulders like a spider might be crawling up his back and they all laughed. When I asked about the plans for the ranch they shrugged in unison. “Boss is over in that building. We’re just workers.” The boss was a pleasant young man who was happy to show me around. He had no previous experience with buffalo or ranching but was building a big ranch with grand plans to market grass-fed buffalo to the population centers in south Florida. I wasn’t sure how well buffalo would do on the semi-tropical Florida grasses after evolving to eat only the grasses of the temperate Great Plains. I figured he was in for some tough lessons but I had to admire his positive attitude and entrepreneurial spirit. He was rightfully proud of his ranch and proud of the changes …
Frog Symphony
I have heard Chorus Frogs every spring for my entire life, but I never saw one until the May of 2008. I was following Mike Forsberg around southeastern Montana in search of stories and photographs for Mike’s book, GREAT PLAINS, America’s lingering wild. I can’t remember what our objective was but we were in the middle of an enormous pasture and we were walking. It takes a long time to walk anywhere with Forsberg because he stops and looks at everything. When you walk with any good photographer what you are really doing is wandering. So I was wandering around southeastern Montana with Mike Forsberg on a beautiful spring afternoon taking pictures of flowers, clouds, rusty barbed wire fences, and windmills when the faint sound of Chorus Frogs drifted over a hill. The vocalization of a Chorus Frog is a little like a variety of small frogs known collectively as “tree frogs and their allies.” The Chorus Frog must be an “ally” because they are often found where there are no trees for miles. That was the case that day in Montana – no trees, just grass and a little wind. The sound of the frogs blended in with the rustle of the wind and the songs of prairie, ground nesting birds that were newly back from their winter migration. Male Meadow Larks, Bobolinks, and Buntings were setting up territories and serenading the females with all their hearts. Probably the singing of the Chorus Frog had been blending with the ambient sounds for a while before we even noticed it, but as the afternoon wore on, the sound intensified until Mike couldn’t stand it. “Have you ever seen one of those little devils?” I shrugged. “No. I’ve never even looked for one.” In fact, Chorus Frogs are such a commonfeature of the Great Plains that I had never even thought much about them. Since I could remember, they were a constant in the soundtrack of my spring existence. When we walked over the hill and found a small stock-pond created by adikebuilt across a little draw. Spring runoff had filled the pond and the Chorus Frogs were doing the amphibious version of what the birds were doing. Their shrill voices seemed to rise from the water’s edge of the entire pond. My Peterson Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians describes the sound of the Chorus Frog as prreep, prreep, but that description does not do it justice. It is an insistent sound when you concentrate on it but has the ability to recede in your consciousness until it is barely noticeable. The pond was alive with singers and we crept, shoulder to shoulder, up to the water where one particularly boisterous frog was sounding off. We moved like a pair of blue herons, very slowly, raising high and planting gently one foot at a time. When we got to the edge of the pond the sound was gone and I looked carefully, expecting the frog to leap into the water and disappear. There was no leap and splash so we bent over and squinted along the grassy edge. Still nothing. He must have heard us and took off, so we split up and started off in search of the next frog. But we had only gone a few feet when the first frog started up again – exactly where we had been looking. We went back but still saw nothing. Other frogs were singing just a little way along the water’s edge so we moved off again in opposite directions. I was intent on sneaking up on one before …
Spring Time Chorus
Last Saturday evening my parents, Colton and I took the time to drive through the buffalo herd. Words cannot describe how incredible that hour and half was. Little buffalo calves were scattered throughout the pasture. It is always a joy to see those little orange balls of fluff running and bucking at their mother’s side. We sat in silence to take it all in. The setting sky, soft buffalo grunts, and the actions of the little calves could easily hypnotize someone for hours. One thing that was out of the ordinary was an amplified chorus of frogs from the nearby dam. It caught me by complete surprise as spring has just finally settled in at the Ranch. Much needed moisture has filled the dam and has in turn, brought life back to it. This dam sat silent all of last year due to lack of moisture which left it dry. The noise coming from the community of frogs was a symphony of spring arrival. In talking with Dan we believe that the Western Chorus Frog (no bigger than a thumb nail) made up the spring symphony. Below is a short video – meant more for audio and a picture of this incredibly tiny but vocal frog.
