Who We Are
Who We Are … Boy, where does a person start?
Steve grew up on a farm in the Virginia mountains. I grew up in the Oregon Coast Range. We met in the middle and bought the Graham Ranch in 2006.
Our lives on opposite coasts were parallel. I wanted a ranch so I earned degrees in agribusiness and range management. I interned on a ranch in eastern Oregon and then worked on a ranch in Utah. Before we met, I was the county extension agent in Madison and Jefferson Counties in southwest Montana. Steve worked as a county agent, too, and earned degrees in animal science and forage management. He always had horses, and often had cattle. He didn’t ever have many sheep. He says we should raise as many sheep as I can handle. He shears them, I keep them alive the rest of the year. We both love cattle.
Our children, Will and Abby, help on the ranch, too. During lambing season, 10-year-old Will gets up at 5 a.m. with me to spend an hour and a half at the barn before catching the bus for school. During lambing season, I tell him that he better be good or I won’t let him go to school. At 2, Abby rides horses. She rides stick horses, pretend horses, buckets, bales and real horses. She likes to go faster.
The ranch is much more than a business for Steve and me. The land and livestock will give back everything we put into it, for better or worse. They build integrity. We take care of our land and livestock to the very best of our ability so we all can be here for a very long time.
We believe in:
• Rotation grazing so every plant gets a rest during the growing season
• Low-stress livestock handling – we don’t need to yell and push.
• Managing for wildlife habitat because the wild animals are fantastic indicators of healthy land.
• Honest business practices. We treat our customers the way we want to be treated.
Our Mission
To raise livestock in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner and to teach others about how and why we do it this way.
Our family is here for generations to come. We are proud of the heritage left to us by the Graham family and feel a huge responsibility to take care of the land, our livestock, the wildlife and our family as well as they did. Some mornings, if I turned around real fast, I think I might see Alistair Graham reaching out to put his hand on my shoulder.
Our grass-fed beef and lamb is good for our customers. Omega-3 fatty acids, beta-carotene and vitamin E abound, with all the health benefits that go with those vital nutrients.
Our meat is lean. The burgers will hold together, but you won’t see much fat drip off.
We believe in giving back, too. Steve and I host educational tours here at the ranch and we love to teach at the Montana Natural Resource Camp every summer. We both volunteer on several committees. See the list on our Contact Us page.
So, please, check out our web site. Call us if you want to. Leave a message if we’re not inside. We’ll call you back as soon as we can. Drop an email if you like. Ask all the questions you can think of and come see us if you can.
Lisa
Steve says:
“A man who doesn’t live his principles is no man at all.”
Our Mission
To raise livestock in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner and to teach others about how and why we do it this way.
