Two Calves Escape, Show No Sign of Regret

By Matt Dolkas, Senior Manager, Marketing

May 9, 2025

For the last few years, I’ve been rotating goats around our family’s ranch in Novato to help manage our vegetation for wildfire. It’s been an adventure to say the least and my daily wrestlings with these knuckleheaded fire fighters has taught me more than I had ever imagined about this landscape and the value of good grazing. 

Over the past few years, I’ve seen the impact grazing animals can have on the land. As a result of the goats, nasty invasive plants are beginning to be outcompeted by lush carpets of green grass and vibrant native wildflowers. There’s a new layer of soil being built with each pass of our herd, increasing the land’s ability to absorb and retain water and strengthening its resilience to a wildfire. 

But sometimes I feel like a little kid polishing his bicycle. With each improvement to the land, I’m left hungry for more — wanting to see just how shiny and healthy I can really make it. So, last spring I decided to borrow two 400 lb calves from my friend Katie Gallagher, owner of the Northbend Cattle Company at the MALT-protected Gallagher Ranch, to increase my impact with these land-healing ruminants. 

It all seemed like a good idea at the time. 

I had spent a few months preparing for their arrival. But what I didn’t anticipate was the proficiency of my ineptitude. While my goats had been relatively content with staying in the footprint of their portable electric fencing, these calves had other ideas. On just day three, they discovered a low spot in their fenceline and, before I knew what was happening, they broke free and were headed towards downtown Novato. 

I stood frozen for what seemed like an eternity, my mouth gaping, watching 800 pounds of liability trotting towards civilization. When my brain finally kicked into gear, I remembered Katie had left me with a bag of grain so I sprinted to grab a bucketful and catch up with them. Running behind them I squeaked some sort of desperate plea noise for their return— the kind of sound only panic can produce. 

It’s a long story, but after four hours, three neighbors, a good rope and a whole lot of luck, I finally pinned the calves in an old horse paddock at my neighbor’s place. I was totally exhausted, less from the physical pursuit but more from the mental treadmill of scenario planning and visions of myself chasing cows through Novato’s suburban streets or on the front page of the Marin Independent Journal. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon questioning my life choices and vowing to my wife not to try that again. But of course, here I am exactly a year later, daydreaming about cattle and the possibilities of regenerative ranching, the magic of multi-species grazing, the improvements I could make to my terrible fencing, and the value it would add to mix in another ruminant this spring…if I just had a few calves.

I’m learning that in nature and in good ranching, timing is everything. This time of year, with the soils still saturated from the winter rains and the warming spring temperatures, it’s game time for grass growth. Billions of dormant soil microorganisms are awakening, releasing nutrients into the earth that fuel the year’s most explosive growth of young grasses, flowers, and forbs. There’s a wave of spring energy and I find myself again wanting to surf it. 

Cattle are the grass specialist of the ruminant world, the heavy machinery. By timing their grazing patterns we can stimulate grass growth, capture carbon from the atmosphere, build the land’s ability to store water, fight invasive species, increase biological diversity and make protein dense food for our communities. And this is all from animals doing what they have evolved to do—eat, move, and drop dung. 

Each day the grass is rising and the questions in my head are getting louder. Maybe my days of cattle wrangling aren’t quite over, maybe this spring I can get it together, maybe I can really fix the fence. And maybe the occasional escape is just part of the experience, right? 

Just don’t tell my neighbors I said that.