Harlow Cattle Company™ raises premium quality Angus/Hereford beef cattle on the open expanses of eastern Roy prairie in central Pierce County in Washington state. The calves, with their cows are thoughtfully raised, quietly handled, and roam freely on prairie grasses and lush bottomland pastures of the ranch. The calves grow with their young herdmates, grass-fatten, and slowly reach optimal size for providing artisan beef for Harlow Cattle Company customers.
“My passion for raising quality cattle started as a young child on a 320 acre, 1848 Original Donation Claim property in rural central Pierce County. Old buildings with steeped history, our home set on stones with hand-hewn logs as support beams that even today hold the same historic ranch house where I reside. I grew up working cattle, showing beef calves in 4-H and helping develop a good herd of quality stock.
Time moves ahead, buildings change, fences are moved repaired and built, families before ours came and moved on. Some things do not change, however. The land, now entering 150 years in continuous agricultural use, remains fertile, healthy and vibrant. Historic, native flora and fauna abound. My passion to sustain this marvelous, intimate land have unfolded over a lifetime, first tended and improved by my parents, now my charge to take into the next century.”
-Becky Harlow Weed
Every cattle rancher is first a grower of grass. The pastures are key. Retaining and improving productivity of ranch grasslands while preserving habitat for endangered wildlife, birds and flora that share the ranch pastures, oak groves and brushy woodlands is paramount. Cattle movement through various pastures offer soil enhancement and forage health. We practice careful rotational grazing sensitive to needs of each time of year. In the summer, the dry season allows bottomland grazing however with the arrival of the wet winters the cattle are moved to gravely prairie soils and fed hay in large wooden feeders which are moved daily.
Grass-fed beef even has a light carbon footprint. Truth be told in words from an article published in Time magazine in January 2010:
“Conventional cattle raising is like mining. It’s unsustainable, because you’re just taking without putting anything back. But when you rotate cattle on grass, you change the equation. You put back more than you take. It works like this: grass is a perennial. Rotate cattle and other ruminants across pastures full of it, and the animals’ grazing will cut the blades — which spurs new growth — while their trampling helps work manure and other decaying organic matter into the soil, turning it into rich humus. The plant’s roots also help maintain soil health by retaining water and microbes. And healthy soil keeps carbon dioxide underground and out of the atmosphere.” Time Magazine Monday, Jan. 25, 2010 How Cows (Grass-Fed Only) Could Save the Planet by Lisa Abend
“The ethics of eating meat recedes when visiting a farm or ranch run by someone who cares deeply about the animals and how they live.” Back to Grass by Corby Kummer, The Atlantic Monthly May 2003
The beef from our pampered cattle stays close to the fields where they were born, grew-up, grazed, cavorted and lounged. You enjoy a fine meal with superior nutrition, unique flavor and all naturally grass fed cattle.
The Harlow Cattle Company is operated by one woman, Becky Harlow Weed, once a small girl on this sizable ranch, now a mature woman with a lifelong passion realized. The constant assistance of her husband, Mark, working weekends to keep the enterprise operating smoothly, embellishes the joy of ranching.
