Transcript

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Abbey Bruski: imagine what this place used to look like. The ecosystem, it should be healthy and thriving. You should hear crickets and you should hear the, the birds making these noises. And, and the grasses. It should be such a beautiful, peaceful, serene noise. And so we want our entire place to sound like that, to feel like that. We need to be using all of our senses when we're out in our pastures and with our cattle.

 

Ryan Bruski: Like, you go walk on this and it's like. It doesn't feel hard. It's like you're walking on cushion, you know, cushion.

Abbey: and there's a lot of birds here with them. I can hear a lot of birds right now too, but they love it. That is something about us.

 

Torgerson (narrating): Picture this, you're in the middle of a pasture at high spring. There's a horse shoe of pine ridges around you with an expanse of butte-dotted plains at its opening. Over a cacophony of meadowlarks and red-winged blackbirds, you hear cattle wading through forbs and native grasses. The grass is so tall it tickles your armpits and buoys your step. You're not worried about treading on any Canadian thistle or prickly pear, so your feet are bare. They can feel the ground better that way. If you were to sink a shovel through it all, it'd glide like a fork through chocolate cake. 

 

Torgerson: You can hear all the roots when you're pulling through pull, pull apart. 

 

Abbey: And, and do you smell it? Did you give her a big old piece to smell? Here's a big old piece.

 

Torgerson: It smells like my garden. You know? 

 

Abbey: It smells healthy.

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Torgerson (narrating): Welcome to Reframing Rural, I'm Megan Torgerson. Today's story brings us to Ekalaka, Montana, where Ryan and Abbey Bruski aren't just taking over their family's ranch. They're making big changes to improve the health of the land they steward and their bottom line. 

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When I made the treck from Western Montana to Carter County and pulled into the Bruski’s, spring rains had muddied the gravel road to their ranch. Carter County is the furthest southeast county in the state bordering South Dakota and Wyoming. During the 2020 census, it was one of a few rural counties to grow in population. Per capita, its growth was surpassed only by Bozeman's Gallatin County.

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Russ Torgerson: Now these prairie miles, they're a lot quicker driving than in the mountains. Mm-hmm. There's another big old barn down there.

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Megan: Yeah. And then the, the pine trees come back. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Down there there's more pine trees on that bluff over there.

 

Torgerson (narrating): My parents Renny and Russ join me for the trip. They're here to watch Connor, my one-year-old son who's sleeping in the back seat.

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From Bozeman to Miles City, down through Baker and on to Ekalaka, we watch the landscape swirl and metamorphose: from the peaks of the Absaroka-Beartooths, to the rimrocks guarding the Yellowstone River Valley, the agate-lined mouth of the Tongue River and finally the  green rippling hills along Highway 7 South. The anticipation builds as we crest a hill and see tower after tower of  eight-story high sandstone rocks protruding from the prairie. It looks like an artist has drawn a bit of Utah desert onto an otherwise grassy landscape.

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Russ: What does that sign say? 

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Megan: Medicine Rocks Church.

 

Russ: Oh, okay. Medicine Rock. Cool. Carter County

 

Megan: Entering Carter County Conservation District now. See all these amazing rocks? 

 

Russ: Wow, aren't they cool?!

 

Torgerson (narrating): The Medicine Rocks are a sacred place to the tribes who migrated through the area: the Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, Crow, Hidatsa, Arikara and Mandan. It's part of what contributes to the grandeur of this country. With its forested rims and high prairie ground, when we drive down into Ekalaka, it feels like a combination of places I've lived before: the Rocky Mountains and the Northern Great Plains.

 

This story has been on the books since before Connor was born. Collaborators at the World Wildlife Fund suggested interviewing the Bruskis because of the rapid and widespread headway they've made improving the health of their grasslands. And through the family's succession planning process,  the impressive work they've done adding structure and sustainability to their business.

 

Abbey: Alright. Good morning team. How's everyone doing? Wonderful. How's everyone? How are you? Good. Good deal. 

 

Torgerson (narrating): Abbey is the first Bruski I meet. She grew up on a farm and ranch along the Yellowstone River in Hysham, Montana and married into the family. She was high school sweethearts with Ryan who she followed to Ekalaka after the couple graduated from college in Bismarck, North Dakota. Today they have three adorable kids: Becca, Harper and Luke.

 

Behind their kitchen table, there's pictures of their kiddos smelling soil and growing tall in a field of flowering sainfoin. That's forage for cattle that looks a little like the flower foxglove.

 

Abbey: That is our oldest in, in the sanfoin. We planted a bunch of it and we took annual pictures there. So that's our 8-year-old, that's how little she was. And then our 5-year-old, that was her out there. So our little dude, we need to go get him out there, but he usually just throws it at me, so we'll get him eventually. He likes to smell dirt already too.

