A Joe Kiesecker Photo

This week the apple trees, chokecherries, Indian Paintbrush, Cutleaf balsomroot, and many other wildflowers are in bloom about ten days ahead of usual. The cattle are winding up Twin Creek daily, passing Skull Gulch and heading west of the headquarters. We go up a different canyon each year, Skull Gulch, Box Spring, Wilson Draw and this year, Twin Creek. Each of these canyons feed into Twin Creek and provide the migratory corridors for elk, antelope, mule deer, sage-grouse and other animals that move from the Wind River Mountains to the desert.

Twin Creek is an ecotome, which provides the important transition ground between these two regions. Each of these drainages abounds with diverse trees, shrubs, grass, forbs, and elevation enabling migratory animals a comfortable transition through the seasons.

The horses are feeling spunky with the spring air and we have our first cowboy guests of the season. Andrea and Stephan are our delightful guests from Germany. With their help, Lani’s land restoration goats (over a thousand of them) were rounded up and put on some weed patches before they head to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

We’d also like to take this opportunity to welcome in the “comfortable” grilling and barbecue season. For many of you that have joined us for a Twin Creek Ranch grown steak dinner in, say February, you know that Tony gleefully huddles over the aspen fired grill through wind, snow and freezing temperatures. As the weather begins to warm and Memorial Day and Father’s Day are just around the corner, grilling and barbecue season is approaching for the rest of us.

To celebrate the season we are offering a few of our favorites at a special price until supplies last:

New York Steak for $12.16 per pound
(10 pounds minimum order)

Sirloin Steak for $8.80 per pound
(10 pounds minimum order)

Brisket $6.55 per pound

Round steak $5.60 per pound

Whole tenderloins $18.57 per pound

For the record - Grilling refers to cooking relatively tender foods quickly over high heat; barbecuing is just the opposite: cooking relatively tougher foods for a long period of time with the gentle heat and smoke of a very low fire). With your selections, you will receive the perfect recipe for your selected cuts.

Here is to a joyful season!

Andrea Malmberg

This week at Twin Creek Ranch you will see pairs of Canada geese flying up and down the valley, scouting for an area on the banks of a marshy beaver pond to build their nest. At the crack of dawn you hear them honk as they fly by. You will see a tinge of green, not much, but there is a spring freshness in the air. The pair of Sandhill Cranes that have been coming to nest on Twin Creek the last five years arrived last week and you will see them at Carr Reservoir. They usually hang out there until the first part of April, when they move up Twin Creek to build a nest.

The cattle that supply Twin Creek’s native rangeland beef are enjoying the new grass in the meadows along the road. After grazing on Sheep Mountain for the winter they are down along the creek since the ice has thawed and there is no longer a danger of them falling through. Irrigation water is running in the Schlitching ditch west of the lodge and the Bergsteadt ditch at Skull Gulch. We have aligned our irrigating with the natural rainfall patterns so that we assist nature rather than replace the natural processes. On average, one-irrigation will put on seven inches of water and saturates 49 inches of soil. By not irrigating through the hot season the plants remain more vigorous as their roots follow the moisture down. This spring soaking also allows for a release of moisture throughout the summer, thereby stabilizing the stream flow. Later in the spring we will turn all of the water back into the creek so as to further enhance the health of Twin Creek’s fishery.

If you are too far away to see Twin Creek yourself, we happen to be mentioned in an article about Wyoming in Travel & Leisure: TRUE WEST

For any of you that have been with us as we drove “back country” to the Atlantic City Merch, you will be relieved that you were driving with us and not the author of this story!

And for those of you that are close, you are invited to join us for an increasingly rare Country Cuisine Gathering this Saturday where the menu will include:

SPINACH & SCALLOP SOUP

TWIN CREEK RANCH ROASTED ARMAGNAC-MARINATED BEEF. SERVED WITH ASPARAGUS & WILD GATHERED MOREL RISOTTO

RADICCHIO, FRISEE, AND ARTICHOKE SALAD

CANDIED GINGER CRÈME BRÛLÉE

Country Cuisine Dinner is $40 per person. Dinner, bed and breakfast is $90 per person.

Wishing you a wonderful spring!

Tony & Andrea

Preserving meat for winter by soaking in salt brine is a time-honored method. Corning is an ancient technique for preserving raw meat for long periods. It involves rubbing the meat in a mixture of salt and spices and then keeping it covered in the resultant juicy brine for long-time storage. The familiar corned beef is one of the few remnants of this practice still popular today.

