Regenerative Agriculture: Thriving as a Modern Rancher

What happens when a wildlife ecologist decides to stop leasing out her ranch and start managing it herself, and the team she builds happens to be made up entirely of women?

In this episode, I sit down with Christy Wyckoff, owner of Redwing Ranch in Colorado, Fiona Lopez, ranch manager, and Erin Sheridan, programs manager, to talk about their journey into regenerative ranching, building a profitable operation, and creating opportunities for women in agriculture.

What makes their story particularly interesting is that they never set out to build an all-women ranch. They simply hired the best people for the job. And while they're proud to be women in agriculture, as Christy puts it, they're ranchers first.

We explore how Holistic Management and Ranching for Profit have influenced their approach to managing land, livestock, people, and finances. From making difficult decisions during drought to understanding the profitability of individual enterprises, the Red Wing team shares what it takes to build a resilient ranching business while working with nature rather than against it.

But there's another side to their work. Through hands-on workshops in grazing management, stockmanship, and chainsaw skills, they're creating opportunities for women to develop practical skills, build confidence, and connect with others who understand the challenges of working in agriculture. What surprised them most wasn't just what the women learned, but the vulnerability, friendships, and sense of community that emerged.

We also talk about the importance of knowing your numbers, empowering your team to make informed decisions, and creating a culture where mistakes become opportunities to learn rather than reasons to question your abilities.

Because regenerative ranching isn't just about improving the land. It's about building an operation where the livestock, the business, and the people managing it can all thrive.

Learn more about Redwing Ranch and their educational programs: https://www.redwingranch.us/

📢 If this episode gave you something to think about, share it with a fellow rancher, farmer, homesteader or land steward who could use this insight! Take a screenshot, post it to your IG stories, and tag me @ThrivingLandSteward so I can reshare.

🎧 Subscribe & Review: Love the podcast? Leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it helps me bring you more content to support your land stewardship journey!

🌿 Grab my free guide: 5 Essential Actions for Thriving Land Stewardship

📧 Connect with Christine on Instagram

📅 Schedule a Call with Christine: Get personalized guidance for your land. 

Let's make regenerative ranching and farming more intentional, profitable, and fulfilling. I’d love to hear your biggest takeaway from this episode—DM me on Instagram or schedule a call to chat about it!

Connect with Christine Martin:
Website: https://thrivinglandsteward.com
Email: [email protected]
Substack: https://thrivinglandsteward.substack.com/

What happens when the experts tell you one thing, but everything you’re learning about soil, animals, and human health tells you something different?

Lauren Nitschke and her husband, Gary, chose to trust their convictions.

Nearly two decades ago, they began transitioning their Oklahoma ranch toward grass fed, grass finished beef production. At the time, much of the advice they received was conventional: plow this, plant that, spray this. Instead, they started asking different questions, learning about soil biology, Holistic Management, grazing, genetics, and how to work with nature rather than against it.

In this episode, Lauren shares the evolution of Nitschke Natural Beef and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.

We talk about challenging conventional advice, surviving a five year drought, adapting grazing to changing conditions, improving cattle genetics, navigating the economics of finishing cattle on grass, selling through Whole Foods and eventually walking away, and building a direct to consumer market rooted in relationships.

We also talk about something that sits underneath all of it: context.

There is no recipe for regenerative agriculture. What works on one ranch, in one season, for one family may not work somewhere else. The work is learning to observe, stay curious, adapt, and make decisions based on the land and life you’re actually managing.

And, toward the end of our conversation, Lauren and I explore the role women can play in regenerative agriculture and why nurturing, relationship, curiosity, and seeing the whole may be some of the most valuable skills we bring to the land.

This is a conversation about much more than raising grass finished beef.

It’s about having the courage to question what you’ve been told, learn from experience, and keep paying attention to what the land is telling you.

📢 If this episode gave you something to think about, share it with a fellow rancher, farmer, homesteader or land steward who could use this insight! Take a screenshot, post it to your IG stories, and tag me @ThrivingLandSteward so I can reshare.

🎧 Subscribe & Review: Love the podcast? Leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it helps me bring you more content to support your land stewardship journey!

🌿 Grab my free guide: 5 Essential Actions for Thriving Land Stewardship
📚 Explore Self-Study Courses: Learn at your own pace!

• Reading Your Land for Profit, Resilience, and Regeneration
• Homestead, Farm, and Ranch Planning

📧 Connect with Christine on Instagram

📅 Schedule a Call with Christine: Get personalized guidance for your land. 

