The Meat Mafia Podcast

Part 1
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[00:00:00] All right, Maggie, welcome to the Meat Mafia podcast. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for having me. I'm very excited. Who, um, so one of our mutual friends connected us and he was like, I have this great, this good friend. I just met her. She's a fourth generation steward at a ranch out in Kentucky. And so we got to have a conversation a few weeks ago and I just loved everything about what you're doing, your story, the fact that you guys are biodynamic.

And I think I was telling you this when we caught up, Harry and I, our favorite episodes or episodes like this, when we actually get to connect with our ranchers that are doing the difficult, meaningful work of growing our food and really just teaching our audience, just things that they need to know about ranching and the food industry in general.

So number one, I just wanted to thank you for joining me. Thank you for the amazing work that you do. And, um, I would love for the listener to just learn a little bit more about, you know, your backstory at Fox hollow. I know it's an amazing family story, so I'd love for you to tell that. Yeah, even you calling me a rancher.

I'm, I'm honored. I'm [00:01:00] like, wow, I've been having cowgirl dreams for over 20 years. It's coming true. So I am a fourth generation steward of Fox hollow farm. Uh, my family's farm originally started in the 1930s. My great aunt Margaret purchased the main manor house and about 700 acres around it. And while she loved farmland and loved nature.

He leased the farming operations out to a dairyman. And my mom remembers being young, going out to aunt Margaret's farm and hat, she always talks about the buttermilk biscuits cause the buttermilk came straight from the farmer and just really enjoying that connection. Going to the milk parlor, enjoying fresh milk straight from the farm.

None of my family were particularly farmers. They leased it out to other farmers. Same with my grandmother, when she inherited the [00:02:00] farm in the seventies, she decided to sign a 20 year lease with a three crop rotation farmer, which is wheat, corn, corn. Soybeans and a whole lot of chemicals. Wow. Airplanes of chemicals.

I'm sure you've seen some of those videos. And I recall as a young girl, my mom, my grandmother would run out the front door of her house and wave her hands and scream at the planes and be like, no, this is so bad for the farm. She loved the woodlands. She loved nature. She loved connecting people with the farm.

The idea of. Stewarding that many acres, 800 acres at the time was a big feat. And what was typical for land stewards at that time that weren't necessarily farmers was they would lease it out to farmers. That's sort of my family history and how, why I'm saying I'm honored to be called a rancher. I'm honored to be a farmer because I don't [00:03:00] have that history in my background.

And I've worked really hard to connect with generational farmers, understand what it is to be a generational farmer and learn from them. That's super interesting. So, so your family technically owned the land, but it's so difficult to actually manage 800 plus acres that they would naturally lease it out to be able to make some money for the property.

But to your point at that time, it's like the most commoditized crops are corn, wheat, and soy. So the likelihood of them. Finding someone to lease out the land for those products. So it's probably amazing to think back to the shape of the land in the 70s versus now it being this biodynamic grass finished ranch that's really improving the quality of the soil.

in general. Um, but for y of get reinvolved in the said you're honored to be I think you have a busine which is so cool to go th and combine both of those you kind of find your cal[00:04:00]

Yeah, so I originally built a relationship with the farm, which today is 1300 acres. My grandmother ended up growing it a little more by buying up farms around us. She really cared about saving farmland, which was passed down to my mother and then again, to me. And I remember going out and having this deep connection in the woods.

My mother would take me and my brothers out to the woods most weekends and we would just spend hours out there. It was my comfortable space. So I had a connection with the farm. I had a connection with nature being outside. But I definitely did not even imagine that one day my mom and I would be doing this project together and stewarding the land and building a biodynamic farm community.

Yeah. In 2005, my grandmother got Alzheimer's in 2000. And by 2005, she just didn't have the capability to make [00:05:00] decisions for the farm. And so it was up to my mom, aunt and uncle to decide what to do. My mom lived on the farm and she was very brave in saying, I'm going to take this on and we're going to create a biodynamic farm community.

He did not know how to do that, but when she has an intention and she has a vision, speak, trust that the help will come and the help sure did come. We've been incredibly blessed to have people that have the knowledge, have the experience and they respect. My mom's vision, my vision and see us blood, sweat, and tears out there trying to learn and trying our best to make this happen.