While it is very simple to purchase corned beef in the supermarket, either in ready-to-cook bags or already cooked and sliced, making it at home is very simple, less expensive and much healthier — especially if you use Twin Creek Native Rangeland Brisket. This recipe will keep for weeks but it requires at least four days of corning. So if you would like to try it for Saint Patrick’s Day, order soon. We will make free deliveries in the Lander/Riverton area on Monday and are offering 25% off our briskets — only $7 a pound for the month of March.

The thing to remember is that while you are actually preserving the meat with salt you are also adding a great deal of flavor with the additional ingredients added to the curing mixture. You will be using black pepper, allspice, thyme, sage, paprika, bay leaf, rutabaga, onions, carrots, garlic and juniper berries.

THE INGREDIENTS

10 pounds (about two) Twin Creek Brisket
1 cup of coarse, non-iodized salt (I prefer the “Real Salt” brand — it is tasty and regional)
3 tablespoons of brown sugar
A generous tablespoons of freshly cracked black peppercorns
2 teaspoons of allspice berries, cracked
2 tablespoons of fresh juniper berries, broken with the flat of a knife
Five or six sprigs of fresh thyme
One teaspoon of powdered sage
One teaspoon of paprika
8 Turkish bay leaves, broken into small pieces
One small coarsely-chopped onion
One small chopped rutabaga
One chopped carrot
6 cloves of garlic finely minced

THE METHOD

The corning process is traditionally done in a large stone crock with weights. When visiting the Lodge at Twin Creek you might have noticed our wonderful crock. It is great for saurkraut, cultured vegetables as well as corned meats when put in a reliable cellar. However, large freezer zip-lock bags work well too.

Mix all the ingredients together except for the juniper berries in the crock or bag. Cover the brisket on all sides with the mixture, rubbing it in well. Add the juniper berries. If you are using plastic bags, remove as much air as possible from each bag and seal. If you have one of those vacuum sealers, this is a perfect use for it. You want the meat to be bathed in the salt mixture at all times.

Put your bag(s) into a roasting pan and weight them down under a plate and about 10 pounds of weight (use canned tomatoes or the like). Place in the bottom of the fridge. Check the bags in a few hours. The juice should be running freely from the meat. Massage each bag to work the cure into all the crevices of the meat. Repack into the container, re-weight and return to the fridge. Turn the bags and massage daily to make sure the cure is getting into all sides of the meat.

Before cooking, you will have to soak the meat in several changes of fresh cold water to remove the excess salt. The longer the meat is cured, the longer it will take to soak. A few hours should be enough for a four day brine. If you are corning for a week or more 24 hours should suffice. Because there is no saltpeter in this curing mix, the meat will not be bright red. Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong, this is what it should look like. If you really want it to look like purchased corned meat, find saltpeter at a pharmacy and add a half-teaspoon to the cure, but this is not necessary and only adds questionable, perhaps carcinogenic, substances to your food. There is no good reason to add nitrates to your food other than asthetic ones. Get used to natural grayish-brown corned beef, it is better for you!

COOKING

Put the refreshed meat in a pot and cover with good beer. Add a carrot, some celery stalks with tops, a small onion, several sprigs of Italian parsley, some sprigs of fresh thyme, 4 bay leaves, and 5 cloves of garlic, flattened with the side of a knife. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer. Skim off any foam that rises for the first few minutes then cover partially with a lid and cook at the simmer until the brisket can be pierced easily with a fork. This will take 2 to 3 ½ hours for a Twin Creek Brisket.

JUNIPER BERRIES, THE HOW AND WHERE

No need to get juniper berries (they are actually cones) in your local market. If you live in Wyoming they are plentiful. If not, look around the neighborhood for juniper bushes. These shrubs are very common in landscapes and you may have some in your own yard. They are usually prickly and bluish or grayish green, some are very spreading in growth, some upright, and some literally hug the ground. If you see an evergreen you suspect is a juniper, crush a sprig (careful of the prickles) and sniff. If it smells like gin, you have a juniper, start searching for berries, they may be green or purplish-black. You don’t need a lot, gather about a cup-full into a small baggie and take home. They can be used fresh and the rest dried on the counter and kept in a small jar until you need them again. Juniper berries are an interesting addition to many different recipes, but especially nice with grass-fed beef, game meats and pork.