Let's make regenerative ranching and farming more intentional, profitable, and fulfilling. I’d love to hear your biggest takeaway from this episode—DM me on Instagram or schedule a call to chat about it!

Connect with Christine Martin:
Website: https://thrivinglandsteward.com
Email: [email protected]
Substack: https://thrivinglandsteward.substack.com/

What can ranchers in the United States learn from regenerative agriculture in Uruguay?

In this episode, I sit down with Lucia Bauer, a regenerative agriculture consultant and agronomist from Uruguay, to explore how adaptive grazing, healthy soil, and holistic decision-making are helping ranchers build more resilient and profitable operations.

Lucia shares her journey from conventional agronomy to regenerative agriculture, how Nicole Masters' CREATE program transformed the way she works with producers, and why she believes nature is our greatest business partner.

Together, we discuss:

• How regenerative grazing restores native grasslands and increases carrying capacity.
• Why soil health is the foundation of profitable livestock operations.
• The role of mineral nutrition, soil biology, and ecosystem function in raising healthier cattle.
• Practical strategies for managing drought, flooding, and climate variability.
• Why regenerative agriculture is about transforming the manager—not just the land.
• The growing movement of women leading regenerative agriculture in Latin America.

Whether you're a rancher, farmer, homesteader, land steward, or simply curious about regenerative agriculture, this conversation offers practical insights and inspiring stories that demonstrate how healthy soils, resilient ecosystems, and profitable businesses all begin with better management.

NOTE: 1200 mm is equal to about 47 inches of rainfall.

Guest: Lucia Bauer, Agroecological Consultant in Uruguay
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grou_agro

Topics: Regenerative Agriculture • Regenerative Grazing • Soil Health • Holistic Management • Adaptive Grazing • Livestock • Native Grasslands • Uruguay • Ranch Management • CREATE Program

📢 If this episode gave you something to think about, share it with a fellow rancher, farmer, homesteader or land steward who could use this insight! Take a screenshot, post it to your IG stories, and tag me @ThrivingLandSteward so I can reshare.

🎧 Subscribe & Review: Love the podcast? Leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it helps me bring you more content to support your land stewardship journey!

🌿 Grab my free guide: 5 Essential Actions for Thriving Land Stewardship
📚 Explore Self-Study Courses: Learn at your own pace!

• Reading Your Land for Profit, Resilience, and Regeneration
• Homestead, Farm, and Ranch Planning

📧 Connect with Christine on Instagram

📅 Schedule a Call with Christine: Get personalized guidance for your land. 

Let's make regenerative ranching and farming more intentional, profitable, and fulfilling. I’d love to hear your biggest takeaway from this episode—DM me on Instagram or schedule a call to chat about it!

Connect with Christine Martin:
Website: https://thrivinglandsteward.com
Email: [email protected]
Substack: https://thrivinglandsteward.substack.com/

Before Jojo ever put regenerative grazing into practice on her ranch…

She tested it in her backyard.

Because she’s a self-proclaimed nerd, she didn’t just take someone else’s word for it. She researched, questioned, and when it came time to convince her husband that this “hippy dippy” idea might actually work…

She brought in sheep.

On a small piece of land in the city, using polywire, they ran a simple experiment.

And the results were undeniable.

That moment became the turning point—not just in how they would manage their land, but in how Jojo began to think as a land steward.

In this conversation, Jojo shares her journey from buying what was meant to be a weekend property… to managing hundreds of acres through a regenerative lens.

A journey shaped not by a perfect plan—but by curiosity, experimentation, and a willingness to adapt.

We talk about what that actually looks like in real life:

•  Transitioning from set-stocking to high-density grazing 
•  Using livestock as a tool to shift plant communities 
•  Why flexibility matters more than following a “right way” 
•  How tools like virtual fencing are changing what’s possible 
•  And the biggest challenge most people don’t talk about… patience 

Because there’s something Jojo makes very clear:

There is no step-by-step formula for regeneration.

No two pieces of land are the same. No two seasons are the same. And no decision comes with guaranteed outcomes.

What matters is your willingness to observe, adjust, and keep learning.

👉 To treat your land like a living system… not a fixed plan.

If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, “Why isn’t this working yet?”—this conversation will likely feel familiar.

You’re not doing it wrong.

You’re learning how to work with complexity.

And that’s where real regeneration begins.