Face to Face with America’s Food Chain
By my nature and professional training, I tend to be a skeptical person when claims are made. This comes to about everything except food. If I read something on a menu or see it on a label, I’m likely to take it at face value. I think part of this relates to the fact I have no connection to the food chain. The farm-to-table movement is the big thing right now but I wouldn’t even be able to find my way to a farm to start the journey. My eyes have been opened. I recently visited the Wild Idea Buffalo ranch as guests of Dan and Jill O’Brien. I love wildlife but have never been as up close-and-personal as I was with the herd of bison on their ranch including the very intimidating male buffalo (I don’t recommend such a personal encounter unless you have a great guide like Dan). The trip helped me understand that there is a difference between “grass-fed buffalo” and “100% grass-fed buffalo.” The former is what any producer can say even if the buffalo has had just a few weeks of grass before going off to the feedlot. The latter means literally the animal has spent all its life living and eating off of the Great Plains. What about taste? Jill was kind enough to share her incredible cooking with me and I can vouch for the fact their buffalo does taste better and healthier. This was my first trip to South Dakota and to the Great Plains. Back home in Washington, D.C., it’s easy to think one has a handle on America and what makes it tick. But this country is more than just big cities, suburbs and highways. It’s also the places a bit off the beaten path that play an incredibly important role in our history and in the sustainability of our fragile planet. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to visit the ranch because it taught me a lot about our country and has made me more questioning of what’s in my diet. -Adam Shapiro
Baby Buffalo & Blizzards
Last week we were lucky enough to get a blizzard. It’s very dry here and at this point we aren’t too particular in how moisture comes. We were also expecting to see our first calf at anytime and although we received 20″ of snow we weren’t too concerned. Bison evolved in this country and are well adapted to weather extremes. There is a theory that bison can hold off giving birth until after a storm has passed. We’re unsure if this is fact, but the morning after last week’s blizzard, we got our first glimpse of this year’s first baby. Mother and baby are doing well. Dan brings hay to supplement the lack of grass. I tag along to get photos of the herd and a glimpse of the new babies. The new mom’s remove themselves from the main herd and set up what we call “the maternity ward”, complete with new and expecting mothers. Within a few days we had 5 baby calves, and another blizzard on the way. The snow came heavy last night without wind, frosting the landscape all the way to the horizon. I grabbed my camera gear this morning and headed out with Dan for the morning hay feeding. The weight of the snow quiets the ranch to where all you can hear is your heart beat and the soft grunts of the buffalo. They seem undisturbed in their warm down, wooly coats. While Dan rolls out 2 tons of hay, I go off in search of the maternity ward to insure that all is ok. I find them content in a shallow wooded draw. Babies close to their mothers, until the little ones take off, leaping occasionally on their new wobbly legs! The mothers stay close behind, nudging them further into the draw and out of my view. A great morning!
Free Roaming Buffalo
Two weekends ago, I took these pictures while a group of us were guiding a respectably sized herd of buffalo back to pastures that lie between the Cheyenne River Ranch and the Cheyenne River itself. For the last five and a half months these animal’s temporary home has been an ever changing landscape, comprised of windy creeks, badland buttes and open prairies surround by walls of steep hills that are peppered with cedar trees. As we moved the herd, we watched them float across the landscape. They knew where every creek crossing and green patch of grass was. Although some of the older cows didn’t seem to be in a hurry to head back to the other side of the river, they still moved at a pace that showed purpose. These cows will soon begin to gather in maternity wards in preparation for spring calving. The new calves will spend the early months of their life in pastures that lack the buttes, creeks, and steep draw banks. Instead, they will take their first shaky steps on land that seems to extend to the horizon. As spring turns to summer, the new calves will venture around the wide open country as they follow the rest of the herd. Just as they start to become familiar with the terrain, the time will come for them to head out with the rest of the herd for life on the other side of the river.