Hello Friends,

February is one of our favorite times of year. Not only can you catch a little bit of that “spring feeling” in the air but the light has changed just enough that it is clear that the days are getting longer. Our chickens also respond to the light as they have thankfully returned to laying their scrumptious. The crisp starlit nights are beautiful as well. For this reason, we decided to get married on a full moon in February nine years ago and there must be a reason that Valentine’s Day takes place during this wonderful time of year. Speaking of Valentine’s Day, we again will be sharing our home at Twin Creek with a few special couples on February 14th. Seating is limited so if you find the menu enticing please contact us soon.

Warm Regards,

Tony & Andrea

ROMANTIC VALENTINE’S DINNER FOR TWO

Steamed Artichoke with Lavender Scented Hollandaise

White Bean & Rosemary Soup with Prosciutto

Salad of Pine Nuts and Avocados

Your Choice of either:

Honey-Peppered Wild Salmon served with Goat Cheese, Grape & Watercress Pasta

Or

Twin Creek Ranch Grown Petite Filet with Wild Mushroom Pasta

Chocolate Cream Pot with Rose Pepper Essence

This sensuous meal is $128 per couple and will be served with freshly made bread, champagne, house wines and beer, soft drinks, coffee and teas. You are also welcome to bring your own spirits as well.

Contact Andrea at 307.335.7485 or andrea@twincreekranch for reservations.

by Tony Malmberg

At Twin Creek last week we finished our Holistic Management grazing plan in time to turn out the cattle to summer pasture in the next coming weeks. We haven’t always been concerned with such paper work. My Bureau of Land Management range conservationist, Roy Packer, cynically refers to how we used to graze as “Columbus Management,” meaning that we turned our cattle out in the spring and went to discover them in the fall. While Columbus Management might seem easier, we now realize its consequences. Most heart breaking, by not doing a grazing plan, I may have destroyed my daughter’s love of riding and working with cattle. Rather than the long arduous hours KD had to endure searching for cattle over miles of hot and dusty allotments, we now ritually ride pretty much every day. Guided by our grazing plan, we mimic the effects that massive herds of bison and elk had on the sagebrush steppe. Our cattle are more concentrated – bunched together by cowboys on horseback rather than the pack hunting predators that kept the wild herds moving. Our daily rides, keeping healthy cattle on fresh grass, have become an enjoyable experience rather than an endurance test. In turn, planned grazing does many things to improve the health of our landscape, our cattle, and our quality of life.

My grandfather taught me that we were in the business of growing and harvesting grass. Cattle are simply a package to transport the product. It makes business sense to plan our grazing so we maintain viable grass populations and healthy cattle. But in the Rocky Mountain West other values fold and interlace throughout our landscape. Open space, scenic vistas, wildlife habitat, fisheries, and that all encompassing value of biodiversity meets in our homeland where rivers begin and flow in all directions.

Our ranch on Twin Creek lays where many of these diverse intersections meet, in an eco-tome between mountain and desert. Twin Creek Ranch is the front door to the Wind River foothills but also the Beaver Creek Basin – a critical passageway and refuge for many wildlife species. Planning for the complexity of these many needs is easily addressed through our Holistic Management grazing plan.

Grazing is actually only one of six tools we have to manage the soil surface and affect the ecosystem processes. The other five are rest, fire, animal impact, living organisms, and technology. This is why we call our “grazing plan” a “time and timing of tools plan” (T & T of T plan). The “time” (how long) and “timing” (when) of using these six tools affects the ecosystem processes. The water cycle, mineral cycle, energy flow and community dynamics are essential to life on our planet. The more functional these ecosystem processes, the more life we have on our ranch. In essence, the more biodiversity we have, the more cattle feed we have.

We have a Coordinated Resource Management (CRM) team consisting of the BLM range conservationist, Wyoming Game and Fish wildlife biologist, Natural Resource Conservation Service district conservationist, the Popo Agie conservation district, the Nature Conservancy, our county extension agent, a public lands recreationist, and an outfitter. Whether it be plant health, water availability, ease of moving livestock, minimizing animal smells around the lodge, hunting seasons, trout spawning, elk calving, family vacations etc., we get any and all concerns on the table and develop our T & T of T plan.

