As demand for the beef grew, it became a priority to acquire more property to give the cattle what they needed to be sustainably run. 

Back in 2008 we planted a seed with our neighbors and prayed that when they were ready to sell, we would be ready to take over their ranches.  Coincidently these ranches used to be one big place including our home farm, and was owned by the Holmes family.  We are proud to be putting the land back together instead of breaking it up.  Building a ranch in the 21st century is a challenge and a destiny.  Someday we hope to push the herd all the way to the high country on horseback. By doing so integrates ourselves even more into the landscape and opens it up for wildlife on a similar migration. 

In the fall of 2020, Ashanti and Sarahlee partnered with Ted and Phyllis Swindells, to purchase the ranch immediately to the north of Rainshadow Organics.  They decided to keep the name and brand of the ranch, The Pitchfork-T, where the cattle can have their own place and their own story. Having a vertically integrated business, we always partner with ourselves.  Rainshadow Organics’s beef is run on the Pitchfork-T ranch and branded with the Pitchfork-T brand.

Being passionate about livestock taught Ashanti that first he had to be passionate about and love the land.  Tony and Andrea Malmberg from the Jefferson Center for Holistic Management as part of the Savory Network, opened Ashanti’s eyes to what it takes to run a sustainable operation.  Pitchfork-T Ranch is now part of the annual ecological monitoring done by Jackie Eshelman at UVE that quantifies our regenerative practices through ecological outcome verification and gives us the “Land to Market” stamp of approval.

Another important piece in the story of the ranch, is the process that Sarahlee and Ashanti are going through to put the ranch into a conservation easement in partnership with the National Resource Conservation Service and the Deschutes Land Trust.  They are dedicated to protecting these agricultural lands in perpetuity. “Our health is our wealth and that goes for the land too.  Healthy lands give you bounty and that is working in unison with wildlife as well as the forage”, says Ashanti.  Now stewarding over 120,000 acres of mostly public land, gives him and his team a whole new canvas to learn from and teach from.  

For reference, the Pitchfork-T headquarters are immediately north of Rainshadow Organics.  These 130 irrigated acres are where we raise our hay in the summer for the herd to eat in the winter.  The herd spends the spring out the back gate on 17,000 acres around Alder Springs along the Wychuse Creek. In June they head to the cool high country of Mount Hood in the 54,000 acre White River unit.  When the snow flies, they come home to graze down the hay fields and then eat hay until the grass returns in the spring.

We use intensive management practices that require a cowboy to shepherd the cattle every day of their lives.  The cowboy ensures that the cattle  are well and stay where the grass needs them most.

Ranching in the high desert only supports the cattle for a little while sustainably before they need to go to high country with more water and a more diverse forage.