April Can Break Your Heart
The month of April always gets me thinking about T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Wasteland. Well, not the whole poem. All I can ever remember of The Waste Land is the first four lines. It is the part we all know: April is the cruelest month. Breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain It is easy to visualize those lilacs coming to life, the dried-out roots swelling with the rain. Anyone who ever had anything to do with a garden understands what Eliot is getting at. He’s saying that the weather in April can break your heart. You get to remembering how wonderful spring can be and – BANG – you get a foot of snow. That’s what I figure the first four lines of T.S. Eliot’s famous poem are all about. I have no idea what the next four hundred and thirty-two lines mean but they seem to be describing a land and a life that I do not know. Because I am a rancher on the Great Plains I know about longing for rain in the month of April and I know that, in the spring of 2013, the lack of moisture out here is a matter of life and death. All winter long we knew things were dry and we knew that we had to get some rain this spring. There was very little rain last summer and nearly no snow all this winter. People keep trying to laugh it off. “She’s going to break loose this spring – wet snow, rain. Hell we’re only one good storm away from banner year.” I didn’t sleep much all winter. I’d go to bed early and sleep until midnight or one o’clock. I’d get up, have a cup of tea, then go out onto the cold deck and look up at the sky. Every night my uplifted and hopeful face would be met by a billion stars. I don’t recall anything but clear, cold, cloudless skies. Some nights I’d read until three or four in the morning. When sleep finally came it was short-lived and fitful, loaded with visions of brutal winds driving the dry and dusty pastures that the buffalo absolutely need. I worried that the stock pond where the buffalo drink during the months when their calves are born held only a few inches of water. I rolled on the couch, looked at the ceiling, and promised myself that I would go out the next day and check the water level but when I awoke, groggy and a little sick to my stomach, I would be too sluggish to even leave the house. I had a hard time working and ate everything I could find. March came in like a lamb and went out like a lamb. We don’t have ground hogs out here and the prairie dogs were no shows. No one wanted to predict what the spring and summer would bring. We got some wind and an inch of very light snow that was dry as talcum powder. By the time April arrived I was a wreck, pale white, ten pounds overweight, and no relief in sight. All winter long I knew that there was a terrible crunch of work ahead of me. We started bringing the buffalo in from their winter pasture in the last week of March. I was on an ATV all day long for five days in a row and we got seventy-five percent of the buffalo rounded up before it became apparent that there would no spring runoff and so no …
Apple Cake
Apple Cake A delicious fall dessert. Serves 18. We have a few apple trees on the ranch, and this year we had a hearty crop. I use them in preparing sweet fall treats, including pie’s, sauce and apple cake. The apple cake is one of my favorites, it’s easy, and oh so good. Because they freeze well, I like to make up a few extra’s to have on hand. Delicious for breakfast, or serve with caramel sauce and fresh whipped cream, for an elegant dessert. Note: I often split the flour using half whole wheat baking flour and half all purpose flour. Ingredients: 3 cups flour 1 Tb.. baking soda 1 Tb. cinnamon 1½ tsp. nutmeg or allspice ½ tsp. salt ¼ cup butter, softened 3 cups sugar 3 eggs 3 cups applesauce 3 cups apples, peeled and finely chopped or flash processed Instructions: Preheat oven to 400*. Butter a 13”x9” cake pan or two, 9” round cake pans. Mix all ingredients together with electric mixer, until batter is well incorporated. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 35 minutes for round pans and 45 minutes for rectangular pan. Serve with a little caramel sauce and fresh whipped cream! Happy fall. Cheers! Jill