So I was studying business and entrepreneurship at the time. I always felt this call that I wanted to own my own business. Do my own thing. I kind of didn't like following the rules as a kid. I was terrible at school. I couldn't sit there. I wanted to be outside. I would [00:06:00] look out the window and just wish I was out there instead.

I would get kicked out. Exactly. I'd get kicked out of class constantly and was like, yes, I have to sit in the hallway. Uh, but I mean, I was my, and my mom always encouraged me. She was like, you're smart. It's not your issue is not school. It's that you just can't sit there inside and memorize things.

Definitely. But she always made me feel smart. And my brothers were very encouraging. They were great at school. They got straight A's and were perfectly fine at sitting there. But they were always very nice to me about, Maggie, you got this. You're smart. You can, I was always, um, Quick with comebacks. I could stand up for myself.

They pushed me to do that. That's for sure. And it's been interesting how that skill has transferred into being a grass fed beef farmer. It's a pretty well, the grass fed beef industry is a little different, but being a rancher, it's a pretty male dominant industry to say the [00:07:00] least. And to be able to stand my own and to Admit that no, I didn't grow up with a grandpa who taught me how to do this, but I will listen to you and I will learn.

That's sort of always been my motto is I am willing to listen. I'm willing to learn and I'm willing to try hard. I may not naturally have the knowledge, but that's what it's going to take. And so long story short, my mom sent me a book in 2005 called the omnivore's dilemma. I have a feeling some of you have read that.

Yes. And. It shocked me to find out that our animals were being tortured. So I set out, I said, I want to fix this. I'm never eating tortured meat again. I'm never taking for granted that those pictures on. You know, a carton of milk that has a beautiful image of a cow. So happily out there in the pasture, [00:08:00] I took a very deep dive into where's our meat specifically coming from and what change can I play?

What difference can I make with this gift of. Land. I mean, access to land is a huge barrier for young farmers. I had the land. I just didn't have the generational knowledge. Yes. So, um, I wrote a business plan in 2006 for a grass fed beef farm in Kentucky. It was part of a project at school. I went to Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.

Had a lot of fellow lovers of the outdoors, I would say. And I had a great team of smart people helping me out. They actually didn't know it was a real business plan that I was creating. I don't know if I believed it was real, but we made it all the way to the end of the process. Did a full [00:09:00] presentation.

My mom even came and sat in class. No other parents came. Oh, she was. balling by the end. She was so proud and just like, Oh, you, you listened and you actually are going to do this. Like she could not believe that I was seriously standing by her side and saying, mom, you're right. We do need to do something and we can do this.

And you know what the extra bonus on top is we can make revenue doing this. Yeah. Which is a tricky thing. Yeah. Yes. But there's a, there's a way that you can do it profitably. I mean, there's so much to unpack with what you just said. I mean, number one, your mom sounds like an absolutely incredible woman, not just because she decided to inherit this land and do something with it and make it a regenerative, incredible piece of land.

But also even just like the belief in you and telling you that you're smart, where you always were smart. It's [00:10:00] so many people with school, they just aren't interested in the subjects that they're being taught. Like they would rather be outside and play or whatever. And then you find your calling, like business or this desire after you read omnivores dilemma to do ranching the right way.

Oh. And all of a sudden you put together a business plan for the ranch. Like you just needed the right thing that you were interested in and you blend it together, these two passions. And that seems like that's led to what you're doing now. It's so cool. Yeah. And telling a story and building a brand really interested me.

I mean, at the time when we first started, we only had 30 head of cattle. We bought our first 30 head of cattle hottest day in July, 2006. They came in, we had no idea what we were doing. We had the first little corral of fencing put in, but no other infrastructure, really, we didn't have a cattleman. We, we were, we were shaky, but we were blessed not really understanding what we were getting into.

And we were [00:11:00] naive. If I. Had the knowledge I do now and said, Oh, I'm just going to try this. I would be like, Oh no, I'm way too scared to do that. But I had no fear back then. I mean, I was 22 years old. I was, I was young and ready to go. Yeah. I think being naive and having that energy is honestly a superpower though.