📢 If this episode gave you something to think about, share it with a fellow rancher, farmer, homesteader or land steward who could use this insight! Take a screenshot, post it to your IG stories, and tag me @ThrivingLandSteward so I can reshare.

🎧 Subscribe & Review: Love the podcast? Leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it helps me bring you more content to support your land stewardship journey!

🌿 Grab my free guide: 5 Essential Actions for Thriving Land Stewardship
📚 Explore Self-Study Courses: Learn at your own pace!

• Reading Your Land for Profit, Resilience, and Regeneration
• Homestead, Farm, and Ranch Planning

📧 Connect with Christine on Instagram

📅 Schedule a Call with Christine: Get personalized guidance for your land. 

Let's make regenerative ranching and farming more intentional, profitable, and fulfilling. I’d love to hear your biggest takeaway from this episode—DM me on Instagram or schedule a call to chat about it!

Connect with Christine Martin:
Website: https://thrivinglandsteward.com
Email: [email protected]

In this episode, I sit down with Rachel Ward—actress, screenwriter, and director of Rachel’s Farm, a documentary that follows her transition from conventional to regenerative agriculture.

What unfolds in this conversation is not a polished story—but a real-time journey of learning, questioning, and stepping into land stewardship without a clear roadmap.

Rachel shares how a series of events—from devastating bushfires to becoming a grandmother—woke her up to the urgency of doing things differently. From there, she found herself navigating cattle, grazing, and land management decisions as they came—learning by doing, and often figuring things out in the moment.

We talk about what it actually looks like to:

•  Learn regenerative agriculture and Holistic Management International principles as you go 
•  Make grazing decisions when cattle don’t want to move (and what that reveals) 
•  Work with grass, seasons, and animal behavior instead of trying to control outcomes 
•  Navigate the shift from conventional thinking to relationship-based stewardship 
•  Build community in a space that can feel isolating 
•  And rethink how we connect regenerative producers directly to consumers 

We also get into practical tools and perspectives around animal health and nutrition, including insights from:

• Dr. Will Winter → https://www.willwinter.com/
• Steve Campbell → https://www.tailormadecattle.com/
• Redmond Agriculture → https://redmondagriculture.com/

And if you haven’t watched her documentary yet, you can find it here:

• Rachel’s Farm → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x597VmhNZdE
  
  

This is an honest, grounded conversation between two women actively stewarding land—making decisions in complexity, learning through experience, and staying in relationship with the land, livestock, and the process.

⭐ What You’ll Hear:

•  Rachel’s climate wake-up moment and transition into regenerative agriculture 
•  How Holistic Management shaped her thinking 
•  Real-world grazing challenges and decision-making 
•  The importance of community in regenerative systems 
•  Direct-to-consumer marketing and rebuilding food systems 
•  Practical approaches to supporting livestock health naturally 

This conversation is a reminder:

You don’t need to have it all figured out to be a good steward.
 You just need to stay in relationship—with the land, the animals, and the process.

📢 If this episode gave you something to think about, share it with a fellow rancher, farmer, homesteader or land steward who could use this insight! Take a screenshot, post it to your IG stories, and tag me @ThrivingLandSteward so I can reshare.

🎧 Subscribe & Review: Love the podcast? Leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it helps me bring you more content to support your land stewardship journey!

🌿 Grab my free guide: 5 Essential Actions for Thriving Land Stewardship
📚 Explore Self-Study Courses: Learn at your own pace!

• Reading Your Land for Profit, Resilience, and Regeneration
• Homestead, Farm, and Ranch Planning

📧 Connect with Christine on Instagram<

In this episode, Christine sits down with Donna Kilpatrick, Director of Regeneration at Heifer USA (Heifer International), to explore what regeneration looks like when we stop treating people as “recipients” — and start collaborating with communities as partners.

Donna shares how Heifer’s mission has evolved from livestock donations into a whole-systems approach to ending hunger and poverty while caring for the earth, including farmer training at Heifer Ranch’s 1,200-acre living laboratory in Perryville, Arkansas. 

Together, Christine and Donna go deep into:

• Why context matters more than “best practices”
• How Holistic Management® and decision testing change what we choose — and why
• What Heifer has seen globally (including Honduras) when holistic planned grazing replaces “either sell animals or clear more land”
• Why birds can be a meaningful proxy for ecosystem health
• The human side of regeneration: nervous system, isolation, community support, and women reclaiming agency in agriculture

If you’ve ever felt like you’re trying to regenerate land while carrying the invisible weight of everything else… this conversation will land.