 

Ryan: He's picking up what  the older sisters do, so he is doesn't know why he's smelling dirt. 

 

Abbey: Smell the soil. Yeah. Yeah. Some of, some of it is still dirt. We still got ways to go.

 

Torgerson (narrating): After I've finished setting up, Abbey and Ryan take turns watching their kids for the first interviews.

 

Abbey: Hi guys. You guys can't be loud o.k. You can go play downstairs. That's no problem. O.k., grab something. You can go downstairs too. Okay. 

 

Kid: I can’t find my cheese stick.

 

Abbey: I think I'm out. But you go play with dad. I see he's outside. 

 

Torgerson (narrating): Abbey is a great mom and an influential business leader. She is incredibly intentional and calculated in both of her roles. If she'd have ended up in a city like she originally planned, she'd have rocked a power suit and been a Forbes 30 Under 30. Abbey is just out of her 20s, but she has earned much respect in regenerative agriculture circles.

 

Abbey: Eastern Montana Regenerative Ag, we helped form. It's just a safe place for all of us to come together. We have workshops, we have meetings, and we can talk to people about ideas and trying new things. World Wildlife Fund has been amazing. We make a plan and tell 'em our mission, our vision, and they wanna, they worldly wanna work with us.  And there's even the Audubon, you know.

 

Torgerson (narrating): Abbey says thousands of acres between mutiple neighbors have been restored using regenerative practices. I wonder if that's what makes Carter County a desirable place to live.

 

Abbey: Lots of electric fence has gone in miles and miles and miles and miles, probably hundreds of miles of electric fence has gone in amongst the four ranches that I can think of right now that are, that are neighbors that are doing this.

 

Torgerson (narrating): Abbey and Ryan got their first taste of regenerative agriculture, or adaptive agriculture as they like to call it, when they were living in Bismarck for college.

 

Regenerative is a buzzword today. For me, it brings to mind practices that are rooted in Indigenous knowledge, like integrating livestock and rotating crops, that foster improved soil health and ecological resilience in the face of climate change. Here’s what it means to the Bruskis:

 

Abbey: Regenerative to me is this new word that everyone's thrown around everywhere. Right? I, I think of it as more of adaptive agriculture. So it's a lot of it's observation. We make our changes every year based on observation and looking in more data and soil tests and, and, and really looking underneath what's going on. And that really tells us what we're doing.

 

Torgerson (narrating): Ryan was the first one to hone the art of observation when he was studying under the father-son regenerative ag celebrities Gabe and Paul Brown. Gabe Brown is featured in a Netflix documentary narrated by Woody Harrelson.

 

Ryan: I feel super blessed to be able to have said that, you know, I worked for him and I don't wanna write on Gabe and Paul's shirt tails. Or anything like that. But it's a, it's like, it was just very, it was an honor to work for 'em. I mean it really was. 'cause they both did a really good job of explaining what they were doing. Like I should have been paying them, not me. Not me getting paid for helping them, you know? 'cause they were just teaching me so much.

 

Torgerson (narrating): Gabe and Paul Brown's ranch in Bismarck was like a Garden of Eden to 19-year-old Ryan with its  earthworms and mycorrhizal fungi, polyculture cash crops, cows, pigs, poultry and countless species of migratory birds, insects and wildlife.

 

Ryan: Well, I mean like at first I was like, yeah, these guys are nuts. This only works over here where they get more rain and they have great topsoil, you know, and as I worked for 'em and saw the similarities, it was like. I want to try this. It just kind of made me want to go home and be like, I want to be the guy that does it here. You know, like if people say we can’t, I want to be the one that proves everybody wrong,

 

Torgerson (narrating): I called Gabe up after my reporting trip to the Bruskis to ask about Ryan’s time working for him. I’ve admired Gabe’s work for years as a soil health crusader who is inspiring a movement of producers to take a holistic approach to agriculture that promotes biodiversity and climate resilience. He’s like a sallt of the earth farmer and climate activist rolled into one.

 

Gabe Brown: Hello?

 

Torgerson: Hi Gabe.

 

Torgerson (narrating): Gabe shares how Ryan came to know the Browns.

 

Brown: My family and I have a ranch right east of Bismarck and when after my son graduated from college, he was an adjunct professor at Bismarck State College.

 

Torgerson (narrating): Ryan was one of his students. Well, they formed a friendship and we actually hired Ryan after school hours to work on our ranch. So he, during the two years he was going to college at Bismarck State, he came out, uh, and worked, uh, after school on the ranch. Developed a friendship and he picked up on regenerative ag very quickly, and I know he went home and started telling his father about what we were doing,  and they started to implement, uh, some of the practices on, on their farm and ranch. And, uh, it grew pretty quickly. 