Because if you realistically like. Overly processed how hard it was going to be to get to where you are now, you probably wouldn't have done it just like we would have been like, oh, we're two nut jobs posting about meat and recording a podcast about meat in the food system. But then it's like, you kind of take that naive energy with great energy into what you're doing and then like, brick by brick, you build something out that's really special.

So, um, my question for you is, so you start off with 30 head of cattle back in 2006. How many headaches do you have now? We have 550. Wow. That's unbelievable. So from 35 50. Yes. And we grew naturally. So we would save the mamas [00:12:00] that had good genetics. Genetics is a huge part of this. I mean, I'm sure you've experienced this.

You taste some grass fed beef and it is phenomenal. It has good marbling. It, it, the feel on your mouth is good. The flavor is deep. It's intense. And then other grass. Grass fed beef with quotations that you try is just cows thrown out on the pasture with no pasture management, no real skill that the attention to detail and genetics in the grasses and the, in the movement of the animals is not there.

And so it tastes. Like gamey and no flavor and so lean that it's like a brick. Yeah. So that has been key to, well, the learning curve there was huge, but we, we've got that down. But also key to our success is I knew from the beginning, if this is going to work, it has to taste [00:13:00] the best any grass fed beef has tasted.

I love that. And it's so interesting. I literally was just saying this an hour ago. I feel like grain fed beef is all just like, it's consistently good. Like it's not going to be exceptional, but it's very, it's good across the board where grass finished meat is almost like wine, where when you get really good grass finished meat, it is the best steak you will ever have.

And if it's from someone that doesn't do things the right way, it's just, it's probably some of the worst meat you're ever going to have. But if you get it from a right ranch, you're like, this is. Like this is like God's ruminant because it tastes so damn good. Yeah. I want people to taste Kentucky. I want them to taste the bluegrass.

We call it bluegrass fed. I saw that on the website. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's bluegrass. It's more cheeky than anything. There's bluegrass in our pastures, but it also has other grasses in there like fescue and alfalfa. Yeah. So how did you, how do you learn the ins and outs of cattle [00:14:00] ranching? Because now it's like Because we, we talked to a lot of first gen ranchers now that will be like, honestly, I just started learning on YouTube and YouTube in 2006.

So like, no, we're to learn a lot of this stuff. So when I first started the grass fed beef, wasn't a thing as, I mean, there was omnivores dilemma or there was polyface farm. Will Harris was just getting started. So there was some movement and the main area that I studied was Argentina and Australia, which was hard because I'd never been to either one of those places.

Actually, I still haven't. I would love to go. And just eat all the meat. All of the meat. Yeah. All of the meat. And so that's where I started studying. And that's where I got the flavor idea. I mean, Argentinians described their meat By texture, by [00:15:00] flavor, by mouthfeel. And in Americans were describing the meat more by like grading or marbling.

Like they weren't, they didn't seem to have the same values as the Argentinians had. So that was sort of where I first started studying. And then I went out and seek, seek mentors. I went to visit different grass fed beef farms. I went to a white oak pastures and talked to Will Harris, see what he was doing.

I, we, we had Alan Savory was around back then. We went to the Alan Savory Institute. I don't even know if it was called that back then, but that was, there was, there was knowledge out there. But honestly, it was talking to generational farmers in Kentucky. We have more cattle anywhere east of the Mississippi.

And so there are great cattle farmers in Kentucky. The [00:16:00] problem is. There's no market. So what cattle farmers are doing is they're raising these incredible cows, great calves, kind of the wrong genetics for finishing on grass. It's more how big, how fast can they grow them, but they have the animal husbandry that we need.

And so talking to those generational ranchers was priceless. I, I was so blessed to be in a space that all around me were farmers that had tons of knowledge. So we have Wendell Berry is from Kentucky. I don't know if you're familiar with his writing. He's a writer, a poet around agriculture and farming.

And he's one County over and he, in his writing, I learned how to have connection to the land, how to be a steward of the land, how to listen to the land. And so it [00:17:00] wasn't the technicalities of farming, but it was that. relationship with farming that was so important to learn before you can really get too technical.

