Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors.

This week, I visited with Cooper Hibbard from Montana. Cooper runs the Sieben Livestock Company, which is part of the Old Salt Co-op in Helena, Montana.

The Co-op, with has beef, lamb, and other offerings from five central Montana ranches, is committed to transforming the status quo of beef production to a more regenerative, giving-back model. They're doing some really cool stuff and I encourage you to check them out.

Cooper traveled far and wide - to South American and Australia, to name a few places - before coming back to take the reins of his family's ranching operation.

He told me that he's often had a feeling, when he's fixing fence or gathering cows or hunting, where the hair stands up on the back of his neck and it seems like the air is charged, and he just knows he's being watched. Then he might come upon a cache, where a lion has stashed a deer to come back later and feed on it. What he feels then is not fear but reverence.

Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. We thank Kershaw Knives and Redmond Salt for their generous sponsorships. Music is by Forrest Van Tuyl.

Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms. And you can check us out at awenice.com.

This week we have another visit with Joe Morris from California. Joe runs Morris Grassfed Beef and is an award-winning leader of environmental stewardship and regenerative ag.

This second moment involves the cattle.

The connections we have – with other animals and with the land – become more and more apparent when we can pause and pay attention. The connections are full of energy and communication. There is often an undercurrent of that theme with these segments and I'm grateful to Joe for highlighting it.

Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their generous sponsorship.

Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to Forrest as well as an Awe Nice donate button on here.

Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe Nice!, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms.

This week, I visited again with Carol Von Michaelis from Arvada, Colorado. Carol runs The Community Farm which seeks to bridge the gap between agriculture, the outdoors, and urban residents. Lots of people visit and when they do, they are likely greeted by Pepsi, a mini donkey that came into Carol's life when the two were paired for a burro race.

What's a burro race? Glad you asked! Pack burro racing is the Colorado's official summer heritage sport. Runners and donkeys pair up for races of varying lengths. All donkeys must be loaded with a pack, which includes mining gear. The race Carol and Pepsi ran was about 15 miles and started in Fairplay, elevation about 10,000 feet.

It was a bit of a blind date as sometimes goes with people who have donkeys but don't run and runners who are donkeyless.

I was so glad to hear that Pepsi ultimately landed at the Community Farm.

Carol told me that Pepsi also serves as a mascot for the Colorado School of Mines, where he specializes in meeting fans and having photo opportunities.

Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their generous sponsorship.

Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to Forrest as well as an Awe, Nice! donate button here.

Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms.

This week I interviewed Joe Morris from California. Joe is a horseman raised in the vaquero tradition and part of an accomplished, multi-generational line of ranching in his family.

He learned holistic management practices from Allan Savory, who many say pioneered the field. Joe told me he sees the animals and the land as one community, a whole.

We have three short moments from Joe. The first involves a young horse he started years ago when he was working on a large ranch in Nevada. Joe picks up the story at the banks of the Owyhee River during spring runoff. The current was fast, deep, and chocolate-colored.

Boy, so many elements of this scenario that could have been stressful for horse and rider. There's the current and the depth of the Owyhee. There's the fact that Joe is lifting his legs way up. And there's having Sissy on his back.

But Joe worked very hard to develop a partnership, a relationship with his new horse. I trust you. You trust me. We go forward together.

Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their generous sponsorship.

Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to Forrest as well as an Awe Nice donate button here.

Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms. And you can check us out at awenice.com.

This week I interviewed Erin Nissen from Mosca, Colorado. Erin farms in the San Luis Valley which is known many things, but in our case, potatoes. Idaho may lead the nation in production, but the Valley still contributes mightily – some two billion pounds of potatoes a year.

Just a bit of vocabulary: the words "bin" and "plenum" refer to a specialized building where potatoes are stored. Thanks to careful control of humidity, airflow, and temperature, the Nissens can store millions of pounds of potatoes from October to May.

Also, a hundred weight is a sack of a hundred pounds of potatoes. So, a hundred thousand hundred weight is 10 million pounds.

Erin has heard from an old timer in the valley, who told her that in the fifties, when he was a kid, his elementary school class shrunk from 20 to six kids as people left due to the droughts.

We'll have images of mano and metate and the image of the storm and the mountains here.