Falls Arrival
Fall has arrived and this year it’s brought with it the beautiful autumn colors. Below are snapshots of scenes around the ranch. You would think that I could edit to a few, but they’re just too pretty. Although our garden wasn’t much this year with the draught, our apple trees pulled through. The hearty crop of apples has me preparing some of my favorite fall dishes. This apple cake is one of my favorites; it’s easy, and oh so good. I like to make up a few and stick them in the freezer to have on hand. It makes for a great breakfast, or serve with caramel sauce, and fresh whipped cream for an elegant dessert. I would have taken a photo, but we ate it before I could get the camera out! Apple Cake A delicious fall dessert. Serves 18. Note: I often split the flour using half whole wheat baking flour and half all purpose flour. Ingredients: 3 cups flour 1 Tb.. baking soda 1 Tb. cinnamon 1½ tsp. nutmeg or allspice ½ tsp. salt ¼ cup butter, softened 3 cups sugar 3 eggs 3 cups applesauce 3 cups apples, peeled and finely chopped or flash processed Instructions: Preheat oven to 400*. Butter a 13”x9” cake pan or two, 9” round cake pans. Mix all ingredients together with electric mixer, until batter is well incorporated. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 35 minutes for round pans and 45 minutes for rectangular pan. Serve with a little caramel sauce and fresh whipped cream! Happy fall. Cheers! Jill
Meet the New Members of Our Family & Buffalo Sausage Casserole
This last Sunday, we all took the day off and celebrated Mothers Day with the little things in our lives. It was complete with a delicious champagne brunch featuring, Buffalo Sausage and Egg Casserole, made by Jilian. The recipe for the Buffalo Casserole is listed below the slideshow. Here are some of the photographs from our day and include the newest members of our family. Featured are: Grandpuppies , Ivan (Jilian & Colton’s new puppy), Huck (son Lucas’s puppy), and Dan’s newest hunting dog, Shinner, who is the puppy with the patch on his eye. Shinner & Huck are son’s of Henry, Dan’s famous hunting dog. Jilian and Colton have also added a dozen new baby chicks to their growing flock. And, you can’t have mother’s day on a buffalo ranch without baby buffalo’s. A great day, enjoyed by all! Buffalo Sausage & Egg Casserole (Recipe created by our friend Val) Serves 8 Ingredients: 1 lb. Wild Idea Buffalo Sausage (Italian Buffalo or Breakfast Sausage) ½ cup chopped shallots 2 garlic cloves minced ½ cup sundried tomatoes, chopped 4 Tb. fresh parsley, chopped 8eggs (best farm fresh or organic) 1 cup half & half 1 cup heavy cream 2 cups mozzarella cheese, grated ½ tp. Salt 1 tp. Pepper Preparation: Preheat oven to 375*. Butter a 13x9x2 casserole dish. Over medium high heat in heavy sauté pan, crumble sausage and cook until lightly browned. Add shallots, garlic, tomatoes and 2 Tb. parsley and sauté for 3 minutes. Spread Buffalo Sausage mixture in bottom of prepared casserole dish . Whisk eggs. Add half & half, cream, 1 cup of cheese, salt and pepper. Mix until well incorporated. Pour over Buffalo Sausage mixture, and cover with remaining cheese and sprinkle with remaining parsley. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.
