This book gives a taste of Montana women's imprint on agriculture and land conservation through edited and condensed excerpts from many of the original oral histories collected by the Montana Conservation Districts in the oral history project From the ground up: Montana women and agriculture.

Growing up on the family ranch, Linda Finley fought hard to gain the acceptance and respect as a ranch hand that her brothers took for granted. Arlene Pile barely remembers learning to ride a horse and run machinery--she was so young. She learned to drive on an 8N Ford tractor with a buck rake. Lee Jacobsen became the first woman in the state licensed to artificially inseminate cattle. Meet these and other Montana women passionate about caring for their land and determined to make the lifestyle their own. Many never doubted for a moment that they would spend their lives in agriculture, while others speak of their surprise and delight to find themselves living on the land. All agree that they wouldn't be happy doing anything else.

"With a new foreword by Frederick L. Kirschenmann..."

No part of our nation has been more celebrated, glorified, and mythologized than the West. Here is a book on the women who are still shaping those myths. Raised on a ranch in Montana that she still works, Barbara Van Cleve eloquently describes the life of women ranchers in words and pictures in Hard Twist. Her images and text document these women on the range and around their ranches, evoking their labor, their commitment, and the breathtaking landscapes in which they live.

In this first book featuring the breadth of Barbara Van Cleve's subject matter, readers experience her other themes, including Rodeo as Dance, striking night scenes, the Great Montana Centennial Cattle Drive series, and documentation of the Spanish Mission Trail in Baja California, Mexico.

Learn a roadmap to healthy soil and revitalised food systems to powerfully address these times of challenge. This book equips producers with knowledge, skills and insights to regenerate ecosystem health and grow farm/ranch profits. Learn how to: - Triage soil health and act to fast-track soil and plant health-Build healthy resilient soil systems-Develop a deeper understanding of microbial and mineral synergies-Read what weeds and diseases are communicating about soil and plant health-Create healthy, productive and profitable landscapes.Globally recognised soil advocate and agroecologist Nicole Masters delivers the solution to rewind the clock on this increasingly critical soil crisis in her first book, For the Love of Soil. She argues we can no longer treat soil like dirt. Instead, we must take a soil-first approach to regenerate landscapes, restore natural cycles, and bring vitality back to ecosystems. This book translates the often complex and technical know-how of soil into more digestible terms through case studies from regenerative farmers, growers, and ranchers in Australasia and North America. Along with sharing key soil health principles and restoration tools, For the Love of Soil provides land managers with an action plan to kickstart their soil resource's well-being, no matter the scale."For years many of us involved in regenerative agriculture have been touting the soil health - plant health - animal health - human health connection but no one has tied them all together like Nicole does in "For the love of Soil"! " Gabe Brown, Browns Ranch, Nourished by Nature. "William Gibson once said that "the future is here - it is just not evenly distributed." "Nicole modestly claims that the information in the book is not new thinking, but her resynthesis of the lessons she has learned and refined in collaboration with regenerative land-managers is new, and it is powerful." Says Abe Collins, cofounder of LandStream and founder of Collins Grazing. "She lucidly shares lessons learned from the deep-topsoil futures she and her farming and ranching partners manage for and achieve."The case studies, science and examples presented a compelling testament to the global, rapidly growing soil health movement. "These food producers are taking actions to imitate natural systems more closely," says Masters. "... they are rewarded with more efficient nutrient, carbon, and water cycles; improved plant and animal health, nutrient density, reduced stress, and ultimately, profitability."In spite of the challenges food producers face, Masters' book shows even incredibly degraded landscapes can be regenerated through mimicking natural systems and focusing on the soil first. "Our global agricultural production systems are frequently at war with ecosystem health and Mother Nature," notes Terry McCosker of Resource Consulting Services in Australia. "In this book, Nicole is declaring peace with nature and provides us with the science and guidelines to join the regenerative agriculture movement while increasing profits."Buy this book today to take your farm or ranch to the next level!

A critical inquiry into the ways Americans have exploited and continue to exploit the land that sustains them, tracing attitudes toward and methods of farming from the eighteenth century to the present