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Trace Axtell

@leafno_trace

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Welcome to the farm! Our newest arrival, Tulip, is a perfect little heifer calf born from a first calf heifer, Butter Tortilla (can anyone guess who named her?).
Butter Tortilla, or “Butters” for short, has displayed excellent signs of being a fantastic milk cow. Thanks to the efforts of our 2024 CSF crew, she received amazing socialization from an early age, and has therefore been a dream to work with. This may have been the very first time a heifer walked right into a milking stanchion with no fuss and allowed me to milk her out with not even a kick!
It’s a great reminder that putting in the effort early on can really pay off later when it comes to having gentle dairy cows with no fear of human interaction. Yay Butters, you’re a milk cow now!

#jerseycow #rawmilk #homesteadlife #familymilkcow

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Here’s the uppermost section of the recent Idaho water management system. This pond fills passively through rain events, or can be intentionally filled with irrigation water in the summer. This picture here shows the outcome of a winter rain event.
Banking water high up in the system allows for the most potential energy to be stored. The water will soak into the earth and create a plume of highly valuable sub irrigation, and can also be used as a manifold to divert water into different sections of the pastures below. By placing the pond as high up as possible on the landscape, we can let gravity to the rest of the work. Notice in this photo that the swales below the pond have fully charged, and are spilling gently over the ridges. Now the ridges benefit from gentle surface runoff and the valleys are sub irrigated.
It’s no secret that swales and ponds can green up a landscape rapidly, but one of the most under engineered aspects of most systems is the bypass system to prevent the prime ground from becoming over saturated. Being able to dry the ground out is almost as valuable as the ability to get it wet. This is most important when you need to graze cows, cut hay or perform maintenance. This pond, when asked to do so, can receive the full load of water that hits the ranch. When it overflows it fills a half mile long swale on contour. This swale allows as much water as possible to soak in before the excess is deposited into a second pond that is integrated into the nearby creek. The excess water from the system is now being used to restore a degraded waterway by providing supplemental flow to what will soon be a healthy riparian zone.
Wildlife habitat and recreation is a priority for the clients, and therefore we went a little bit extra on this pond! Instead of a basic farm pond, we sculpted steps, shelves and two islands. This pond has all the bells and whistles to attract and support wildlife, including migratory waterfowl and fish, while being functional and beautiful on the landscape.
If you read this far, thank you for your interest!

#restorationagriculture #regenerativefarming #ranchinglife #watermanagement

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Update on the Idaho water management system!
Last month the ranch received approximately .5” inches of rain over the course of 24 hours. That may not seem like a lot, but it was enough for the system of swales and ponds to fully charge.
The beauty of a system like this is that it can be opportunistic during rain events, banking every last drop of moisture in the soil and the biology. All this water used to shoot down the drainages, flood the clients driveway and then leave the property. Now the water sits on contour on the historically driest areas of the farm, filling ponds and soaking in. This is a major adjustment and a huge upgrade.
We are all excited to see how the grasses respond across these dryland areas. I’m sure the cows will be pleasantly surprised by all the extra graze we’ve unlocked!

#restorationagriculture #silvopasture #permaculture #swales #idahoranch

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This new @restoration.ag installation in the high desert of Idaho is breathing life into these ancient landforms. Water that used to run swiftly downhill, causing erosion and over saturating the valleys is now being sequestered on contour, forced to soak in and rehydrate the ridges.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to do this work and thankful that you all are interested enough to follow along. I think we can all agree that it will be exciting and interesting to see these systems mature over time.

