The Liberator

"We are feeding and raising our animals well so our neighbors can be fed well."

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Graze Master Beef Ready for Pick Up or Delivery!

Thank you loyal Graze Master Beef customers for your support of our business throughout 2016. We have a great selection of holistically-raised, fresh beef, straight from our farm to your table. Please contact me any time to arrange pick up or delivery at (402) 499-0329.

Our products are raised holistically, on grass and forages with a small ration of non-GMO milo. Raising our cattle is a labor of love and care:

One-pound hamburger packages (vacuum-sealed for easy thawing)

New York Strips

Fillets

Ribeyes

Roasts

Delectable Doggie Treats

Other specific cuts (please ask)

Our meat company is located at Pleasant Dale, Neb. just a short, easy trip west from Lincoln. We welcome you to pick up the meat directly from us and we also offer some delivery options. We can also arrange larger beef processing orders with you in quarters, halves and wholes. Call today!

Call Del Ficke any time at (402) 499-0329

Email fickecattle@outlook.com

Learn more at: www.fickecattle.com

Ficke Cattle Company location:

873 182nd Road
Pleasant Dale, NE

Here to Serve Your Seed Needs

We are offering a multitude of seed options for all your seed needs. For example, check out the great line-up of alfalfa and clovers we have to offer for frost-seeding your clovers and early spring planting of alfalfa: http://www.prairiecreekseed.com/alfalfa-clovers/

We are also looking for people who are motivated, forward-thinking individuals who would consider serving as a dealer in Nebraska. I welcome anyone who wants to join the Prairie Creek Seed family to please call me at (402) 499-0329.

Green Acres Cover Crops Giving Back to Agriculture Program©

Nate Belcher at Green Acres Cover Crops would like to share an opportunity with FFA chapters in your area to raise money and awareness around cover crops, careers in agriculture and so much more!

Green Acres Cover Crops is driven by education and community-building.  Nate will be available for hands-on learning and speaking opportunities for chapters through this program.  He, and other team members, are willing to speak to your chapter, provide tours of our dryland research farm outside Pleasant Dale and can also coordinate with you on specific needs of your chapter.

We are also willing to help students complete their Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE). Our team could serve as guides in meeting requirements and are also connected to a broad network of agricultural producers and agri-business people who could assist students in their SAE work.

What is the Green Acres Cover Crops – Giving Back to Agriculture Program©?

This is a year-round program that can be fit into your chapters’ fundraising needs. The program runs from January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017.

Giving back to the soil, students and stewards of the earth through: Cover Crop Education
Educating students (both rural and urban) and farmers and ranchers representing all types of agricultural operations the benefits that cover crops have on soil health, water conservation and overall stewardship. Students, farmers and ranchers would also be exposed to the financial advantages of incorporating cover crops into the farm or ranch business plan.

Giving back to future leaders through: Cover Crop Career Opportunities
Students, farmers and ranchers would learn about the vast array of professional opportunities within the cover crop sphere – everything from precision cover-cropping equipment technicians, to seed production, custom planting, breeding, ultra-high-density-grazing, marketing, consulting and more.

How does the fundraising portion work?
Your chapter would earn a specified amount for each bag of cover crop mix sold.

If your chapter is interested in taking part in this program, call Kerry Hoffschneider at (402) 363-8963 or email Kerry at wordeed@outlook.com. Kerry is the Green Acres Cover Crops Giving Back Program coordinator. Kerry will set you up with the materials you need and ask any questions you have. She will also schedule Nate and other team members' visits to your FFA if you so desire.

The Fundraising Product:
Your chapter would be selling our Green Acres Cover Crops Spring and Fall Mix. This mix of oats and peas is excellent for producers who have harvested their cash crop and have a six-to-eight-week window prior to a killing frost. It can also be used as an early season/spring cover crop/forage that can be planted before a cash crop. This is also a great blend for the fall as the oats allow for a lasting residue, the peas fix a good amount of nitrogen (to both protect the soil and provide nutrients for the next crop). Consecutive temperatures in the low teens will kill this mix requiring no management in the spring while providing a mulch to protect the soil.

The seed can be shipped straight to customers or your FFA Chapter to be delivered. Orders can be taken any time.

The program runs from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017.

Warm Spring Gratitude

By Del Ficke

One of the rewards of managing the land holistically in an increasingly regenerative and not extractive fashion, is the noticeable impact on our precious sources of water. For example, this is a picture of a warm spring that has surfaced since we started ultra-high-density-grazing sloughs. Grazing in this fashion means that hundreds of cattle hooves are tromping in those slough spots and in turn opening up multiple springs all across the farm all while naturally fertilizing the areas they are grazing with manure and urine.

This particular picture is a warm spring in a place we’ve never had a spring running before through the snow no-less! Everything else was frozen solid next to it when I took this photograph. Improving the farm and ranch has its ups and downs; however, during a moment captured like this, witnessing warm water flowing again, I certainly pause and celebrate the simple grandeur that God provides in nature’s intricate systems. What a gift.

Join us for Soil Master School©
A school focused on net gain for your land, livestock, family and pocketbook
July 21-22, 2017

We welcome anyone interested in learning more to check out this link and register here as well. If you want to visit about this opportunity, please call Del Ficke at (402) 499-0329. www.fickecattle.com/soil-master-school

We are excited that Ficke Cattle Company, Green Acres Cover Crops and Prairie Creek Seed are partnering on this event.