Heifer USA YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HeiferUSA

Leading the Regenerative Revolution masterclass is a 3-day live masterclass for women ranchers, farmers, and homesteaders in regenerative agriculture to recognize their essential role, reclaim their authority, and honor the feminine traits already shaping their stewardship on Feb 16-18, 2026 at 12:00 CST

For more details and to register https://thrivinglandsteward.com/leading-regen-revolution

Connect with Christine Martin:
Website: https://thrivinglandsteward.com
Email: [email protected]

Most land stewards aren’t just managing land — they’re leading entire operations. They’re the CEO, CFO, COO, marketer, and labor force, all while navigating weather, livestock, markets, family life, and constant decision-making.

In this episode, Christine Martin sits down with Randy Lyman, author of The Third Element, to explore a side of leadership that’s rarely discussed: emotional capacity and emotional maturity.

Together, they unpack how unprocessed emotions show up as stress, reactivity, control, and burnout — and how a leader’s internal state directly affects people, animals, finances, and outcomes. Randy shares his personal journey from logic-driven, high-performing leadership to a more integrated approach that includes emotional awareness, healing, intuition, and trust.

This conversation is especially relevant for land stewards who feel exhausted by the weight of leadership, stuck in reaction mode, or frustrated that “doing everything right” still isn’t bringing stability. It’s an honest, practical discussion about leadership that starts within — and why your emotions truly touch everything.

In this episode, you’ll explore:

• Why emotional maturity is a hidden bottleneck in leadership
• How stress and suppressed emotions ripple through teams, livestock, and operations
• The difference between control and self-leadership
• How emotional healing improves clarity, decision-making, and long-term thinking
• Why intuition is a critical leadership skill — and how to begin trusting it
• What it really means to take responsibility without self-blame or guilt

This episode is an invitation to lead with greater awareness, steadiness, and purpose — not by doing more, but by integrating the human side of leadership.

You can learn more or connect with Randy Lyman here:

Website: https://iamrandylyman.com

Instagram: @iamrandylyman.com

Randy Lyman books: 

• The Third Element- The Missing Link to Activating The Law of Attraction: https://amzn.to/4sFahDp
• The Emotional Healing Workbook: https://amzn.to/4sFahDp

📢 If this episode gave you something to think about, share it with a fellow rancher, farmer, homesteader or land steward who could use this insight! Take a screenshot, post it to your IG stories, and tag me @ThrivingLandSteward so I can reshare.

🎧 Subscribe & Review: Love the podcast? Leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it helps me bring you more content to support your land stewardship journey!

🌿 Grab my free guide: 5 Essential Actions for Thriving Land Stewardship
🌱 Take the Ecosystem Quiz: Find out how well you can read your land
📚 Explore Self-Study Courses: Learn at your own pace!

• Reading Your Land for Profit, Resilience, and Regeneration
• Homestead, Farm, and Ranch Planning

📧 Connect with Christine on Instagram
📅 Schedule a Call with Christine: Get personalized guidance for your land. 

Let's make regenerative ranching and farming more intentional, profitable, and fulfilling. I’d love to hear your biggest takeaway from this episode—DM me on Instagram or schedule a call to chat about it!

Connect with Christine Martin:
Website: https://thrivinglandsteward.com
Email: [email protected]

In today’s episode, I’m joined by Kacee Bohle — farm girl turned leadership coach, founder of Agri Minds, homeschooling mom, and a powerful voice for the human side of agriculture.

Kacee shares candidly about her journey from corporate ag to entrepreneurship, and the pivotal moments — including deep personal loss — that made her rethink what a meaningful, healthy, sustainable life in agriculture truly looks like.

We dive into:
⭐ The Three B’s: Burnout, Boundaries & Balance
⭐ Why mindset is often the real bottleneck in farm and ranch life
⭐ The pressure so many land stewards feel to “push through” at the expense of themselves
⭐ How burnout affects marriages, families, and the next generation
⭐ What it looks like to shift old patterns and actually create a life that fits your season
⭐ The difference between a request and a boundary (and why most of us confuse the two!)
⭐ How to navigate generational dynamics, communication challenges, and the need for change
⭐ Why self-awareness is one of the most underrated — and essential — tools in agriculture

Kacee brings humility, humor, and hard-won wisdom to this conversation. Whether you’re a farmer, rancher, homesteader, or supporting the ag industry in any way, you’ll walk away with a deeper understanding of how vital your inner landscape is to the health of your land, your relationships, and your future.