By dedicating more acreage to cover crops and soil building, the Nissens have been able to increase potato yields. At first glance, this may be counterintuitive. I mean, if you have x number of acres, you should plant them all with potatoes, right? Not so. It's important to vary and to give the ground what it needs.

Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their generous sponsorship.

Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to Forrest as well as an Awe Nice donate button here.

Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms. And you can check us out at awenice.com. That's a-w-e-n-i-c-e

This week, I visited with Carol Von Michaelis mc haylis from Arvada. Carol grew up around Golden and it was there as a high school student that she volunteered for the local ambulance. That work evolved into EMT work she served for some time on wildland fires for the forest service. Over time, she got her nursing degree, then her physician's assistant degree, and, for good measure, a PhD in community health promotion. She rides horses, is an avid trail runner, and has founded The Community Farm, a small non-profit farm in Arvada.

We have two Awe, Nice! segments from Carol. This first one involves her introduction to farming on Colorado's eastern plains.

Do you, like me, kind of consider the eastern plains as vast but vacant spaces? Think again.

The wildlife diversity on the eastern plains was remarkable, Carol told me. She's never seen so many birds of prey, hawks, owls, falcons. Also badgers. She said wildlife around Denver gets so observed, by so many people, it can feel like a zoo. Not so, out on the plains.

Carol didn't quite recall the number of bread loaves she helped harvest while working the combine, but it was a lot. Maybe millions?

Thank a farmer, y'all.

Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their generous sponsorship.

Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to Forrest as well as an Awe Nice donate button here.

Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe, Nice! where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. My name is Maddy Butcher and this week we are giving another nod to the 2026 Lunar New Year, the Year of the Horse. I interviewed Robert Eversole, also known as the TrailMeister for his expansive horse camping and trail riding website and for his many clinics he holds on traveling safely with equines. Robert and his two mules live in Washington and here he describes an outing in the Pasayten Wilderness, in Washington, near the Canadian border. Elevation about 7,000 feet.

After recording, Robert and I talked about all the little details of knowledge that one needs to have to pack and camp well with horses. I think for outfitters who have been riding, packing, and camping for decades, the work has become intuitive. For the rest of us, I think we work through stages of competency. Have you heard of that? You start with unconscious incompetence (also known as "you don't know what you don't know"), work to conscious incompetence, then to conscious competence and finally, unconscious competence. It's a journey alright.

Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.

Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link and a donate button here.

We'd like to thank Redmond Salt and Kershaw knives for their generous sponsorship. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe, Nice! where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. My name is Maddy Butcher and this week we are giving a nod to the 2026 Lunar New Year. It's the Year of the Horse.

Jeremie Forman returns with a story that's fitting to the celebration. Aside from his work in law enforcement and his running a horse facility, Jeremie is mayor of the small town of Francis, Utah. Population about 2,000. Every year for many years, Jeremie has run the town's summer rodeo.

One year, as he recounts, he wanted to do something special as a presentation to open the rodeo. For his idea, he needed a lot of horses and riders. So, he put the word out on Facebook. But, Jeremie told me, he had to be a bit secretive about his plan. Their rodeo is the last one of the summer in the region. It follows the Summit County rodeo. There's a Fourth of July rodeo and a Pioneer Days rodeo. He's found that if he has a good idea and shares it openly, other rodeo planners have copied it and done it before the rodeo in Francis.

So, on the QT, Jeremie recruited dozens of volunteers to be part of this production. He borrowed scores of American flags from a local church and made sure everyone could be safe with carrying a flag and riding their horse. His son, Jayce, who stands about 6'6'', rode a big Percheron gelding and carried an extra large flag.

I know there may be listeners for whom patriotism is a challenging idea at a moment when our country is so fractured, but I hope you all listen with an open heart.

I was thrilled to hear Jeremie mention Joel Nelson's poem Equus Caballus, which Wylie Gustufson crafted into the song of the same title. Joel is a horseman from Alpine, Texas, a Vietnam vet, and in 2009 received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He was also nominated for a Grammy in the spoken word category some years ago.

Watch and listen to Joel perform Equus Caballus here.

The line Jeremie mentions is this:

I have suffered gross indignities from users and from winners,
I have felt the hand of kindness from the losers and the sinners.
I have given for the cruel hand and given for the kind.
Heaved a sigh at Appomattox when surrender had been signed.

Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.

Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link and a donate button here.

We'd like to thank Redmond Salt and Kershaw knives for their generous sponsorship. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.