April Showers to Earth Day
The last week was a whirlwind of celebration, business and entertaining. Our week started with a bridal shower for Jilian. The event was hosted by co-worker Cyd Evans (Not only is Cyd a wonderful WIB sales associate, she is also a gifted potter.) and Jilian’s future mother in-law, Kim. Jilian was showered with many lovely gifts and a lot of womanly advice. The work week began with a business meeting at the ranch. All day business meetings can be exhausting and usually need the infusion of copious amounts of coffee, and sweets. We were guilty of the coffee and pastries, but broke for a nice lunch of Grilled Buffalo Steak and Potato Salad, which carried us through the afternoon. Buffalo, Green Bean & Potato Salad Serves 4 to 6 Ingredients: 2 lbs. Wild Idea Buffalo Steak, marinated, grilled & sliced 2 small or fingerling potatoes per person, boiled until tender, halved or quartered 12oz. Green Beans, steamed till al dente ½ cup Cherry Tomatoes, halved Instructions: Arrange red potatoes, green beans & sliced buffalo steak on plates and drizzle with Rosemary Dijon Lemon Dressing. Serve with crusty Bread. *Optional, to serve warm, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to skillet over medium high heat. Add potatoes and pan fry until lightly browned. Lightly salt and pepper. *This salad is as pretty as it is delicious, can be served warm or cold and is perfect for anytime of year. Also, asparagus could be substituted for the green beans. Enjoy. Rosemary, Dijon, and Lemon Marinade A delicious marinade for Bison Steaks and Roasts Ingredients: 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 2 cloves garlic, chopped (1 Tb.) 1½ tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped fine ½ teaspoon sea salt 2 teaspoons black pepper 1 teaspoon sugar 1/3 cup lemon juice 1/3 cup olive oil Instructions: Mix ingredients in blender in order of list, adding olive oil in a slow steady stream while motor is running. *This can be used as a salad dressing too.The warm temperatures and the lack of precipitation have us all a bit worried. But Mother Nature provided a nice little shower, just in time for the arrival of our first baby buffalo! The warm temperatures and the lack of precipitation have us all a bit worried. But Mother Nature provided a nice little shower, just in time for the arrival of our first baby buffalo! Our week wrapped up with two sets of guests. First group for burgers on the deck with good friends Tom & Jess Whillock (Tom’s band Groove Daddy will be the Band for the Wedding Dance), and friend Wally Van Sickle, who is the director of “Idea Wild”, a non-profit that supports conservation efforts all over the world. The sky provided us with some great lighting for photography. Our second group of guests were friends Tom Lee and Cheryl Rudel, who brought along Cheryl’s father Rudy 90, and friend Polly Donaldson 91! They joined us for an Earth Day Brunch, which included many great stories! A tour through the buffalo wrapped up our day, and a baby buffalo put on a great show. A good time was had by all! Polly brought a jar of her homemade Peach Almond Conserve, vintage 2011. She hoped that it would still be good. Not only was it good, but decadent! I am hoping she will share the recipe, or better yet invite me to her kitchen to make along with her!
Beatrice Peltre
Having Beatrice Peltre, (a food blogger, cookbook author, food stylist and photographer), on the ranch, made for an interesting six days. In addition to intense photography, food styling, and set design lessons, she was curious about everything on the ranch. I had heard of Bea a couple years back and started to follow her food blog, La Tartine Gourmand, and she was good – really good. Making delicious, beautiful food has kept me employed for most of my adult life, but I knew nothing of food photography. I would set my camera on automatic and hope for the best – if I was lucky – there might be a shot. I needed some help. The connections were made and Beatrice arrived on the ranch a few weeks later. She was joyful, passionate about her work and honest. We hit it off right away. We worked diligently, but allowed ourselves outdoor timeouts. “Stop, I want to take a picture of that. Stop, stop I want to take a picture of that”, Bea would say, while on our adventure breaks. She quickly connected that we were not ranchers that raised meat, but we were ranchers that were environmental stewards of the land and that buffalo meat was a by-product of caring for the land. I prepared real food for our food shots, which meant that we ate a lot of Buffalo. Even Dan complained – no more Buffalo! We escaped to town that night for fish dinner at Tally’s Silver Spoon. Beatrice’s posting on her blog last week was a re-cap of her time at the ranch, and includes beautiful photographs. It’s definitely worth a read. Her new cookbook is also available and is a must have! It is still unknown if I am capable of taking successful pictures without Beas’s help. But the camera and magic lens are on order… Wish me luck, and thanks Bea. Click here for Beatrice’s story.
