"Walt Davis spent more than fifty years as a working rancher in Texas and Oklahoma. He has lived all of the joys and all of the sorrows that go with ranch life and it is his unbiased opinion that ranching is (depending on how it is done) either the world's best way to make a living or an unending struggle against nature that will break the strongest spirit. He soon realized that agriculture is a biological rather than an industrial process."--Back cover.

A busy family and their friends spend a day working and playing on the farm. From milking the cows in the morning to closing the gate at night, learn about a day in the life of a farming family. Enhanced CD includes video animation and audio singalong.

Most people may think of ranchers and cowboys as men. But although they are under-chronicled, ranch women work from dark to dark, keeping step with hired hands, brothers, fathers and husbands. They blaze trails through unforgiving scrub. They cook supper and feed bulls. At any given time, they wear the hats--and the gloves--of geologist, veterinarian, lawyer and mechanic. They are fierce and feminine and powerful. Photojournalist and writer Alyssa Banta spent over a year following more than a dozen Texas women through their grueling daily routines, from the messy confines of the working chute to the sprawling reaches of the back pasture. The result of this unprecedented access is an intimate portrait of the challenges and achievements of the ranch women of the Lone Star State, along with the land and livestock that sustain them.

Sarah Magarity just broke the first rule of social work: don't get personally involved. But how can she ignore the orphaned tyke who shows up in her office on Christmas Eve? The chance to make a difference is awfully tempting. So's the rancher with the sexy smile who might be the boy's father. Still, Sarah has to be nuts to let Ty Parker sweet-talk her into a cattle drive across rugged Florida wilderness. Ty can't believe he might have a son to carry on his legacy. Still, until the DNA results come back, he isn't making any plans. But a strange thing happens on the open road. Amid rattlesnake scares and cozy campfires, he's growing closer to the boy...and to Sarah, the fiery redhead Ty can't keep out of his arms. They could be a happy family, unless the truth tears them apart....

Now a feature-length documentary on the Discovery channel narrated by Tom Brokaw. “Lush, gorgeously written…A profoundly hopeful book.” —Tina Rosenberg, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award A Kirkus Best Book of 2016 Many of the men and women doing today’s most consequential environmental work—restoring America’s grasslands, wildlife, soil, rivers, wetlands, and oceans—would not call themselves environmentalists; they would be too uneasy with the connotations of that word. What drives them is their deep love of the land: the iconic terrain where explorers and cowboys, pioneers and riverboat captains forged the American identity. They feel a moral responsibility to preserve this heritage and natural wealth, to ensure that their families and communities will continue to thrive. Unfolding as a journey down the Mississippi River, Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman tells the stories of five representatives of this stewardship movement: a Montana rancher, a Kansas farmer, a Mississippi riverman, a Louisiana shrimper, and a Gulf fisherman. In exploring their work and family histories and the essential geographies they protect, Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman challenges pervasive and powerful myths about American and environmental values.

"A regenerative no-till pioneer."—NBC News "We need to reintegrate livestock and crops on our farms and ranches, and Gabe Brown shows us how to do it well."—Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation See Gabe Brown—author and farmer—in the Netflix documentary Kiss the Ground Gabe Brown didn’t set out to change the world when he first started working alongside his father-in-law on the family farm in North Dakota. But as a series of weather-related crop disasters put Brown and his wife, Shelly, in desperate financial straits, they started making bold changes to their farm. Brown—in an effort to simply survive—began experimenting with new practices he’d learned about from reading and talking with innovative researchers and ranchers. As he and his family struggled to keep the farm viable, they found themselves on an amazing journey into a new type of farming: regenerative agriculture. Brown dropped the use of most of the herbicides, insecticides, and synthetic fertilizers that are a standard part of conventional agriculture. He switched to no-till planting, started planting diverse cover crops mixes, and changed his grazing practices. In so doing Brown transformed a degraded farm ecosystem into one full of life—starting with the soil and working his way up, one plant and one animal at a time. In Dirt to Soil Gabe Brown tells the story of that amazing journey and offers a wealth of innovative solutions to restoring the soil by laying out and explaining his "five principles of soil health," which are: Limited Disturbance Armor Diversity Living Roots Integrated Animals The Brown’s Ranch model, developed over twenty years of experimentation and refinement, focuses on regenerating resources by continuously enhancing the living biology in the soil. Using regenerative agricultural principles, Brown’s Ranch has grown several inches of new topsoil in only twenty years! The 5,000-acre ranch profitably produces a wide variety of cash crops and cover crops as well as grass-finished beef and lamb, pastured laying hens, broilers, and pastured pork, all marketed directly to consumers. The key is how we think, Brown says. In the industrial agricultural model, all thoughts are focused on killing things. But that mindset was also killing diversity, soil, and profit, Brown realized. Now he channels his creative thinking toward how he can get more life on the land—more plants, animals, and beneficial insects. “The greatest roadblock to solving a problem,” Brown says, “is the human mind.”

A fictional story of two ranch families who face challenges turning their ranches into profitable businesses. This book is an introduction to principles and processes taught at the Ranching For Profit School.