The Story of John and Nadine

John and Nadine met in high school, the quintessential high school sweethearts. In 10^th grade Nadine batted her baby blues at John and he leapt at the chance to tutor her in math.  The close of the semester found Nadine with an A, John with a C, and John deeply in love.  As love goes a falling out occurred, the couple reunited, and then married.

Fast forward, John and Nadine have been married for more than 40 years; have two great kids and five grandchildren.  As John grew closer to retirement, read his much loved Louis Lamour novels again and again, his itch to be closer to the land continued to grow, John saw retirement as an opportunity to hone and fulfill his passion. He just needed to convince Nadine.  

In order to put John’s dream in place, a ranch was needed.  The search for the perfect land included all of the western United States. With John and Nadine’s strong commitment to family they quickly realized they would need land within a 4 hour drive of where the kids and grandkids lived. They settled on the beautiful Santa Rita Hills about 6 miles west of Buellton. They purchased a working ranch from a elderly couple who 20 years before had the same dreams at retirement.  This blessing gave John the opportunity to start his dream and also continue the dream of the previous owners who were concerned about selling to someone who would not respect the land.

When John and Nadine took possession of the ranch, they started with a small herd of very large commercial cattle. As John and Nadine’s cattle knowledge increased and they paired that with their commitment to health and the environment, they became infatuated with smaller breeds of cattle. The fascination increased as the smaller breeds were people friendly, geared for smaller ranches, and finished well on grass.  The Lowline breed fit this to a T. John and Nadine purchased some excellent seedstock which have done very well in the shows. Click on Our Cattle tab for a description of our excellent bulls and some of their lady friends.

Most of the feed for our animals is grown on the ranch, feeding them a mixture of grasses including oat, alfalfa, perennial rye, orchard, and fescue.  Our selection of grasses is totally driven by the end product; the quality and taste of our beef.  At no time do we administer any hormones or antibiotics.  We do not feed any animal byproducts or grain to our beeves: They are 100% grass fed – start to finish.  We strive for the healthiest, highest quality, best tasting beef we are able to produce.  Our positive customer feedback has provided us with wonderful encouragement that makes our job worth doing.  We are a premier supplier of all natural 100% grass fed beef for our community.

As the story goes, John’s previous career was a physicist and engineer; which means the following questions is always asked: “How can we do this better?” The answer came in reading, researching, and dreaming. Ah, Ha! Add the synergistic, environmentally conscious combination of chickens to the ranch.

The winning combination has cows feeding on waist high delicious grass until it is about 4 inches high.  Next the pasture raised chickens come and devour the rest of the grass, the bugs found in both the grass and the cow pies, and organic feed.  While the chickens are feeding on the bugs and grasses, they are using their claws to fertilize the soil mixing their poop with the cow pies, which in turn provides the best fertilizer, and grows the next batch of grass for the cows to feast on.

Once the pasture raised chickens were in the picture, a ranch is not complete without pasture raised eggs. The pasture raised egg laying hens also follow the 100% grass fed cattle and do basically the same eating, scratching, and fertilizing, the only difference being the pasture raised eggs are also soy-free. 

With the addition of chickens and eggs to our product line, we are working with nature to bring you and your family our best local and delicious farm products.