 

Torgerson: Can you tell me, a little bit about what Ryan was like when he was younger?

 

Brown (laughing): Uh, he was still tall, I'll tell you that much. 

 

Torgerson (narrating): Joking aside, Gabe was impressed by Ryan.

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 Brown: I just saw in Ryan a very inquisitive young man who was open to new ideas, and then as a worker, he, he was an excellent worker as most, uh, young people are who grow up on a farm, ranch. You know, he had a very good work ethic that his parents instilled on him. And so that, uh, you know, because of that, it, it, uh. It was a very easy decision for us to hire him. 

 

Torgerson (narrating): Ryan’s time with Gabe, was an invitation to dream what his family's place in Ekalaka could some day look like, sound like and smell like. At that point, the soil at the Bruski place was not as dark, fluffy or pungent as chocolate cake. They were still farming then and ran cow-calf pairs, a common arrangement for producers in the Northern Great Plains. But that business model wasn’t always successful. 2012 was the season when the family realized something about their operation needed to change.

 

Ryan: We had a horrible drought. I remember we bought a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of just fertilizer and chemical and we hauled four semi loads off of the whole place.

 

Torgerson: Oh God. 

 

Ryan: And so it was like, and some of that was drought, some of it was hail. It was just horrible situation. And I said, we've gotta do something different. I mean, like, we cannot sustainably do this anymore. 

 

Torgerson (narrating): Their harvest was scant that year. They didn’t yield enough to make back the money they’d invested into the crop. And to make things worse, those four measly semi-loads of grain had to be hauled 225 miles away, one-way, to the grain elevator in Pompey's Pillar, which tipped the balance sheet further into the red. 

 

Joe Bruski: You start figuring that into your costs. Mm-hmm. It doesn't pay to farm here.

 

Torgerson (narrating): This is Ryan's Dad, Joe. 

 

Joe: I don't see how you can make it pay. 

 

Torgerson (narrating): Like his son, Joe's a big man with a kind heart. He was doing things the way he learned how and, like all the farmers and ranchers I know, trying his hardest in a tough business. In order to understand how Ryan and Abbey’s operation came to be, I wanted to rewind and hear about Joe’s childhood. 

 

Torgerson: Do you have any kind of favorite memories from growing up on your family's place? Any, anything that really stands out? 

 

Joe: Favorite memory? Um, well we were taught to work. That's, I think, a prerequisite of that time. We survived some tough times too. Through it. So, I remember straightening staples and, you know, weird stuff now we don't even think about it seems like.

 

Torgerson: What was your dad like? 

 

Joe: Um, dad was, uh, how do I put this? I think he could be cantankerous to get along with, but he was also fair fairy. But what was right was, right was wrong. Wrong, was wrong. He taught us to work. He wasn't afraid to take a chance. You know, he built the ranch, so.

 

Torgerson (narrating): When he got older, Joe ran the operation alongside his brother and his dad. That partnership ended when their dad died. Joe’s family didn’t communicate openly about planning for the farm’s future and his dad hadn’t made a clear succession plan. Eventually, the strain caused by the transition led Joe’s brother to leave the operation. 

 

Joe: Part of the reason I feel like my brother left is 'cause mom and mom wouldn't let him know what was happening. And, and I felt like I stood behind my mom. And then I feel like it's, uh, it's, it actually caused problems for me down the road here because we did, we didn't know what was going on. 

 

Torgerson (narrating): Understandably, it's hard for Joe to talk about this period. The way his parents handled their succession plans, or more aptly didn't handle them, was stressful for him and damaged relationships. To help describe the situation he was in, Joe uses a hypothetical farmer with the name of Johnson.

 

Joe: You know, young Johnson's 65 years old and he's waiting for the 90-year-old father to die so he can take over. Well, he shouldn't even be in the picture at that point. And I think that's what's part of our problem with our young communities, our old our communities in Montana, is that, that they didn't, they, there is no succession planning. They think they're gonna die when they hand it over. Mm-hmm. And they're not.

 

Torgerson (narrating): After Joe's dad passed and his brother left the picture, Ryan and his sister had some big shoes to fill to keep the farm and ranch going. When Ryan was growing up and he wasn't in school, he was putting in the same long hours as his dad.