This episode is a reminder that regeneration begins within — and that honoring your own boundaries, needs, and emotional rhythms is just as important as caring for the soil beneath your feet.

Kacee is hosting AgriMinds Summit in Ohio, March 24-25, 2026. For more detail: Summit - Kacee Bohle Coaching

You can learn more or connect with Kacee here:
Instagram: @agcoachkacee
LinkedIn: Kacee Bohle
Website: kaceebohle.com

📢 If this episode gave you something to think about, share it with a fellow rancher, farmer, homesteader or land steward who could use this insight! Take a screenshot, post it to your IG stories, and tag me @ThrivingLandSteward so I can reshare.

🎧 Subscribe & Review: Love the podcast? Leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it helps me bring you more content to support your land stewardship journey!

🌿 Grab my free guide: 5 Essential Actions for Thriving Land Stewardship
🌱 Take the Ecosystem Quiz: Find out how well you can read your land
📚 Explore Self-Study Courses: Learn at your own pace!

• Reading Your Land for Profit, Resilience, and Regeneration
• Homestead, Farm, and Ranch Planning

📧 Connect with Christine on Instagram
📅 Schedule a Call with Christine: Get personalized guidance for your land. 

Let's make regenerative ranching and farming more intentional, profitable, and fulfilling. I’d love to hear your biggest takeaway from this episode—DM me on Instagram or schedule a call to chat about it!

Connect with Christine Martin:
Website: https://thrivinglandsteward.com
Email: [email protected]

We make countless decisions every day on our land, in our business, and in our lives—but most of us were never taught how to make them effectively. In this episode, I share the decision-making framework that completely changed how I approach every choice: the Holistic Management Decision Testing Questions.

I'll walk you through my own journey from making reactive, problem-focused decisions to using a framework that considers the whole picture. You'll hear how I went from spending money on symptoms (like spraying weeds annually) to addressing root causes with one-time investments that actually moved my operation forward.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why traditional decision-making fails in complex land management systems
• The costly mistakes that happen when we only focus on the part, not the whole
• How poor decisions lead to second-guessing, analysis paralysis, and burnout
• The framework I've used for years to make confident decisions that align with my values and goals
• Why monitoring your decisions is just as important as making them

If you've ever felt overwhelmed by choices, uncertain about how to move forward, or frustrated that your decisions aren't getting the results you want, this episode will give you a new way to think about every decision you make.

Ready to stop second-guessing yourself? Join me for The Decision Lab workshop on November 19th at 12:00 CST, where we'll work through the seven Decision Testing Questions together in an interactive, hands-on format. 

Connect with Christine:

• Instagram: @ThrivingLandStewards (DM "DECISION" for program details)
• Email: [email protected]

The Decision Lab program is on November 18th, 2025 at 12:00 CST Virtually.

Your land, your finances, and your peace of mind will thank you.

In this raw and honest episode, Christine shares why she's changing how she records - because the "polished" version wasn't the real her. You're getting the authentic Christine from now on.

She opens up about her scattered homesteading phase: the 15 versions of chicken tractors, learning to harness a draft horse with a picture book, and the annual W2 review wondering "where did all my money go?" Sound familiar?

After working with hundreds of land stewards, Christine has identified the #1 problem: we get so excited about being on the land that we just start with everything. We buy the chickens, the cows, the sheep - all sorts of projects going on at the same time. We go to conferences, come back with lists of cool things to do, and either try none of them or try to do them all.

The result? Scattered decisions, wasted money, burnout, and land that becomes a burden instead of the sanctuary we dreamed of.

Christine vulnerably shares how discovering the Holistic Goal framework changed everything - including the difficult realization that led to her divorce when she and her husband discovered they wanted completely different futures.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why most land stewards feel scattered and overwhelmed despite their passion
• The consequences of working without understanding what you want and where you're going
• How the Holistic Goal transforms decision-making from second-guessing to confident filtering
• Why your operation should be uniquely yours, reflecting your own gifts and preferences
• How to get your whole management team aligned toward a common destination

Ready to stop being scattered? Christine introduces her Find Your Compass program - 10 days to define your Holistic Goal so every decision moves you toward the life you actually want on your land.

Connect with Christine:

• Instagram: @ThrivingLandStewards (Comment "COMPASS" for program details)
• Email: [email protected]

The Find Your Compass program starts November 3rd. Your compass is calling - are you ready to follow it?