Emily owns and operates Sol Ranch near Wagon Mound, New Mexico where she raises 100% grass fed & finished cows. She has about 500 beeves that she tends on a personal basis. She has a degree from Ft Lewis College in Durango and worked, for a time, for the National Forest Service.
As a carnivore who's been deeply affected by the depredation of the over-grazing of The West, it's been heartening to find someone who is taking a responsible approach to raising cattle.
Every couple of months Emily brings her products to several cities.
Her truck is a real-live, working vehicle. You can see by the NOSE SMEARS and dents it probably hasn't had a single day of sitting in the driveway prettying up the owner's ego.
Emily went to elementary and high school in the local village of Wagon Mound then left to attend Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado where she obtained a B.S. in Environmental and Organismic Biology where she studied climate change and soil health in her thesis work. While in school, Emily worked as a river guide in the four corner’s region during the summer months. It was through this work and research that Emily reconnected with the land and deepened her appreciation for the natural world. In true Durango fashion, learned to see the landscape as a playground and developed a passion for hiking, climbing, trail running, snowboarding, camping, rafting, etc. Combined with her education in ecology and soil biology, she developed an ever growing passion for understanding the ecological processes at play on the land and the importance of careful land management.
After graduating college, Emily became a range technician for the Manti-La Sal National Forest outside of Moab, Utah where she worked in the forest performing range trend and utilization analyses of the grazing allotments while spraying weeds and working on spring developments.
After her first season, she returned home to the ranch to help her dad through his shoulder surgery recovery. It was then that she realized that if she intended to manage land, it needed to be her family’s land, so she moved home. She started out working for her dad, managing his cattle on part of the ranch. She attended Ranching for Profit school and completed online courses through Holistic Management International while soaking up as much education on land health and cattle management as possible.
She began custom grazing yearling cattle on her own in 2016 and transitioned to running mama cows and calves of her own by 2018. The first grassfed animals were sold to other grassfed producers in 2019 and by 2020 Sol Ranch was selling its first orders of grassfed beef from the ranch. Emily currently runs mama cows that she purchased from Jeff and Camille’s herd. For over 40 years, they have selected for cattle that are naturally healthy and have the basic ability to get fat on grass in this arid landscape without the need for bringing in outside hay, just a little bit of protein supplement, some free choice salt and mineral and that’s it for feed inputs.
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