 

Ryan: My older sister and I got thrown into the full-time hired hand role at a fairly young age. I was 10, I believe. And uh, so it was. Grow up, quick moment type deal. I really enjoyed working, but my dad didn't have anybody else and he threw us basically to the wolves. And I mean, I, I really appreciate how I grew up, but there's a lot of things that. How I raised it. I, I know I want to try to do a little differently with our kids, but, um, I, I had a great childhood as far as being outside all the time and, um, you know, but it was also that constant just you work till 10 o'clock at night, 11 o'clock at night, and it was just, there was never a breath of fresh air.

 

I mean, it just like my whole childhood, I felt like it just never seemed like you could go do anything. Very, very labor intensive. There was like a guilty conscious that I couldn't leave, you know, type deal. Yeah. And so that's something I want my kids to work hard, but I don't want them to miss out on all those opportunities.

 

Torgerson (narrating): Ryan did play football and basketball in high school. He says it was a reprieve from all the work he had to do at the ranch. Ryan's mom Sonja, who grew up in Ekalaka and owns a salon in town, advocated for Ryan to some take time away from the ranch when he was growing up.

 

Sonja Bruski: My only thing was I knew they were workaholics. And I said they have to go to swimming lessons because we have a pool in town. You know, not very big, but it's heated. And a lot of people have learned to swim in that pool.

 

Torgerson (narrating): Ryan learned to manage work, school and sports as a kid, and at the same time he was dealing with serious health problems. He had severe asthma.

 

Sonja recalls how young Ryan was when he started showing symptoms.

 

Sonja: It was, it was very scary. You know, we used to think that he would get like the flu, you know, he'd get these horrid migraines and, you know, throw up and throw up and we didn't know it was allergies. And so we took him to an allergist in Billings a couple different times and had him tested and you know, but the only thing he's not allergic to is food. But, you know, he had to start doing breathing treatments when he was two. And, um, it was hard because, it's kind of like making him sit and time out. So he would sit on my lap and we would read books.

 

Torgerson (narrating): I also had asthma growing up, though it's under control now. I was out in the field with my mom during harvest one year and on the drive home I started having an asthma attack. We realized we didn't have an inhaler on us so my mom had to make a quick decision either to drive to 40 miles the E.R. in Williston or speed home on washboard gravel roads. We drove home and I ended up being o.k., but through my early years I was hospitalized with pneumonia twice and rented a nebulizer from the hospital I had to bring to summer camp.

 

Joe recalls a similar situation with Ryan.

 

Joe: I remember taking the nebulizer and going to like gas stations and having them being able to plug it in at their wall so that we could give him a treat. Yeah. He'd sit, we were growing, like traveling was a nightmare. 

 

Sonja: Yeah. He'd have to sit behind the counter. I always kind of, you know, just had my eye out and my ear out for him all the time. Mm-hmm. Because it is like, you never know when it's gonna hit you.

 

Torgerson (narrating): Being around all the dust and dirt that comes along with ranching is hard on Ryan.

 

Ryan: I had an asthma attack a couple winters ago, coming from the shop to the house, and I thought I was gonna die.

 

Torgerson (narrating): But despite his asthma, the family had no choice but to rely on Ryan to work. Even when he went away to college, he was still putting in lots of hours at the farm and ranch.

 

Ryan: I did work for Paul and Gabe Brown at college and had some other jobs while I was at school, but basically every weekend I drove home 250 miles. I think I stayed at college, in Bismarck like a total of four weekends of the three years that I was at school. So it was, uh, you were always expected to kind of come home and be home, which was fine. That's what I liked to do. But there's a lot of things that I did miss out on growing up, like with friends that they went and would be able to go do things that I never did.

 

My dad had the same thing. I mean, he had to quit college early to come home and help. I mean, it was expected of him. And so I, I mean, I was very fortunate that I gotta finish college and do what I did. But I wish I could have been able to go work for some more people, see some different operations, but I pretty well got told – I remember talking with my grandma, like, I don't know if I want to come back.

 

You know, like, I don't know if this is what I want to do. And she says, well then there's not gonna be a place if you don't come back. And so it was kind of a, I wouldn't say thrown it on me, but pretty well just. This is on you. So, um, and it caused a lot of resentment from my cousins because I came home and I don't know, that was, that was hard.

 

Torgerson (narrating): Ryan was still essentially a kid when his grandma placed the fate of the farm and ranch on his shoulders. His large frame shrinks a little when he talks about this time and the toll his grandmother's expectations had on his relationships with his cousins.

 

Ryan: Most of them are like 10 years older and they, so you know, they. They came and helped a lot and were a part of, you know, helping when I was growing up and stuff. But it was always like a weekend hobby for 'em, you know, type deal. Not necessarily, they gotta come and enjoy it and do the fun things and then they weren't here when it wasn't the fun stuff, you know? But yeah. 

