Intro by Brandon Regier. Interview and transcription conducted by Brandon Regier.
It was September 2017 when my classmates and I jumped on a school bus on route to Timber Ridge as part of our typical fall field trip schedule, at Lethbridge College. We had a list of to-do’s when we arrived at the ranch, which included setting up bat detectors, wildlife cameras, and tube traps for hair collection. As we neared our arrival at the ranch, we traveled west on a gravel road, the road wound into the Porcupine Hills where we entered a paradise of grasslands, mixed forests, and beautiful wetlands. I still remember where we parked. As we exited the bus single file, Glen and Kelly Hall greeted us with big smiles and a heart full of passion for conservation and particularly Timber Ridge. Brad Taylor, a former Alberta Conservation Association (ACA) employee, and now our professor, had met Glen and Kelly years prior working with them on the property, and graciously introduced us students to them.
Fast forward to December 2021, I never would have thought that years down the road I would find myself chatting and learning from the Halls once again! We came full circle. I was honoured to have the opportunity to hear the Halls' story and their continuous conservation efforts at Timber Ridge.
Timber Ridge is owned by both Glen and Kelly Hall, and Alberta Conservation Association. The property consists of over 1100 acres of ranchland situated in the foothills west of Nanton, Alberta. Glen and Kelly have a true passion for everything they do on the farm and ranch, both growing up in this industry has allowed them to learn and adapt, as well as spear head change and sustainability. Glen shared this quote with me, and it’s just too fitting not to share again.
“In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will only love what we understand. We will only understand what we are taught”. - Baba Dioum -
I asked Glen and Kelly to give some context to their operation before we dive into the interview: “We are about 18 miles straight east of the ranch at the farm where we live. We typically winter the cattle down here and do a lot of multi species cover crops. We then try to swath graze in the winter time, meaning low impact with less machinery, but always cattle on the land. We live just north of Stavely, and the ranch is on the north end of the Porcupine Hills. So it's just about straight west of us. We took a chance in 1985 and bought the ranch. It came up for sale and became our place to go for at least 6 months of the year with our cattle. The rest of the time the cattle are here. Timber Ridge can be a bit challenging in the winter because of the elevation and topography. We try not to be there in the depths of winter, as it would be a pretty tough place to have our cows be calving. The cows come home usually late fall and then spend the winter and early spring here at home. Once the calves are big enough, we start heading west. The ranch became a place that compliments our cattle in the sense that we have a really nice place to go, having great nutrition, great shade, and great water. It has everything you need for cows in the summertime. It works well together. There is not a lot of open land [at the ranch] that is southwest facing, therefore, the snow doesn’t blow off in our area like it does at some of the other ranches where they winter graze more effectively.”
1. How did you get started in agriculture and ranching?
Glen: “I was born into it. I was born on the family farm in 1958, so I’ve been here all my life learning along the way.”
Kelly: “I was born into rural Alberta, my dad was a grain buyer. Therefore, we lived in lots of the small little towns where elevators were and spent a lot of time at my grandfather and grandmother's ranch, out by Longview.”
“We both spent most of our lives in rural Alberta in farming and ranching.”
2. Can you tell us a bit about your Watershed Legacy Program project? How did that affect the land?
“We have completed a couple projects in partnership with the Watershed Legacy Program. The biggest one completed through the program would be what we call a wet well. We have limited water in our middle quarter, and have always understood that water development helps us to carry out our managed grazing; this allows us to move the cattle around. We have a really big wetland in the far southwest corner of that quarter, often having lots of water. It's been fenced off for many years now, removing access for the cattle. The wet well is a deep culvert that has a static level height, it would normally be looked at as a wintering watering system (being below the frost line). We then pump water from our culvert to a trough that is directly west of it. The trough fills with the energy of a solar system and is triggered by a motion detector. Once cattle or wildlife walk up to the system, it triggers the pump to kick on and fills with water. As soon as no one is drinking (this is why it's called a winter watering system), the water will drain back into the system. We used to have multiple wintering water systems, but the property where cattle graze has changed over the last 10 years. We learnt about this system about 20 years ago and put several into place so that we could graze crop residue when we were home in the winter with the cattle. It works great because there is no freezing and it works all winter. We never water directly from the source. Our solar system can be used not just in the summer and springtime, but it can be used all year round.”