At the end of the day, everyone walks away with peace of mind knowing someone has the authority and responsibility to deal with their concerns. The livestock will be in the right place, at the right time, for the right reasons. The reasons will respect other animals’ space and feed requirements, soil surface needs to improve the ecosystem processes, and our cattle health requirements.

The next time you are at Twin Creek Ranch & Lodge, ask to see our T & T of T plan. And for those of you that will be joining us to experience real cowboy life riding the open range, you know that your time in the saddle will not only be enjoyable, it will have meaning.

(For more, see an essay on Holistic Management at: Headwaters News).

Greetings from Twin Creek!

We thought that you might enjoy reading the Union of Concerned Scientists attached report “Greener Pastures: How grass-fed beef and milk contribute to healthy eating.” UCS Grass-fed Report

In perusing I found a couple items worth noting:

1. The cattle on the front appear to be wearing insecticide eartags! Though the yellow may be a nice accessory for the Angus and their green grass, I bet the soil creating insects and the birds aren’t too happy. At Twin Creek we move our cattle ahead of the fly cycle so that they are not bugged and don’t need insecticides. When the cattle move onto fresh grass, the insects stay busily creating soil from what the cattle left behind. After a few years of banning these expensive, unnecessary and poison-laced pieces of plastic on Twin Creek we were faced with an interesting recurring question on our rangeland tours: “Where are all of the cow pies?” We happily answer, “Ask the dung beetles”.

2. Tony and I just returned from Argentina where we completed our Biological Session requirement for becoming Certified Educators in Holistic Management. We toured the country from the Pampas to Patagonia with Jim and Daniela Howell of Sun Country Ranch Tours. The experience was incredible and I’m already chomping at the bit to figure out how to go to New Zealand with them in 2007. Wonderful Argentinean hosts as well as the people on the tour, extraordinary food and accommodations, and experiences that even the most savvy of traveler could not flush out.

Anyway, we were so excited to view the Pampas – HOME OF GRASS-FED BEEF. To our surprise, we found “grain-grazed beef”. Let me explain. In the Pampas they plant crops like corn, sunflower, oats and barley, then graze it with cattle. Now admittedly this is better for the environment than feedlot beef because the grain doesn’t have to be harvested with a petroleum run tractor and the cattle are putting organic matter back into the soil. However, the soil is still tilled, or mined. We are curious to test the nutritional quality of Twin Creek Beef (cattle that are raised on 98% native rangeland and meadows in which most have not been mined for over thirty-five years) with that of some grain-grazed beef. We will definitely let you know the results.

For all of you that live near the Tetons of Wyoming and Idaho, we will be delivering Twin Creek Beef during the Murie Center’s ECO-fair at the Jackson Campus of the Teton Science School on April 22, 2006. Let us know tomorrow if you would like a special order or just come to pick up our special Earth Day Package – Short Ribs, Chuck Roast, Stew Meat, Burger, & Sirloin for $60. 10% of the proceeds go to support the great work of the Murie Center. To learn more, go to ECO-fair.

Join us to celebrate Earth Day and go home and have a steak or a burger that you can feel good about!

The Ranch Wife, Reinvented

by Kerry Brophy

PROFILE - December 26, 2005 High Country News
Andrea Malmberg

At the end of a long dusty road that bumps through Wyoming sage country, Twin Creek Ranch looks like a typical ranch. Outside a hand-hewn log building, turkeys and chickens peck at the ground; cattle graze on a nearby hillside, and ranch dogs guard a pack of goats.

But it takes only one conversation with Andrea Malmberg, the ranch’s tall and elegant co-proprietor, to realize there’s little of the traditional ranch in Twin Creek.

Malmberg lives with her husband, Tony, on more than 16,500 acres south of Lander, Wyo. Here they raise range-fed cattle that receive no hormones or antibiotics and eat only grass. The Malmbergs practice Holistic Range Management, moving cattle on the land to mimic the effects of elk and bison grazing, and part of their ranch is now under a conservation easement. They market their “Beyond Organic Beef” directly to Wyoming consumers, retail outlets and a local restaurant.

A cattle buyer’s daughter from Montana, Andrea was working as an environmental mediator in southwest Montana when she met Tony. Not long afterward, she drove down the 12-mile dirt road to Twin Creek Ranch for the first time. “I had my truck full of stuff to leave if I didn’t like the ranch,” Andrea says. “But I wanted to move as soon as I saw the place.” The Malmbergs, who married in 1998, share the responsibilities of running the ranch; they both work outside with the animals, and wash dishes.