 

Torgerson: Yeah. So it was expected of you to come back because your dad was running the place?

 

Ryan: I think that's kind of what it was, you know. They all had their own jobs and, and that and whatnot. And I mean, at that point, my dad was the one out here, so it was kind of like, it was expected of me. And that's, I mean, I wouldn't have wanted any different, but that was at 18, it was a lot to kind of digest, you know, but Yeah.

 

Torgerson (narrating): Ryan's conversation with his grandma was almost 15 years ago now. But some of the old hard feelings, caused by the poor succession planning of Ryan’s grandparents, still llinger today.

 

Torgetson: And what is your relationship like to your cousins today? 

 

Ryan: Um, some of them we get along just fine, and some of them we don't speak. So, I mean, there, it just depends on what part of the family, but um, yeah, it's, and it's, it's sad to see that because it was forced upon all of us of what our parents thought, you know? And so Abby and I were pretty clear on we don't want to do that. I mean, um, the previous generations before us failed horribly at having crucial conversations.

 

The tempers flared and reason went out the door and, um, it, it's sad that they couldn't get on a page because that's what I told Abby and dad and mom and I said, whatever we're doing, I want to visit with my, my two sisters at least once a year so that they know where we're at.

 

Torgerson (narrating): Abbey who took her turn with the kids, rejoins our conversation adding:

 

Abbey: That's where I think a lot of the succession stuff got ugly and messy as these horrible stories were built into children's heads and then they continue that on and then this cycle is vicious and it doesn't break. And, and a lot of families have been ruined because of soil, of dirt. They, they've flat out just – it's broken people up. 

 

Torgerson (narrating): I wonder if Ryan's grandparents would have done things differently if they knew that the collateral damage of avoiding succession conversations would be severed relationships. But the only thing the Bruskis could do in this situation was to move forward and try to change the ranch from the outside in, starting with the animals and the soil, then eventually moving into the business and the people. 

 

After this short break, we'll hear what came next for Ryan and Abbey and how they started making changes on their land and in their family.

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This season of Reframing Rural is produced in collaboration with Winnett ACES which stands for Agricultural Community Enhancement and Sustainability. The mission of the Winnett ACES is to strengthen their community by enhancing the health of their land, economy, and traditions for future generations. 

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Season Four: Succession Stories is supported by the Plank Stewardship Initiative, World Wildlife Fund, Headwaters Foundation, and American Farmland Trust.

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Do you have a farm or ranch succession story you'd like to share with us? Call  (406) 219-7465‬ and leave a voicemail to share either your family's experience with succession or reflections you have on the stories you’ve heard this season.

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 Torgerson (narrating): After all the heartache and sacrifice Ryan had already experienced: The sweat equity he put into the farm and ranch since he was 10 years old. The miles he travelled each weekend to get back to the place in college, Ryan didn't want the fate of Sisyphus, pushing a boulder up the hill for it to roll back down on him each time. So he took a hard look at the operation and decided to make some changes.

 

The Bruski place started out as a farm and ranch, but 75 years later farming no longer made sense for their land. Here's Abbey talking about the condition of the soil when she and Ryan started working on the operation.

 

Abbey: 'We have a lot of sandhills out here on the beaver flat. So we are, I actually call it in the schools they can put sandbox sand in here is what we have really lots of sandy ground. Um, it can take in a lot of water, but it's really hard to grow stuff on the tops. We used to grow on the tops. We were, we would plant things, try to farm it, and it was just growing sand.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): Abbey remembers how hard this way of working was on everyone.

 

Abbey: Soil was mined out. Um, and, and the people were not happy. Um, the, the farming sucked up our life. Um, uh, the, the men wouldn't get back in until 10 or 11 at night, started in the morning. You never saw 'em. They lived out of a lunchbox. Um, and in the tractor,

 

 Torgerson (narrating): My dad lived out of his lunchbox when I was growing up too, and it was hard on my family. During harvest season, I wouldn't see my dad for days at a time because he left the yard and started working before I got up for school and came home after I was already in bed. There were times it felt like I was being parented by a single mom. 

 

That’s how the Bruski’s family functioned, too. But Ryan and Abbey wanted to break out of this mold and forge a different path. In order to change the operation, Ryan had to assert himself early on with his dad.

 

Ryan: When I was like maybe a senior in high school or a freshman in college, and he kind of was like, you know, he wanted me to be okay doing exactly what he had done. And I was like, I'm not, and it was very emotional for the both of us, but it was like, I'm, I'm not gonna do that. I said, plain and simple. I said, if you want, want somebody else to come in. I said, you, if you want one of the girls to come back. I said, I'll power to you, but I'm not coming back to do that same thing.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): When Ryan was having this conversation with his dad, he knew deep down that he wanted to come back to the ranch. From the time he was in elementary school he was committed to the place. But he didn't want to farm on sand or raise calves the way grandpa and dad had done before. He wanted something different, something better for the place he stood to inherit with Abbey. 

