For Atley Elliott, managing land goes beyond just raising cattle. It's about creating healthy ecosystems where livestock, wildlife, and people all thrive together. As the Farm Biologist and Wildlife Management Area (WMA) Manager at Caitlyn Farms Sustainably Raised Beef and the White Oak Creek Wildlife Management Area, Atley wears many hats. She oversees the farm's grass-fed beef operation while leading habitat restoration projects, developing grazing plans, coordinating outreach events, and...

There is a beautiful, quiet irony in how the most important work on a landscape or in a craft almost always happens entirely behind the scenes. For whole-animal butcher and entrepreneur Anica, that work goes way beyond the butcher table. As the founder of Bonjerk, an Asian-inspired pork jerky company, she originally started making jerky simply because she missed the nostalgic flavors she grew up with. But along the way, curiosity took hold. She became driven to know exactly where our meat was...

This highlight features Angie Mestas from the San Luis Valley, a familiar face who joined us during our 2025 season for both Buckin’ Babes and Grit & Grazing (which many of you now know as Cowgirl Proven). We love seeing how our community members take these different disciplines and interweave them on their own landscapes, and Angie is the perfect example of how an integrated toolkit builds true resilience. In agriculture, we talk a lot about how different types of knowledge, like running a...