Reprinted with permission from the Noble Research Institute, Ardmore, Okla. Original photos by Carson Robertson
Nick Rodgers watched coverage of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, from a high school history class. He remembers his shock and anger watching history unfold in front of him.
He tried to sign up for the U.S. Army the next day. A few plates and screws in his arm from rodeoing — bull riding and bull fighting — slowed the process. A junior in high school at the time of the attacks, Rodgers dropped out of school to earn his GED certificate, eager to leave Michigan and be part of a mission. He was stationed at Fort Drum, New York, and then deployed to Baghdad in 2005, with orders to monitor checkpoints and patrol the northwest corner of the city.
He learned years later that the college located within the perimeter of his patrol was an agricultural college. He recalls seeing irrigation and row crops around the Tigris River and abundant sheep and goat production, with goat and mutton the animal protein of choice in the area.
When he left Iraq for the final time it was summer. Seeing the green grass from the air was a relief, and it turns out that was the beginning of a regenerative journey that has always led to better grass.
When he met his wife, Annie, she encouraged Rogers to take up agriculture. When the couple began raising cattle, they had a 3-acre lot with a few dairy-breed cows and a handful of Black Baldies. He would turn them out on pasture during the day and lock them up at night. His goal was a cattle-feeding operation, but the cost of building from the ground up was out of reach.
An answer came in 2019 when he stumbled across the 2016 documentary “One Hundred Thousand Beating Hearts.” Rodgers listened as Will Harris, a Bluffton, Georgia, rancher, described the days when he would calculate how many pounds of beef he could squeeze out of his existing herd and available resources. Rodgers understood exactly what Harris meant.
Harris then says the calculations no longer cross his mind; the thoughts were replaced by wondering how he could improve the grass and cattle in his care.
One Saturday night the couple watched a video about manure. Rodgers admits this may not have been quite so momentous an occasion for someone less absorbed in soil health and grass-growing.
But Rodgers says the breath of relief that he breathed in that moment rivaled the one he once exhaled at cruising at 30,000 feet. Annie’s idea to expand from the handful existing cattle soon grew from 3 acres to its current rented and deeded 147 acres, becoming Red Leg Farms near Montrose, Michigan. (The farm’s name is a nod to his time in the Army as an artilleryman, or a Red Leg.) Katahdin hair sheep complemented the cattle’s grazing habits, and the farm has steadily grown through heifer retention, new purchases and the unparalleled support, he says, of his wife.
At first, the sheep grazed on the poor-quality pasture he had. These days, he says, those pastures are nearly too good for sheep.
There is thoughtful design in his livestock pasture movements and intention in his decisions. The purpose in his life that once eluded him now covers him. His neighbors slow and watch as they drive past his ranch; they see Rodgers moving cattle daily, sometimes more often. The daily moves were somehow both similar to and wildly different from his former daily patrols in uniform.
The proof that Rodgers’ decisions were good ones was in the dry years, when neighbors pared down their cattle numbers by as much as half. They would drive past Red Leg Farms, where waist-deep grass undulated in the ocean of what Rodgers calls “putting-green pastures” around him.
The contrasts across fence lines don’t lie, and neither do the neighbors who have since asked Rodgers for his grazing secrets.
He recently hosted a pasture walk in partnership with local extension agents and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Nearly 20 farms were represented, with herds ranging from three cows to 300. Beginning farmers showed up and counted on Rodgers to guide and teach them; satisfaction topped off the cup once filled with discontent.
The customers for their grass-fed meat run the gamut, which reflects how consumers respond to Rodgers’ natural approach to production. When he answers his phone or welcomes a visitor to the farm, it could be a beginning farmer or a local dairy farming family wanting grass-fed beef or lamb like they ate growing up. It could be an executive chef interested in serving meat produced on Red Leg Farms, or perhaps a former vegan whose only animal protein is grass-fed lamb Rodgers has raised.