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In the grand scheme of things, Ryan was young yet and didn't have that much sway. His mentor Gabe Brown on the other hand had more authority.

 

Brown:  Paul and I went out to Bruskis to see their operation. Ryan had invited us out and so we got to go around their ranch with both Joe and Ryan. And I remember, you know, the first time we were out there, Joe was a bit more cautious. He is always a very likable person and easy to visit with, but he was a bit more cautious about some of the ideas. Over the next few years, after Ryan had moved back to their ranch, I really noticed a change in him and that he - he being Joe -  was more inquisitive.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): At this time, Ryan was bringing new ideas to the table and over the phone Gabe would verify them with Joe.

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Brown:  Him and I had a few conversations over the phone about certain things and I would explain it and I’m chuckling to myself, because I can only imagine what Joe was thinking when, Ryan would tell him some of the things. But then I think him hearing it from me and the way I explained it, I think that maybe it gave him a little bit more peace of mind. 

 

 Torgerson (narrating): Ryan agrees that having Gabe on his side helped his case to move the ranch into a more regenerative direction.

 

Ryan: Hearing it from Gabe, my dad was like. More willing to try, try some of these things that we started to do versus like, if I just came home from college.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): Back on the phone with Gabe, he acknowledges Joe’s strength in granting Ryan the chance to experiment.

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Brown: I gotta give Joe credit though, uh, for the sake that he was willing to let Ryan try things and I can't overemphasize the, the importance of that, that parents need to allow their children. To fail at some things. Not saying that Ryan failed, but there's always a risk of failure with anything you try in farming and ranching.  And for Joe to have the confidence in Ryan to allow him to do that, I think, you know, says a lot about Joe and I give him credit for that.  

 

 Torgerson (narrating): So they started trying some of the things Ryan had learned in Bismarck under Paul and Gabe Brown.

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Ryan: Going down the regenerative and the soil health deal and um, it just seemed kind of like the right way for us to go. More low input. And so then we went to. Um, doing more of that. We were really moving the cows, you know, a couple times a week, you know, to once a daily, and, and we were getting better at, at doing that and kind of figuring out grazing while still taking care of the animals.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): Here's where things start to get really interesting for the entire living ecosystem on the Bruski place. Massive changes are happening, above ground and below ground, at scale and pretty quickly.

 

Abbey lays out the formula:

 

Abbey: I believe it starts with a healthy soil that is the foundation. And then our cattle are healthy, our grasses are healthy, our people are healthy.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): Hearing this, I feel at home with the Bruskis. I love when I meet people who share in my experience of conventional agriculture, but who want to do things differently with their land and with their own health. 

Abbey: We dove down rabbit trails of food and animal and people health and all the things in our guts and we've dove way deep.

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I share that earlier this year I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease and that I've been going down a gut health journey with a naturopath, functional nutritionist and the only functional GI doctor in the state. Joe says I'm not the only person he knows with the disease.

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Joe: One of my best friends has Crohn's in Billings. 

 

Abbey: And so many more people are getting diagnosed than ever used to.

 

Joe: Than they ever used to. It's, it's like

 

Abbey: all allergies, autism, all autism, 

 

Joe: all that. It's all coming back from chemicals. To me,

 

Torgerson: I kind of feel like just like healing our gut and healing the soil, I'm like, I feel like there's, there's definitely some metaphors, some connections there. Oh, there, it totally is.

 

Abbey: Yes, it totally is. Yeah.

 

Joe: people are starting to realize that what we eat is what we are, it's medicine. 

 

Abbey: Yeah. Our food is medicine 

 

Joe: We kind of fit in. I love that West, east coast, west coast, Western Montana.

 

Abbey: We're getting kind of crunchy out here. We’re semi crunchy. And I said, you know, it's, it's, like I said, I went to school in Missoula, so yeah. I'm going down this herbalist route, but I'll still have an iced coffee, which is really bad for me when I'm out of town. So I said that that's why I'm a semi crunchy.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): The Bruskis may be semi-crunchy regenerative ranchers today, but they started out as a typical Montana dryland farm and cow-calf operation, just like the one I was raised on and countless others like me. Then they started systematically moving their cows around their pastures. At first a few times a week, then every day.