Yeah, got it. And when I was ready to get technical, We met our head herdsman, who now is still here today. He came in 2010 is when I met him. 2011, January 2011 is when he moved his family to our farm. He was from, he's from Murray, Kentucky. Has a master's in forages, grasses. Yeah. He was a rodeo guy, so he is a cowboy.

He, I, he has taught me so much about cattle farming. He's even taught me how to ride a horse, like a cowgirl. His wife also has taught me, she taught me how to ride a horse. And then he taught me how to ride a, like a cowboy or cowgirl, I guess. And he has [00:18:00] been, he's like family now. He's a partner that understands.

The importance of animal husbandry, the importance of genetics. He's very interested in details and studying and learning. He's constantly learning. And having a partner that has that generational knowledge and also the desire to continue learning has been key to our success. So finding that specialist that has that generational knowledge that could really help you scale and take things on Fox, how, where you wanted them to be was, was huge, right?

Yes. We went through a lot of cattlemen. The first from 2006 to 2010. We went through four cattlemen and it was hard. Why do you think it was so many? Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say, why do you think, why did you go through so many? Like what is so [00:19:00] difficult about finding the right fit just from it?

You know, someone like me who doesn't really know anything about this. I'm just curious.

Not knowing what, just being so naïve to running a farm. We didn't know what even to ask when interviewing. And, so for example, the first guy loved land, was very heartwarming and open guy. He knew about horses, but that does not transfer to cattle, I'll tell you that. Uh, I would say. Ego, men with large egos having two women run the farm and say how they want to run.

That, that clashed sometimes. There were moments where mom and I felt pretty threatened in a room and we had to stand up [00:20:00] for ourselves. But that's okay. Thank God I was raised by brothers. And then the other, so one of them taught me a lot about cattle cause he was burying a show cattle and like Angus, big Angus show cattle.

So he understood cattle genetics. He, he taught me a lot, but that's just not grass fed. That is a, a large framed Angus animal who has been fed wheat, corn and soybeans and all the crap for years is not going to get us. To a well marbled, finished grass fed beef. Yes. So then we meet Derek, who was getting his master's in forages, was studying Allen savory, was connected to his [00:21:00] ancestral heritage to the point where he wanted to learn more ancient ways of farming, which biodynamics is very tied to, uh, it's, I mean, it's.

Not new knowledge, biodynamics farming. It's what all of our ancestors were doing anyway. It's very indigenous way of farming. And he had, he had interest and connection. He didn't necessarily know about biodynamics, but he was open to it. Got it. So, and just his, his demeanor, honestly, he can, I don't know if you've heard this expression, but someone on my team recently taught me this.

A man written by a woman. Oh, interesting. I've never heard that before. Me neither. But I like it. I get it. And so he just is able to work, he's gentle, he's able to work alongside my mom and I and take the time to [00:22:00] observe and explore with us in a pasture and is just as fascinated by looking up as he is looking down and will take the time to pause while I catch up on a horse or you know he just understands that he's there to support the cattle be part of this community and not just to do a job get it done and you know go home at the end of the day.

So it's like this amazing blend of just like the exact practical knowledge you were looking for. And then just the soft skill and tangible component of him just being the right guy with the right fit. And like you said, it's you and your mom that are calling the shots. And there probably are old school cattlemen that, It's not going to sit right with, and then the right person is going to absolutely love it and just fit into your world perfectly.

But those are the things I'm talking about being 22 years old and just learning the industry. Like you don't know what a good or a bad cattleman is until you make that [00:23:00] mistake and hire the wrong person and learn about the industry. And then you're like, all right, well, now I'm going to correct that and make sure that doesn't happen again.

And then you finally find the right person that sounds like is absolutely supercharged the farm in the best way possible. Yes, he has. Awesome. So you have, so 550 head of cattle. Um, what other animals do you have out there as well? What else are you raising and growing? Yeah. So we also raise sheep and typically I have around two to four pigs just for fun.

So being a biodynamic farm, biodiversity is huge. It's like ducks, chickens, pigs. Uh, we've had turkeys in the past. I love animals and love just exploring what we can grow and what food we can put on our plates for it. Horses, obviously. Well, I don't know if it's obvious to you, but Kentucky, we have horses.

