SPRING
Calving season and the green flush. The hills come back fast and the rotations run fast with them, a few days per paddock while the grass outgrows the herd. Every calf born here stays here.
OUR STORY
Raised here, start to finish.
A small ranch, run on a simple arrangement: five paddocks, one herd, and the patience to let grass do most of the work.
Rancho Machete sits on 160 acres outside Grass Valley, at the elevation where valley heat gives way to pine. The name came with the land and we kept it. Some things you inherit; the rest you earn.
The herd is closed: every animal is born here, raised here, and finished here on grass, hay we cut ourselves in June, and alfalfa to round out the winter. No sale barns, no bought-in cattle.
We sell by the share because it is the honest unit. You reserve part of one animal and collect it cut to your own spec sheet, wrapped and frozen the day it is cut.
There are no middlemen in this arrangement and nothing anonymous about it. You know the ground your beef came from, and we know whose freezer it fills.
The year, start to reset.
THE OPERATION, SEASON BY SEASON
SUMMER
The grass cures to standing hay by July. Rotations slow, shade matters, and in June we cut and bale the winter's feed off our own ground. Long light, slow weight.
FALL
Processing windows open. Shares come off the hill one animal at a time, dry-age twenty-one days, and leave as wrapped cuts in their owners' freezers. The hills wait for rain.
WINTER
Short, green, and cold. On frost mornings the herd eats June's hay with steam rising off their backs. The paddocks rest, the roots hold, and the year resets.
Move the herd often. Rest the ground long. Keep the feed honest.
Grass, our own hay, and alfalfa to supplement. Rotational grazing is slow by design: it builds soil, holds water, and puts a year of patience into every pound.
Unglamorous on purpose.
Most days are gates, water, fence wire, and hay. The herd is handled quietly and on foot, from first day to last, and it shows in the finish: an animal that has never been hurried finishes clean.
When the time comes, a local butcher we have worked with for years does the cutting, to each owner's spec sheet. Dry-aged twenty-one days, wrapped in paper, frozen the same day. Nothing leaves the county until it leaves in your freezer.
The herd is small on purpose. When the season sells out, it is out.
2026 SEASON · SHARES FROM $649 · DEPOSITS FROM $165