 

The results? The grass grew higher and thicker, the roots deeper. By rotating cattle into specific sections of their pastures using polywire paddocks that rope off where cows can and can not graze, they've elevated the organic matter levels in the soil. The impact of the animals' hooves, manure and pee broke up the hard pan, improving water infiltration. Dung beetles moved in, tunnelling into the soil to create even more pathways for rain to travel.

 

The Bruskis liked what they saw and reseeded more farmland back into grass, planting diverse mixes of grass, flowers and forbs. 

 

Joe was convinced.

 

Joe: When you start seeing places that were basically a, a scrub desert type soil, and you start seeing roots six feet down in the ground two, three years later, it's pretty, pretty impressive. We're starting to see trees where we never had trees. I would love to see Beavers up and down our creeks. It’s just getting our water cycle back.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): They eventually seeded everything back to grass, auctioned off all their farming equipment and made more changes to the ranch. They built more water and fencing infrastructure to better facilitate rotational grazing on their place.

 

Along the way, they discovered it wasn't profitable to raise calves and it wasn’t good for their soil to bail hay anymore either, so they sold their mother cow herd and bailing equipment. I'd only heard of families selling off their herd because they were retiring or going broke. It was a bold move. But they had a plan. Abbey and Joe chat about the auctions they held during this time.

 

Abbey: We went to Ranching for Profit and realized we had way too many overheads. Um, we had a farm auction and we had a lot of talk in town that we were going bankrupt. And you know, that's when people sell. That's usually first thoughts. Um, but that was actually a choice we made. And, um, that 

 

Joe: Was that the first auction or the second auction? 

 

Abbey: Second auction. 

 

Joe: So we put up 4,200 bales up, cleaned the machines up and sold them. 

 

Torgerson: And so people must have been like, what's going on? 

 

Abbey: Yeah, they are crazy.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): What did they do in place of raising calves and selling hay you might ask? They changed their business to a custom yearling and stocker enterprise. Stay with me! Here's where things get a little more technical. Stockers are young, weaned calves they buy in the fall, feed through winter and spring then sell in the summer to a feedlot or another rancher who uses the cow as a replacement for their herd. Custom yearlings are weaned calves owned by other ranchers that the Bruskis get a fee for grazing on their grass. They're currently about 50-50, owned stockers and custom grazers.

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This switch from owning mother cows and raising calves, to rotationally grazing young cattle that are only on the place for part of the year, lets the Bruskis rest their pastures for 10 to 18 months. Ryan says they try and switch it up to keep the ecosystem healthy.

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Ryan: It'll get that long of a recovery period. And it just kind of depends on where we're at. And we're mixing that up constantly so it's not the same ground getting the same graze or the same recovery period every time. It's, we're switching it up to, 'cause Mother Nature's very, very intelligent, so we're trying to keep her guessing.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): This is also called mob grazing and it's what's created incredible changes to  the ecosystem from how buoyant and healthy the soil is, to other life that populates the ranch like birds, beatles, beavers and trees. The switch to grazing young cattle, also turned the commodity the Bruskis sell from calves to grass. Even though I grew up in agriculture, this was hard for me to grasp at first. On the drive down to Ekalaka I ask my dad to explain.

 

Russ: They're harvesting the grass and they're marketing through cattle because if you put a 500 pound calf out here in the Spring and you take it off in the fall, August or September, you're selling the gain that the grass gave. The calf calf is growing through the summer. You probably almost double his pound, his weight on the grass from the time they buy it and put it on grass in the spring, like now until they sell it in the fall.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): Ryan confirms this during our conversation.

 

Ryan: We're grass harvesters. I mean, that's the commodity that we're harvesting is turning grass into pounds of beef. So that would be the commodity to me that we are producing or selling.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): This way of ranching has dramatically improved their business to the point where they can now afford to have 7-8 hired hands at any given time. The Bruskis don’t believe bigger is better. They reject the Nixon-era edict to “get big or get out” of agriculture. So instead of acquiring more land to increase profitability, they have made their existing ground more productive. It’s not only been good for them. By creating jobs, they’re directly contributing to the resilience of the Ekalaka economy.

 

Some of their employees are local, others come under their employment through the H2A visa program. While it's time consuming to move string and set up those polywire paddocks to rotationally graze upwards of 5,000 cattle at a time, Abbey shares that:

 

Abbey: By taking those extra moves to do one or two times a day, it paid for a full-time employee to come over. 

 

 Torgerson (narrating): I ask Ryan what other plans they have in the works for the near future.

 

Ryan: I hope within the next two years to be fully stocking it ourselves. Okay. That's, that's kind of the goal. 

 

Torgerson: So no more custom grazing? 

 

Ryan: Probably not, It's not my goal. 'cause you can just make so much more with the owning 'em, then you can getting paid for your grass. Yeah. So especially with the sell, buy, marketing.  

