Late Spring on the Ranch

By May, the pasture has finally given up pretending it's still winter.

It happens late here. Central Utah sits high, and at our elevation, green-up doesn't arrive when the calendar says spring. It arrives in May. Sometimes the first week, sometimes the third, depending on what April decides to do with itself. The red cliffs north of us hold their color year-round, and in May the ground below them finally has something to match.

The bison notice before we do.

A May herd moves differently from a January herd. In winter, they cluster. They dig through snow for last year's grass and keep their heads down. In May, they spread out, drifting between pastures on their own schedule, not ours. That's how bison work. We don't herd them. We open a gate, and they decide.

You can taste the season in bison meat if you pay attention. A bison eating May grass is eating something different than the same bison eating October grass. The new growth is higher in protein. The pasture holds more moisture. The animals put on weight differently than they would on grain, slower and cleaner. It's one of the reasons we don't finish them on corn. The land gives them what they need, in the order they need it.

After almost 20 years of watching the same pastures come in, we still stop what we're doing to look.

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