We are the Castricums: husband (Matt), wife (Mairin) and six children. Living “the good life” we seek to live it ever more fully. Learning from the book of Creation, we are schooled by the Creator. Growing our family, we form our characters. Growing our flocks and herds, we raise our own sustenance. Rather than starting ‘from scratch’, we work to recover the cultural and biological riches handed-on by those who came before. “Health is life and life is health.” Stewarding the dynamics of life, we are blessed with further life, increased dynamism…in a word, regeneration.
“Everybody wants to be sustainable…My question is: Why in the world would we want to sustain a degraded resource? We instead needed to work on regenerating.”
Gabe Brown, Dirt to Soil
As our family works on regenerating, we follow a few common-sense rules-of-thumb. In the spring, our animals are out on pasture as soon as regrowth and soil conditions permit. There they remain, until the onset of winter necessitates shelter and feed. Our ranch is chemical-free (e.g. no pesticides, herbicides, parasiticides, etc.). Since diversity is key to natural system health and function, we constantly seek to integrate multiple species in-pasture and out. Grazing is intensively managed and intensely regenerative.
“Cultural change…demands from everyone the courage to adopt a new lifestyle…the primacy of being over having, of person over things.”
Castricum Ranch 