Tony used o bring in guests who wanted to play cowboy and work on a real-life ranch for a while. But his wife has taken their guest-ranch business one step further. Visitors from all over the world now stay in an elegantly decorated new lodge, and enjoy Andrea’s gourmet cuisine, created using the ranch’s free-range beef, poultry, pork, goat cheese and vegetables.

“What I’m passionate about is creating a place where people can interact with the land and their food source,” Andrea says. “I’m creating a habitat where people can just ‘be,’ where they can experience fresh food.”

Tony, a quiet cowboy who has lived on his family’s ranch for more than a quarter of a century, lights up when he describes what Andrea has done with the ranch: “You should have seen this place before she came,” he says. Armed with a master’s degree in natural resource sociology and strong opinions about our connection to what we eat, Andrea is active in the Slow Food movement, which helps people rediscover the pleasures of eating while supporting local producers and a sustainable, diverse food supply. Recently, the Malmbergs served as delegates to the international Slow Food summit in Italy.

Twin Creek Ranch used to ship cattle to feedlots, which sold them to packers who supplied distant consumers. Now, many of the Malmbergs’ customers have actually seen the place where their beef is raised. The couple have won numerous stewardship awards, including recognition from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

Each day that Andrea spends walking the hillsides, milking the goats, and cooking dinner for the ranch’s guests, she works toward her ultimate goal: a “functional community” where people feel connected to the land. “We’ve lost the talent needed to live with the earth and our food source,” Andrea says. “I want to look into how we can regain that knowledge.”

The author writes from Lander, Wyoming.

Season Greetings from Twin Creek!

Imagine that you are a river and your mission is traveling to the ocean. There will be obstacles, distractions, and diversions obstructing your progress. An avalanche here and a beaver dam there. At times you may even get caught in an eddy and conclude that you can no longer continue. You simply are left to wonder what nature has in store for you. As we think about the lessons learned during the past few years, 2005 was our time to understand what it might mean to think like a river. We had to contemplate the patience of a stream, who upon meeting a landslide and dammed riverbed, is stopped until the cavity is filled and the stream finds the first available fracture or low point to once again progress. The stream’s attention does not turn on destroying the boulders and dirt blocking it’s progress but simply pauses until it builds the energy, the capacity, and the depth to continue under, through, over or around the obstruction. In 2005, with the help of our family and our community we were able to build the capacity and continue our journey in a stronger and gentler way than we ever thought possible.

The heavens brought snow and rain after four years of the worst drought in recorded history. Twin Creek’s rangelands woke from their dormancy and welcomed the return of more cattle. The place simply felt like it was full of life this summer. On the business front there was life too. The Wyoming Nature Conservancy, through the Farm and Ranchland Protection program placed a conservation easement on Twin Creek enabling us to buy out retiring partners, restructure our business, and protect this beautiful place from development. At last we feel we have the flexibility to truly develop a holistic model for agriculture in the West.

Over the year, we have been able to provide more and more people with our “Beyond Organic” Beef, allowing us to fulfill our mission to grow food that enhances the health of the people who enjoy it and the land that creates it. We were once again blessed with guests from around the world to help us heal the land by moving cattle to fresh pasture every day. As our local clientele takes in the views and pleasures of locally grown foods, they continue to bring us joy as we witness how much Twin Creek means to them.

Learning to think like a river has helped us clearly define why we are here. Our journey is that of maintaining a healthy landscape, producing healthy food, and providing a place of refuge for our family, our friends, and our much-appreciated customers.

In gratitude to those who support this journey, Twin Creek Ranch’s Annual Winter Solstice Celebration will take place December 21, 2004 from 3 pm on into the evening.

If we get cold weather bring your ice skates. More snow without cold weather, bring your snowshoes or X-country skis. If it warms up and you want to enjoy the outdoors, mukluks might be a good idea. If you are musically inclined and wish to share your talents, you will receive much warmth and encouragement. Regardless of all the above, bring yourself and your loved ones for good cheer on this longest night of the year.

If you are far away, know that you are in our hearts and we wish you all a joyful season and peaceful New Year.

Best Wishes,

Tony & Andrea Malmberg