#restorationagriculture #regenerativefarming #permaculture #swales #hydrology #regenerate

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Turn your phone sideways for a birds eye view of our newest RAD water management system installation. Located in the high desert of Idaho, this system redefines the relationship between water, livestock and silvopasture in the arid West.
The old irrigation system was labor intensive and inefficient. The valleys were muddy and the ridges couldn’t grow grass. Now it is replaced with a contour system of engineered swales, designed to keep water high in the system, moving it slowly and intentionally across the entire surface of the landscape. The basic concept is to divert water from the wet valleys, and sequester the water on the dry ridges, allowing excess water to move through designated spillways located on the tips of each ridge.
The grazing patterns are now in harmony with the irrigation patterns. As the cows are rotated through the defined alleys, the swales will provide easy access to clean water, and will flood irrigate behind the cattle as they are moved. This way, the cattle are always on dry ground, which will reduce erosion and soil compaction. Later phases of this project include tree plantings, aimed primarily at offering multiple new sources of calories for livestock.
This project also includes a riparian zone restoration, with the goal being to restore perennial flow to a historical wetland corridor that has been dry ever since the beaver population was destroyed by ranchers and trappers. With the restoration of water flow, and the planting of hundreds of thousands of softwood riparian trees, we will perhaps see the eventual return of the beavers in their full glory so that they may take over future management of this project as hydrological engineers.
These systems are so much more than agricultural. By prioritizing ecological restoration, we can work with nature instead of against it, and create legacy projects with a momentum of their own.

#restorationagriculture #markshepard #silvopasture #swales #keylinedesign #regenerativefarming

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Words can’t express my giddy excitement over the fact that we are planting out Cedar Springs Farm in the most high quality hazelnut genetics in existence. All the years of water management and intentional grazing have perfectly prepared this fertile ground for this moment.
This is a legacy planting, an oasis in the high desert where grasslands, wetlands and forests weave through the landscape to support a diverse array of plant life, animal life and fungi.
We are planting what I believe to be the hardiest and most genetically diverse hazelnuts on the planet, bred by Mark Shepard for decades, and ruthlessly selected for only the toughest and most productive plants. If anything is going to thrive up here, it’s these.
And taking it even further, the plants that exhibit the best traits will be used as the seed crop for the next generations of these hazels, so they will become even more well adapted to our region. I look at this planting as the breeding stock to produce many generations of high desert hazelnuts for years to come, something that I hope to make accessible to all.

#silvopastoreo #silvopasture #permaculture #agroforestry #treeplanting #highdesert #oasis #foodforest #selectivebreeding #restorationagriculture

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We’re planting hazelnuts! 100k of them are going in the ground over the next week. We have an amazing crew and we’re having fun dreaming of all the opportunities that will come with the abundance produced by this many nut trees.
Silvopasture is the future of livestock farming. Growing calorie rich, healthy livestock feed while regenerating the soil is a gazzilion times better than tilling, planting and spraying monocultures of annual crops year after year while degrading the soil and compromising the health of the animals, humans and entire ecosystem.
These tree crops never need to be replanted, creating a sustainable, input free harvest that only gets better every year as the trees mature. This seems to be the logical step in the right direction. Hazelnut finished pork, anyone? Permaculture of epic proportions!
#restorationagriculture #agroforestry #silvopasture #treecrops #rotationalgrazing

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Howdy neighbors! If you want to learn all about dustcrete join us on Bone Mesa to build this sauna! We will be forming dustcrete walls and a ceiling Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, starting at 10:00 am. each day. If you want to learn how to make low cost, high efficiency walls with local sawdust comment “Workshop” below, and I’ll DM you the address!

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Raw milk cheese made with whole abomasum rennet

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I really can’t take any credit for this craftsmanship but I’d like to show you something awesome happening on the farm right now. We’ve been lucky to have @leafno_trace living here and helping around the land for the past season, and it turns out he likes it here enough to call it home. He’s building this structure from locally milled logs, cut all his own dovetails and has created a truly unique and beautiful home. With a wood stove cranking and a view of the mountains this is going to be a ridiculously cozy and badass cabin.
Thanks to everyone in the community who has helped with the creation of this home! There’s been a lot of hands and minds putting love into this project.

#logcabin #dovetail #coloradolife #casita #construction #homebuilding #customhouse

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Another batch of sauerkraut is bubbling along! We may not be market gardening but we can sure put up some food for winter and enjoy our probiotic paradise.

#sauerkraut #wildfermentation #naturalfermentation #homegrownveggies #probiotics #fermentation #itsalive

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Carved a bigger beetle for Integral Pathways ^o^ It is a female Rainbow scarab beetle / the dung beetle / Phanaeus Vindex ~ 🪲 #dungbeetle

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