Mud Ridge Ranch

09/26/2026

We have a bottle calf on our hands.

This picture about sums up our life right now 🤠

09/26/2026

Had a nice pasture surprise today. Got a message from the guy watching our cattle and had a 3 week premature calf born in the slop today. It was a little cold and weak.

Nothing some truck floor heat can’t solve and a warm night in the dry barn. He was sucking on a bottle in no time!

09/25/2026

Manscaping ✅
Parasite check ✅
Swimmers swim ✅

Routine bull maintenance being done for Sheppard Farms Apple Hill Stirling as the buildup to breeding season begins!

09/24/2026

Our operation is beyond blessed with all the rainfall we have had to get good growth for our fall and winter forages.

It makes everything grow - including the seeds from the bales I have hauled over the years!

09/14/2026

How about that lightning strike!!

Just trying to capture the heavy rainfall we are receiving and God had other plans.

Going to be a wet week in southwest Iowa with 5 inches forecast for our area ☔️⛈️

09/12/2026

Conversation starter here - I want your thoughts on this!

As one field gets harvested not to be planted again until April, another field is being planted to feed livestock through the winter.

It got me thinking more about cover crops.

Did you know Iowa had roughly 4 million acres of cover crops planted last year?

That sounds like a lot—until you put it into perspective. Iowa has about 26.5 million acres of row crops, meaning those 4 million acres represent only about 15% of our row-crop acres.

Iowa has a little over 36 million acres total. So, even if we generously assume every acre that isn’t row crop is grass—which we know isn’t true—only about 62% of Iowa would have something actively covering the soil through the winter.

Simultaneously, our US beef herd is at an all time low with no land to put them on due to drought in the west and the destruction of our grasslands in the corn belt. This has been encouraged by agricultural policy the last 40 years that provides backstops for this destruction.

Also simultaneously, we have an entire generation of people trying to get into agriculture who often can't find a way in. Land is expensive. Equipment is expensive. And from a profitability standpoint, there simply isn't always room for another person on the farm.

So here's the question:What if we connected some of these problems?

Imagine millions of acres of cover crops being grazed by livestock for several months of the year.
Instead of a field sitting bare through the winter, we could have living plants protecting the soil, livestock converting those plants into food, nutrients being returned to the soil, less potential for water and wind erosion, another source of income for farmers, more opportunities for people trying to get into agriculture.

And think of what that would do for Iowa! More jobs, more cover crop businesses, more people in rural towns, bustling livestock barns, the list goes on.

With the development of virtual fencing, there are more tools than ever to manage livestock across crop fields efficiently and intentionally.

Of course, it's not perfect. Im not the first person to think of this. Water is a major challenge in the winter months but can be manageable with some heating tools and braving the cold. There are logistical hurdles, and this is a very high-level view of a much bigger issue.

But I keep coming back to these same questions:
Why aren't we doing more of this?
Why is cover crop adoption still such a struggle?
And why aren't more family farming operations looking at livestock as a way to diversify, improve soil health, and create another source of income?

Maybe the answer isn't simply growing more crops.
Maybe part of the answer is figuring out how to put animals back into the system we're already growing.

Let’s hear some of your thoughts.

09/08/2026

This was a pretty neat recognition on some of the grazing land and natives restoration we are doing on our land 🤠

A big congratulations to Maggie McQuown and Joceyln and Matt Vermeersch, all from Iowa, for receiving a 2026 Iowa Environmental Leader in Agriculture Award! They traveled with Maggie’s husband Steve Turman and the Vermeersch children to the Iowa State Fair to receive the award.

Maggie and Steve operate in partnership with the Vermeersches in a system that emphasizes regenerative, rotational, and adaptive grazing, native prairie, multi-species cover crops, and grazing to manage invasive vegetation. The generations of conservation work on the farm include more than 8,000 feet of terraces, erosion-control structures, prairie strips, native riparian buffers, wildlife plantings, and pollinator habitat.

Photo credit: Wallace’s Farmer

09/01/2026

This is how grazing and nature can coexist.

To some, this might look like a weedy pasture. To us, it looks like a healthy balance between grazing livestock, healing the land, and providing space for other species to thrive.

You’ll see quite a bit of common ragweed in our pastures. A lot of people see it as a pest and immediately feel the urge to eliminate it. We see it differently. Common ragweed is nature’s blanket over bare soil. It protects the soil while giving us a signal: this area needs improvement.

Our goal isn’t necessarily to eliminate “weeds” like ragweed. It’s to build the soil and improve the pasture so that, over time, we have more desirable plants covering that ground. That might mean overseeding, bale grazing, resting that particularly area at a specific time in the year, or a combination of several practices.

Right now, the sheep are absolutely hammering the ragweed. They’re going after the seed heads, which provide a surprisingly valuable source of protein. The cows, on the other hand, generally leave the ragweed alone and focus on the grasses growing beneath and around it.

That’s one of the many benefits of multi-species grazing. Cattle and sheep have different dietary preferences, so they utilize the pasture differently. What one species passes over, another may find valuable.

And there’s another piece of this that we don’t want to overlook. Common ragweed is an important food and cover for wildlife, pheasants and particularly quail. It provides cover during the warmer months and produces seeds that become an important food source through the fall and winter.

So no, we don’t look at this pasture and see a problem that needs to be sprayed away.

We see livestock doing what livestock do, plants doing what plants do, and wildlife benefiting from both. We will take our notes and get this spot improved over time.

That’s what grazing in harmony with nature looks like.

08/29/2026

Who would have thought something 50+ years old would provide such a value for us today. After months (okay years) of trying to find an old bale elevator we finally found one that came through our local sale barn earlier this summer. Plugged her in when we got her home and she fired right up!

This is the first time actually using it though and it sounds dumb and obvious - but it’s life changing! I used to climb up a ladder bale by bale to do the same job you see here.

Oh yeah and look at Joc go! Two months post partem and getting after it 🤠

08/24/2026

More exciting news! After 2 years of trying to find a company to come out and drill us a new well for our livestock, we finally found a company with Cahoy. We received a cost share through the NRCS through the EQIP program that is assisting with several other key infrastructure and seeding needs as we transition this land from row crop to grazing land.

While we are still a ways from having this actually water our livestock, we see the light now at the end of the tunnel.

No more paying attention to every rainstorm and seeing if we need to haul water early, or modifying our grazing to have animals somewhere that we just can’t get water to. Most importantly, the HOURS UPON HOURS that we will save by not having to haul water to our livestock that we can now use as a family.