 

Torgerson: can you explain what that is in like a very elementary way? 

 

Ryan: I'm probably gonna butcher it. You're basically in an elementary way, as I can put it, you're buying undervalued animals and turning them into overvalued animals and selling them.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): Ryan goes on to explain a strategy he learned from a consulting business that helps farmers and ranchers build wealth, a critical skill in an industry with notoroiusly tight profit margins. 

 

Ryan: But that's. A few of the little things that you can do with sell buy. I mean, that's not the correct way to probably put it, but for me it's, you know, buying the undervalued animal and turning it. When you do sell it, it's an overvalued animal. 

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Torgerson: Could you compare it to like buying a fix your upper house?

 

Ryan: Yeah. Yep. Buying a fixer upper and remodeling it and then flipping it type deal. Yep, yep, exactly.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): While there are other ranchers in Ekalaka embracing new approaches to the industry, I imagine selling off their bailing equipment and mother cow herd to raise fixer-uppers may have turned some heads in their community.

 

Torgerson: It sounds like you guys have a pretty strong regenerative community, but, um, were there any neighbor's reactions that were kind of shocked or on the other side of supportive? 

 

Ryan: Yeah. I mean, and I don't mean this in any disrespect, but it's, it's even what we're doing now, we're, we're finding opposition that I, I didn't think we would, but there was definitely a lot of, you're the black sheep. We had neighbors down the road that they had been doing some of this stuff and going more down the regenerative path before us. So they were the black sheep before we were, so then when you slowly add people that are like willing to try some of this stuff.

 

It gets, it gets better, but, um, there's still people that, like you could go ask anybody in town at the feed store right now and we're a bunch of crazies and that, and that's okay. But um, like you say, it's. It's something that I think in human nature that if what we're doing is working for us, then that means they're wrong. And they're not wrong because what they've done is got them to where they're at.

 

And that's what our generations before us, my grandpa and my dad, and everybody that was on this place before us, I'm not saying what they did was wrong. It got 'em through what they did. It's just not right for us now. It's not what's gonna work for us. And that's like what we're doing currently very well might not be what we're doing in 20 years.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): It wasn't just farming and calving that were no longer working for the Bruskis. It was the going to work before your kids woke up and coming home when they were already in bed. It was the business part. It was the peope part. It was the family dynamic that came from a lack of transparency and planning between generations.

 

Ryan: It was about 2014 when we got married and we were both here on the place. And so the succession piece didn't come into place because still at that time my dad didn't know what was going on.

 

Abbey: Your grandma had just died.

 

Ryan: In 2015 she passed. Yep. And that's when my dad found out what was actually gonna happen to him. 

 

Torgerson: What happened there too? 

 

Ryan: He had to buy out his four siblings to get the shares that he had in our business.

 

Abbey: and that was tough. 

 

Ryan: Yeah. 

 

Abbey: That was a tough too, he did a lot of that, I like to believe for his children. Yeah. For you. 

 

Ryan: Because he, he could have passed it on and. Um, his brother would've had a chance to do the same, but dad had first option to buy his siblings out and he did that for me. 'Cause he won't pay that off. I, I mean, maybe he will. But, but he did that for, basically for us. But, um, yeah, like you say, he, he made that decision so that we'd have a future here. He could have decided to opt out of it, but he, he decided to not.

 

Abbey: We’re forever grateful of that.

 

 Torgerson (narrating): Ryan's dad Joe didn't know he'd be put into the position of buying out his siblings to ensure Ryan and Abbey's chance at taking over the place. For his whole life, Joe was in the dark about his parents' succession plans for the farm and ranch, and the future he and his family would have there. It was a chain that needed to be broken.

 

Ryan: I saw what my dad had went through and like he didn't know that he was gonna get this place until he was 55. And so it was like in that unknown uncertainty that had him just uncomfortable for a lot of his life.

 

And so it was something that like when we, it was brought up, it was like almost voodoo if you will. I mean it was just kind of like that uncomfortable thing that if we talk about it, somebody's gonna die or it just, I, I don't know, really know what it was about it, but it just made everybody super emotional and it, I didn't want it to be, 'cause I had been around a few people where it wasn't, and I saw how normal it was for them to talk about like the next generation taking over or you know, being the leaders of the place.

 

And it was just like, why can't we be. Why can't this be normal for us too? But it, it wasn't something when I was growing up for it to be, um, normal. And so, like you say, it, uh, it was a lot of, Abby, I gotta give her a lot of the kudos because she just, we constantly talked about it. I mean, it just was constantly brought up 'cause it, it was just that uncertainty that we didn't know and it kind of made everybody uncomfortable.