“It has affected the land by giving the cattle more movement while being able to graze the undesirables or what they don’t like to eat. If you left the cattle in one spot they would take all the cream, the best stuff first. With multiple watering places we can move the cattle around, and in return help the rangeland. I think it's important to recognize that at Timber Ridge, part of it was cultivated in the early years when the settlers first arrived and homesteaded. Being that some of our land was broken many many years ago, way before us, we attempt to use electric fences. In the partly broken quarter, electrical fences help to graze the soft grasses like the Timothy early in the season, and then by having this system set up we can graze what we call the more native grasses on the west side at a different time. The access to water is a critical piece to being able to move cattle and manage some of the grasses. We graze in a way that is low frequency and high intensity. Therefore, all the cattle go for shorter periods of time with long rest periods always involved. We also attempt to leave our land in a way that always leaves cover. We want to leave litter to protect the soil as the soil is actually our water bank, this being critical for us. This is all trying to mimic the buffalo to some degree by caring for those riparian places, but also looking after those grasses which hold their protein and nutritional value later in the season.”
“Electric fencing is key to our operation! It is so versatile and portable. It took a bit of a paradigm shift to accept and trust it. But once we trusted it and once we changed our paradigms, it became a really good tool for us. We learnt that the first time for cows is really important, but once you train them, they will train their young which is really important to us. These fences become pieces that really help us be nimble and flexible. The Power Grazer that we have is portable and self contained, it has posts that store on it, as well as two and half miles of wire rope and is run by a big 50 watt solar panel. This piece of equipment is so flexible and versatile, we can even pull it with a quad or side by side.”
“The key here is we have to talk about the ranch in a sense that until just recently, all of the water that we have is driven by mother nature. We don’t have power everywhere at the ranch, and up until just recently got a well on a quarter we just purchased. Therefore, we develop and have developed for many many years now, natural thermal free flowing springs. The aquifer finds the easiest way out of the ground, whether it be out of the side of a hill or out of a hole in the ground. That's the beginning of the water source at our place. It is important to recognize that wherever the heads of those springs are is how we water. We don’t have to generate power to have free flowing water or thermal water, not to mention the water doesn't freeze at the ranch. When we find those heads of the springs, we always off-site water from them in order to protect the source. That is where we come into the second piece of mother nature: the sun. The sun and the solar energy is what helps us pump the water in order for it to be accessible to cattle and away from the water source (the Watershed Legacy Program comes into play here).”
3. How did your stewardship activities change from when you started your careers up to now?
“We started learning more and more about it, recognizing what we have, and how to best look after it. This consisted of going to courses like range courses and foothills forage, talking to people and a vast number of mentors, and a lot of common sense; opening your eyes and seeing what you have and how it should be looked after. Before we bought the ranch we were used to wells and the creek on what we call the flat lands or farm lands where our home place is. But once we got to the ranch we had to understand the springs, because that is a totally different paradigm, again. The other thing that we recognized is we had stumbled upon an incredible asset, an asset that would teach us more about being good neighbors. The water that we have in a well at home is the water that we use for our cattle, ourselves, and our farm; the water that we have at the ranch flows east and we just tap into it, and then it continues on. In the 1980s, we were actually irrigating from Mosquito Creek, and we had an ah ha moment. At the ranch we would drink from the flowing springs and from the creeks that actually flowed into Mosquito Creek. However, on the other hand when we irrigated from Mosquito Creek at home (which was 25 miles away), it was very different water. The stewardship of that water became really important to us. Our allies have done exactly what you spoke about this morning, they have come full circle with us. It has been a huge learning curve for us and a huge gathering of allies to help us learn how to best protect the watershed, graze the grass better, and in return look after the soil. We have also been on another journey called regenerative agriculture. Understanding that the water is there, but without good healthy intact soil, and without being able to catch every single drop of rain, we don’t have anything. We have allies like Oldman Watershed Council, Alberta Conservation Association, Foothills Forage, you name it. We have mentors we rely on, and in turn hope to be mentors in the future to someone else, or to our children.”
