It's been a year or so, since I've published a piece here.

And honestly, I wasn't sure if this Regenerative Roadtrip had ended for me.

I'd spent years moving, working on farms (including a movie set), visiting regenerative grower in the desert, thinking deeply about my own family's land, meeting Indigenous land stewards, and learning about the financial levers that actually create systems change.

Over the years I’ve met hundreds of leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and farmers and ranchers — including many of you reading this — all with regeneration leading their work.

It’s been an adventure, one that I’m slowly beginning to digest the significance of.

Last year my wife and I committed to making Montana home.

After years of transient stays and always being on the road, we got married, started building community, and planting roots here in Livingston, Montana.

In many ways, it felt like the Regenerative Roadtrip we had been on for years just ended.

In the last 10 years, I’ve visited 20 countries. Unintentionally, and often serendipitously, I always found myself on farms and embracing the food culture wherever I was.

My curiosity had always led me to the next insight, thread, and story — all of which kept bringing me back to the land, how food is grown, who is growing it, and how we enjoy it.

Those experiences transformed me.

But last year was very different.

There was less movement, deeper reflection, and more personal growth.

I took the last 12 months to commit to place, and be 100% intentional about it.

As I did that, a new set of questions began to emerge.

Livingston, Montana sits at the edge of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the last intact ecosystems on the planet.

The Yellowstone River borders the town, with the mountain peaks of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness towering above.

In the last year alone, there have been sightings of a moose, a grizzly bear, and a pair of young mountain lions making their way through town.

There is a sense of wildness here I have yet to find elsewhere, and its all nested in the seasonality of this town bordering the Great Plains to the east, and the Rocky Mountains to the west.

Every season is distinct.

Spring is arriving now, with wildflowers, lush grasses and the emergence of hibernating wildlife. This time of year feels like a full-body stretch after a long winter's sleep.

Summer fills the days with long light and the steady stream of people heading toward Yellowstone, eager to find the wildlife and grandeur waiting around every corner.

Fall brings the elk migration in October, the cottonwoods and aspen turning gold along the river, the first cold nights and the wood stove roaring in the corner.

Winter is long. The days end abruptly, and the nights are the darkest, but the stars are at their peak brightness, and the Northern Lights dance among them. The landscape goes quiet and all life slows to match it.

This rhythmic seasonal living is something I now crave.

The constant movement of my 20s was full of inspiration, but the commitment to a geographical place has shifted something fundamental in me.

I didn't expect it, but it truly has.

In 2025, I worked with Paradise Landscape and Stone, planting close to 500 trees, thousands of perennials, around a hundred acres of native grasses and wildflowers across the surrounding area, and installing natural stone patios, walkways, and walls.

We also rebuilt the Livingston community garden from the ground up, removed the old beds, regraded the soil, installed drip irrigation, and built twelve ADA-accessible raised beds on crushed granite so that anyone, including those in wheelchairs, can grow food and flowers and participate in the community.

That community garden neighbors the Farm to School of Park County garden, teeming with food, herbs, and the next generation of kids reconnecting with food.

And this year, we even got ourselves a plot at the community garden to grow some herbs, flowers, and vegetables – and of course meet more of the community.

One of the highlights of the year: a freezer full of regenerative, bird-friendly beef from Meagan and Pete at Barney Creek Livestock, raised 15 minutes from our home.

And through my work at Paradise Landscape & Stone, we actually planted 10 trees on one of the properties that they rotational graze close to Livingston.

Meagan was a key piece why we ended up in Livingston, and years ago when I first met her, I couldn’t have guessed we’d ever live this close together.

This is what buying direct looks like in practice. You know the ranchers. You know the land. The food and the meals mean something different when you do.

This past summer I attended the Old Salt Festival in Helmville, Montana on Cole Mannix’s family’s ranch.

And we are attending again in a few weeks — I invite you to come this year or next.

If you are attending, let me know!

There is no cell service. No digital distractions. No nonsense.

Just people, land, conversations, good food, music, and the kind of vastness that only Montana offers that quietly recalibrates everything.

Last year, we reconnected with old friends from Apricot Lane Farms, met some of the most thoughtful leaders in food and farming, and spent a few days completely present — in person, on the land, with people who are asking the same questions.

There's a phrase that kept coming back to me throughout that weekend.

Land is Kin — It’s Old Salt’s core philosophy.

Not land as property, or resource, or something to control.

Land as kin, as a living relative — something you belong to as much as it belongs to you.

Something with memory, and with a relationship that runs in both directions.

Something that nurtures us, and asks us to care for it.

That’s what commitment to place looks like.

And I find myself reflecting on this question often.

What does it truly mean to commit to place, so much so the land becomes kin?

If you've been following along for a while, thank you for still being here.

If you're new — I'm glad you found this.

This is what the Regenerative Roadtrip has always been working toward.

Not the farms or the statistics or the food system diagnosis.

But on building, or rediscovering, a new food philosophy and way of seeing the world.

I invite to connect with me on LinkedIn and follow on Instagram.

The table is where the Regenerative Roadtrip ends up.

See you next week.

— Mitch Hinrichs

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