Grandpa Earl moved to our ranch in the fall of 1937.  He had 20 milk cows, two strong sons and a daughter. The family weathered the depression by selling milk in Spokane.  His son Gene, having grown up milking all those cows by hand, happily converted from milk cows to beef in 1950, the year before his son Maurice was born. We have been raising beef since then. 

Maurice as a baby with the previous 3 generations of Robinettes: Great-grandpa Tom, Grandpa Earl, and Maurice's dad Gene.

In 1996, we adopted the principles of Holistic Management, which is both a framework for truly sustainable (triple bottom line) decision making and a method of pasture management that allows us to mimic the natural symbiotic relationship between grazing animals and grasslands.  In that time, we have seen a dramatic shift both in the health of the land, and in the health of our business. We now direct market 100% of our beef. Every animal born here on the ranch ends up on the table of someone in our community. Today, Maurice and his oldest daughter, Beth, operate the ranch together. None of this would have been possible without the support of the many strong women who have helped work the ranch, including Earl’s wife Louella, a professional chef; Gene’s wife, Lorene, a school teacher; and Maurice’s wife, Ellen, a force of nature.

Meet the members of our family here!

We now work to educate other producers on sustainable livestock production through our nonprofit, Roots of Resilience. Beth and Maurice are both very active in the local food movement. Maurice has served to strengthen the local food system in many capacities, most notably in his tireless work on GMO labeling and control through his work at the Washington Sustainable Food and Farming Network. He also served for many years on the Board of Directors of Tilth, an organization dedicated to providing education and resources to small scale sustainable agriculture producers across Washington State. Beth is co-founder of LINC Foods, a worker and farmer owned cooperative food hub, which helps school districts, universities, and other institutions in the Spokane area gain access to healthy, sustainable, local food. Beth is a proud graduate of Fairhaven College at Western Washington University and Bainbridge Graduate Institute (now Presidio Graduate School.)