4. You’ve mentioned that collaboration, partnerships, and allies have been essential—can you elaborate?
“Knowledge is number one, always! We are continuous learners, we take advantage of teachable moments constantly. Number two, is funding. Everything costs money, whether it's an electric fence or the development of a spring. It's called capital infrastructure: costs and maintenance. The important thing we started to recognize is when we drill a well at home… we drill a well, and hopefully that's for our lifetime. There may be some maintenance, but it's few and far between. The ranch is different because mother nature is in charge up there. When the aquifer is really full, things can change really quickly. We might spend $25,000 developing a spring and putting a beautiful fence around it (keeping the cattle out), alongside a trough in so that they can access it. But in a heavy snow pack year, or a year like 1995 when the flood happened, or 2013 when the flood happened. The water can all change, all of sudden we have to be nimble and have to be ready to spend more money to do maintenance or even to recognize that the water just found a simpler, easier way to come out of the ground. It is a continuous understanding that input costs are there, making those allies important to us, the Oldman Watershed Legacy Program is a perfect example of that. Water always wins!”
5. What has been the most surprising outcome that has resulted from a partnership or collaboration?
“The most surprising is actually the way that we own the ranch. Early on we were in a different place. We were with Bar None Ranch in our early days. When Bar None was about to dissipate we were offered part of the ranch: Glen and I owned part of it, and Bar None owned the other part. We had to find a way to come up with some big bucks pretty quick. So we actually sat down and wrote a business plan with an ally we met, and took it to the Alberta Conservation Association. That business plan suggested that we needed some help to preserve the ranch and keep it intact, and as a unit; particularly one of the quarters that has a very big spring on it running up to 200 gallons per minute, which is an incredible amount of water. We call that the heart of the ranch. Our biggest surprise is when the Alberta Conservation Association said, yes, and agreed to something that has not yet been copied in the province. We own the property together, and have a co-tenancy agreement and a management agreement (that's part of how Brad Taylor and us met). It has been a great partnership that benefits both of us, and the most important thing to us is the message that Glen and I have always been interested in conservation. I think that the Alberta Conservation Association is also recognizing how important agriculture is, because ranching is on parallel tracks with conservation. If our grass is healthy and our water is good, that means that we can also have wildlife and healthy species at risk (which we do). We work together to protect that, for both the cattle and ranching industry, but also for conservation. Conservation in the sense that we have many many visitors to the ranch on an annual basis whether they be hikers, hunters, photographers, or students like yourself. It becomes a really important partnership for us and it has definitely lined up the allies.”
6. High intensity/low frequency grazing is one of the techniques you’ve talked about with us—how would you explain to someone who isn’t familiar with the practice?
“High intensity/low frequency grazing means everyone comes in with lots of feet and mouths, they don’t get to be picky, and they have to eat what’s in front of them. They can’t select it, not selective grazing. With a lot of them there, they have to spread out. They all come in together and are there for a brief period of time. We always plan to take half the grass and leave half the grass. If you can imagine a pasture, when we leave, we don’t want to see any bare soil, and we always want to leave some cover on the ground. Lets just say that the grass is 10 inches high, we want to take 5 inches and then leave. That is the high intensity part. The low frequency part is that we don’t graze that field again until a year later… lots of rest. That year is also changed, if we graze a specific paddock, we will actually change when we go back to that paddock the following year aiming for a different growing point for the grass.”
7. What other techniques do you use here to make your operation more resilient and efficient? What impact have you observed on the land?
“We always focus on low stress, our cows are very trained to us, horses, and to the quads as well and to electric fences. We move our salt mineral regularly - every other day in fact; that's also partly because we don’t want to impact the land around the salt mineral. The development of water in a variety of places has really helped us be able to move while always having access to water. We are regenerative agriculture people, while also understanding the importance of cattle on the land. So the cattle aren't just at the ranch, they are also at home. When they are at home we drastically reduce the amount of pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers on our land, and so we use the cows instead. The cows come home to graze on crop residue or on cover crop mixes. The reason for planting them is for diversity. In some ways we are trying to mimic the ranch. The ranch is a perfect example of mother nature's diversity in the sense that we have hundreds of species of forbes, grasses, flowers, trees, shrubs, you name it. The diversity above the ground is critical to the diversity below the ground, which then feeds the soil's ecology.”