Dan O'Brien asked to testify as a proponent for the proposed Indian Creek Wilderness area
Testimony of Dan O’Brien South Dakota rancher Hermosa, South Dakota Before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests Regarding S. 3310 The Tony Dean Cheyenne River Valley Conservation Act of 2010 June 16, 2010 – Washington, DC Mr. Chairman, it’s an honor to speak to the committee today in support of S. 3310. My name is Dan O’Brien and I live on and operate a ranch adjacent to the Indian Creek area. My wife and I run both cattle and buffalo and hold the largest grazing permit in the Indiana Creek area. My livelihood is dependent upon the grasslands that surround my home, so I have a huge stake in this legislation. I bought my first cattle in 1974. I have long been a member of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association and am an avid hunter. I have lived on the Great Plains all of my adult life. I have weathered the winters and the droughts. I have experienced the violent swings in cattle prices and the stresses of severe credit crunches. While I am a proud member of the community that will be most directly affected by wilderness, I have always had an interest in western South Dakota as it relates – historically, socially, economically, and environmentally – to the rest of the nation and, indeed, to the larger world. In addition to ranching, I have worked as a biologist, a teacher, and a writer. My area of consuming interest is the northern Great Plains and I have researched and written a dozen books on the subject. In addition to my point of view of an in-the-trenches rancher, I bring a unique perspective to the question of Great Plains wilderness. It is my considered opinion that no American grassland better fits the spirit of the Wilderness Act than Indian Creek Visitors to Indian Creek are uniformly awestruck by the beauty and the silence. From many of the high spots you can see Mount Rushmore. It is too far away to see the faces but I can feel Teddy Roosevelt staring down at me. I know that good Republican president, war hero, and self proclaimed “Dakota Man” would approve of this bill. He was one of the first men of power to recognize that “increasing population, accompanied by expansion of settlement and growing mechanization” were grave threats to the silence and solitude that helps keep us all sane. It is unfortunate that the debate over managing public lands has become so divisive that testifying is uncomfortable. Though the majority of South Dakotans are in favor of the Indian Creek Wilderness, some are adamant in their opposition. Acrimonious disagreements between neighbors are particularly unproductive. They can be intimidating in a close- knit community and they tend to tamp down valuable debate. The fact is that nearly all South Dakotas share the desire to keep our land wild, healthy, free, quiet, and grazed. The rub comes in management of our lands. I am a believer in American and in the democratic government we are participating in today. The Forest Service is part of that government and I believe that, considering the present low profile of the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, they do a good job. Is it perfect? Of course not. Would I like to see it done better? Absolutely. I appreciate the language that Senator Johnson has inserted into S. 3310 concerning the management of invasive species, fire, prairie dogs, as well as other issues important to ranchers. I believe management problems do not stem from a lack of Forest Service expertise or from complacent staff, …
We love your buffalo and are converting our friends…
Hi Jill & Jillian, Thanks for the totals and your help in making our friend very happy. I think I told you she is turning 77 on Wednesday and had never tried buffalo. She is a bit nervous about some things but loves to eat. The package arrived Friday afternoon as you said it would and she had a young friend grill two of the NY Strip steaks on Sunday. She LOVED them and so did he. So there are two converts to buffalo whenever we can send it. And we enjoyed two tenderloins from our own package. The brisket is going in the brine as I write so next week I can comment on that. I have NEVER done anything like this before so am excited and trepidatious at the same time. Even my friend here in Winner whose husband does some cattle ranching on the side did not know about soaking beef brisket to make it “corned”. So lots of learning here. The recipe is easy to follow and answered all my concerns as I went along. My husband is impressed with the wine pairings. Thanks again! Thanks again. We will see you sometime at the ranch to check it out. Happy Day! Pat