Yeah. And, uh, One thing about [00:24:00] the biodiversity of animals on a farm is, now that we've been doing it since 2005, now that we've been, you know, building soil, building biodiversity, we have these people that will come to our farm, very curious about it. For example, there's this guy that studies bats from the University of Louisville and he was like, I want to come see how many bats you have on your farm because you have the habitat for bats.

He came out to our farm and he was blown away. Apparently we have more varieties of bats than any other area around us from having healthy soil. So we have a lot of animals just naturally coming to our farm. to live in this glorious habitat. That's incredible. I don't know if you've ever been to Austin, but there's a huge bridge in town where like hundreds of thousands of bats live underneath this bridge.

Um, it's right near downtown Austin and every, it's like the same time every day. It's like six o'clock at night when the sun is setting, [00:25:00] they all go out from under the bridge and migrate. And there's so many bats that it like fills up the entire sky with black because there's Hundreds and thousands of them.

And it's like the bat crossing. I think that's what they call it, but totally unrelated. But you just reminded me of that story. But I love that I can geek out on little side details like that. Yeah. But it's, I mean, one of the things that you just reminded me of is, um, do you know, a Rome ranch in Fredericksburg, the couple that founded a force of nature and Epic bar, they have their, this bison ranch out there.

It's called Rome ranch. And so they bought it. It was like this old decrepit piece of land. They knew that they wanted to introduce like a pack of bison on there and try and incorporate regenerative practices and the scientists that they brought out there to study the land, they were like, it's gonna take you 30 years to regenerate this land.

And they did it within five. They fully regenerate within five, and they've just said that the number of species that have been reintroduced naturally into the environment. Just by incorporating the pack of bison [00:26:00] is amazing. And I would just love to know with all the, the biodynamic practices you've been implemented for almost 20 years, which is incredible.

Like what's what species or just like changes have you noticed on the land in general? They. natural native plants in the pastures has been incredible, but also in our valleys and in our woodlands. And so when we take people will come out on hikes in our woodlands and we'll take someone who's into foraging and they're just blown away.

I mean, you can't walk 10 feet without them geeking out on everything they can possibly eat. The. Milkweed, the native milkweed has come to our farm, which has attracted a ton of monarchs. Wow. Like late in the summer, that's been really neat to watch. We naturally have a ton of yarrow, um, just like natural chamomile throughout the pastures, all these natural wildflowers that [00:27:00] are coming back from the seed banks from healing the soil.

But also when you look up, birds, butterflies. In our cow patties, the amount of dung beetles that are in there, that's something the rancher is going to be very proud about, their dung beetles. Yeah, dung beetles, yeah. I mean, mushroom varieties in our woods. There is so much biodiversity, naturally, that we can eat, enjoy.

other animals can eat, the amount of ladybugs we have, natural predators to some of the pests that do want to eat some of the vegetables we grow. So part of our biodiversity is we started a program called the Partner Grower Program, and it is inspired by when we first started, we knew we wanted to have grass fed beef.

But also we felt like we needed some vegetables on our plate. I don't know how the carnivore diet feels about that, [00:28:00] but, but we felt we wanted some vegetables and so we were. Incredibly lucky. My mom found a guy named Pavel and Pavel's been on our farm since 2007 growing vegetables and is the most meticulous vegetable farmer you will ever see.

He's built an incredible business called Pavel's garden and he has made it work. He's figured it out on four acres. He's able to grow an incredible amount of vegetables, support his family. And is always getting better, always more efficient. And it's been real when we started working with him and met him, we saw the value in community of sharing knowledge, sharing space, sharing implements, I mean, he taught me how to garden.

I had no idea how to. Garden. And so we started to grow that program. So through the partner grower program, we have other entrepreneurial farmers who lease small plots of [00:29:00] land. We have houses on the farm that they can live on, and we're hoping to grow the program more and more. We have some flower farmers who are great beekeepers and orchard.

I have so many dreams of other things I would love to see on the farm. Yeah. I'm sure your head is probably just spinning with how many ideas you have now. Yes.