“This year is a really good example of the observed impacts these techniques had on the land. We have now experienced five years in a row of changing weather patterns, longer periods without rain, and having had hot summers for 5 years now; this year has certainly been the worst. But what we are doing is drought proofing our land. By leaving some cover and by doing our best in improving the soil. We know we have to capture every drop of rain, and have to protect the water. We have to protect where the water comes from, both for quantity and quality control. And we never have control by the way.”
8. We experienced, in the summer of 2021, a virtually unprecedented drought. What affect did this have on you? Did it necessitate any change in how you run things?
“It certainly has affected us, and we feel very fortunate to have the ranch. We know we have some grass to go to, but also recognize that our springs are severely down and not producing like they normally do. We recognize that we really need some snow in the mountains and eastern slopes this winter; we could use a real winter again! At home it definitely impacted our feed situation. We would normally have baled some hay and been moved to baled grazing now. But we couldn't bale anything this year. Our cover crops did survive, however, they are about a third of what they have been in the past. We have definitely had to reduce the number of cattle we are feeding this winter. So this all affects the bottom line.”
“We have also been frugal at culling our cattle, so getting down on numbers, this helps with the feed situation over the winter since we have way less. This year we probably increased our environmental footprint a little bit in a sense that we were very very concerned and very watchful of our water systems this summer. When it's just about 40 degrees, you have to make sure you are checking on solar systems, you have to make sure you don’t have a fault or failure somewhere. Or else that becomes an extremely stressful event for cattle and people. Sometimes things go down, and so we were very very watchful of all our water systems and very watchful of the grass.”
“The ironic part is that we normally swath graze. However, because of the heat and the lack of moisture we had to cut everything and bale it. We now know exactly how much feed we have, instead of a guess. When you can count the bales, you know! Bottom line is we have figured out how much feed we have and how many days we need it for, and have balanced that with how many cattle we can have here this winter.”
9. Can you tell us a bit about your journey to regenerative agriculture?
“There is a really good article in the June 2021 Foothills Forage. It speaks to our principles. The bottom line is, it's the principles that always guide us. We have really started to understand how important the soil is. We always want to make sure we leave the soil in good condition, meaning we always leave cover on the soil like a sunscreen, so that the wind and sun don’t bake it. Understanding about the bugs and the micronutrients, and how everything works together to feed each other and create healthy soil. Changing plants, whether it's turnips, kale, a forage rape seed, or forage peas, these all improve soil conditions. A lot of it is common sense based on how it used to be when the buffalo were roaming the ranges and creating the soil.”
10. What do you think is the most significant misconception about ranching and agriculture in Southern Alberta?
“The general public or urban people don’t understand how much we care, how much is involved in looking after our land, how much care we put into our land and our animals, and how much it costs to do all that. I am not in the computer age, as it is before my time. But with social media, stuff can get out so quick and so fast. It often isn't even the truth, lots of it is misconception or wrong literature about it.”
“Our grass mentor was talking to us the other day, and we were talking about the video that we did with Cows and Fish. He was looking at it, and really liked it. He was then telling us he saw it had 400 and some hits, and then he was looking at another video of where someone abandoned a dog on the side of the road and it went viral because someone picked it up. It's just crazy, it seems like we are preaching to the choir. It needs to get out there to more of the public.”
“That [June] issue of the Foothills Forage (Timber Ridge Land & Cattle) talks about our journey to regenerative agriculture. It's about all the allies we have. We have what's called the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid). There's a quote in here, it's by Baba Dioum - “In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will only love what we understand. We will only understand what we are taught”.”
“When we first purchased the land in 1985, it was just a dream of mine. I recognized right away the importance of the watershed up there, and how like so many people that were born and lived up there, take it for granted. But we sure don’t. It's an amazing place, and it needs to be kept intact, and it will be too.”
Watch Glen and Kelly Halls’s episode of OWC:Eats!
This was produced by the OWC as part of the "Uniting Rural Producers and Urban Consumers" program, which was made possible by the support of Canadian Agricultural Partnership program, the Government of Alberta, and the Government of Canada.
Thank you to Glen and Kelly Hall for their contributions to this project and to bettering the watershed for all those who live, work, and play here.
