Lily Andersen stands at the cattle stocks on sorting day. These days start early with cow–calf sorting followed by loading calves into trailers, weighing the load, and shipping. It’s payday for Montana cattle ranchers like the Andersens.
Lily Andersen of Montana’s Paradise Valley knows how to hustle. Beginning while living in the green hills of Vermont where she grew up and continuing today in the mountains north of Yellowstone National Park, this mother of two puts her nose to the grindstone daily to keep her five-generation beef, pork, and dairy ranch afloat. She’s innovated by using Instagram as a platform for selling products through Milkmaid Meats directly to consumers and also co-owns a local ranch supply store—two ways she has diversified her dairy (which supplies milk to Meadow Gold) to avoid the financial collapse that threatens the ranch with each election cycle, as the pendulum of food-system politics swings back and forth.
Like many producers, Andersen’s backbreaking work doesn’t satisfy the social media world’s hunger for picture-perfect lives and stage-ready performances. The day-to-day isn’t perfect, isn’t quite so glorious, but it is real and authentic.
