Taylor Black, longtime farm employee of True Grass Farm, has taken over the business from Guido Frosini and renamed it Web Of Wonders Grasslands (WOW), in celebration of the web of wondrous biodiversity that connects us to our food, the environment, and each other. They debuted the new name at our Downtown Berkeley Farmers’ Market on March 28, 2026, with regenerative meats and eggs from the Point Reyes area of Marin County.
We talked to Taylor about her experience grazing cattle on a smaller scale that allows a more conscientious approach, which led us down many paths, all wonderful and enlightening.
Ecology Center: For those of us who spend much of our work day in an office or store or some other urban setting, what’s your work day like?
Taylor Black: Every day starts and ends in Tomales with my laying hens, feeding, egg collecting, and moving their coop to fresh pasture.
This year I have just 24 cattle currently finishing outside of Petaluma that will provide meat for outlets like The Ecology Center’s Downtown Berkeley Farmers’ Market, The Local Butcher Shop in Berkeley, a handful of farm stands, and loyal beef share supporters who have been purchasing from True Grass for years.
Beyond these, I manage the mother herd of 23 cows and their calves in Bodega Bay, 25 yearlings in Sonoma, and two bulls, all serving important roles in the regeneration of the land. Most days I am at each site moving the cattle to new grass and building future paddocks with portable electric fence.
Right now, the mothers are calving, so health checks are a priority. I connect with land owners about grazing goals, and butchers and guests to discuss the plans for the finished product. Record keeping! Data of where we’ve grazed on all parcels and duration gets shared with partner biologists who monitor the land bases for ecological research in relation to the land management.
Being such a small outfit allows for some extra care, intentionality, and capacity to honor each life with our guests and acknowledge how it sustains us. It’s just me and the bovines. No horses or herding dogs like you might see with other operations. I use my body to direct where the animals move with the intention of herding as calmly as possible.
So much of it is mindset/psychological rather than force/stress. I establish trust and often use a cattle call that they respond to positively and follow me to the next grazing site. They’re incredibly intelligent and emotional creatures that pick up on energy cues quickly, it’s important to try to be in a good head space.
There are five varying sites up one road, some miles from each other in Bodega Bay. It doesn’t make sense energetically or economically to haul them from place to place there, so I walk them up roads or through adjacent properties wherever possible. Most of the people on the road love to see it: they get out of their cars and take videos, neighbors come to watch.
The image of you walking across the land with some of the mother herd in Bodega is otherworldly, and such a far cry from the big, dirt lots that I see on large cattle ranches. Do you consider yourself a rancher or a farmer or something else?
Taylor: Perhaps a little of both? I’m farming grass at the end of the day. It’s the forage we’re relying on to provide a food source for the animals, all flesh is grass. A resilient grassland ecosystem invites collaboration to build soil to support life above and below it. The cows do most of the work, but I provide guidance.
Stewarding heart beats is a delicate balance between life and death. Low-stress stockmanship guides my holistic framework in the sense of making space for their lives to be wonderful in this world while serving purposes for sustenance, ecological amplification, and building community through food.
There’s a lot to observe and stay curious about. Right now, it’s paying attention to how much is going to seed in the fields quickly due to this heat we are experiencing so early on in March and adjusting grazing plans. I feel like climate change lends us little control, and I am learning that it’s the rains that are often in charge.
I feel I best identify as a grazier/gardener, excited to be able to garden those hard to reach broad-acre hills, with hooves. I’m always up for a new adventure the cattle bring me to. The views are always totally worth it.
Again, I see poetry and purpose in your work. You are taking over the operations from Guido Frosini, who seemed to be part rancher, part philosopher. Does his philosophy on sustainable food production resonate with yours?
Taylor: Guido’s philosophies can be infectious, and I resonate a lot with challenging the bureaucracy that places boundaries on sustainable food production and feeding people. For the most part, the general agenda will be the same this year. I’m still raising and grazing the same beef and eggs on the same lands with the same sentiment and ethos of ecologically resilient food sheds.
True Grass Farms still exists but is now focusing on agritourism and events at the ranch in Tomales. I took over the livestock grazing and meat business as my own this past winter. I am still producing the beef for True Grass Farms’ label sold at the ranch, and now also for my own label, WOW Grasslands. I have learned so much working with Guido these past years; I plan to continue incorporating many of the same restoration practices into my operation.
This year I have received a grant to trial virtual fencing with the yearling herd on hilly terrain that has been previously challenging to subdivide for grazing goals and efficiency.
I firmly believe in the healing power of good food, and I could go on about flavors forever, but I am pretty excited to share nutrient density analysis of the beef this season. So many of our guests report that the meat is not only some of the best tasting, but simply makes them feel good. I will be sending in samples of the beef to a food laboratory called Edacious and reporting back what magic we find.
Though it sounds personally rewarding, this work also sounds very demanding. Could you tell us a bit more about how you came to work this land? What inspired or influenced you to get into farming?
Taylor: My path to agriculture began with a love of food and cooking. Flavors were always important early on. I grew up in a farm-to-table Italian restaurant in Sacramento, called Biba. My dad managed and bartended there for 30 years. My first job as a kid was dishwashing there. Staff stayed decades and became like family. My grade school classes visited for field trips, chef/owner Biba taught everyone how to make gnocchi. Biba was an institution in the local food scene and my first memory of how food fosters a sense of place and community. The lasagna was pure joy.
I moved to San Francisco in 2006 for college, but continuing work in food and hospitality for years. Intrigued by the vegetables grown under fog, I volunteered at urban farms, teaching gardens, and cooking classes focused on food access. Gardening got me in touch with how plants adapt to the conditions they’re grown in. Nurturing diversity in the field often presents the most delicious gifts.
I learned about WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) and worked on farms abroad for some years in New Zealand, Australia, South East Asia. I backpacked around solo finding agriculture adventures. Some farms I harvested strawberries all day, every day, others milking goats, pruning lavender fields, cleaning fish farm tanks, always weeding. An internship I had with pigs, sheep, and goats near San Luis Obispo inspired an introduction to the humility in eating what you love.
Getting more serious about farming as a career, my first paid farm job was for San Francisco’s Bi-Rite Market’s farm in Sonoma. The focus was sustainably growing produce varieties not offered by other local farms they sourced from directly. I moved to working on farms exclusive to restaurants wanting to showcase their own sense of place through taste in West Marin, Sonoma, and Napa.
Livestock felt like a natural next chapter in this food saga. I met Guido during a Rangeland Ecology class field trip to his ranch, and I’ve been with True Grass since 2022. I had more control farming vegetables. Cows have taught me sometimes it’s alright to lose control and get lost. Especially if grass is sweeter there.
You seem to have really thrived in this farming community. As a young, queer woman did your identity present unique challenges?
Taylor: Visible representation of diversity in agricultural and food production spaces is big, evolving, and important in the face of the political dumpster fire we exist within.
There have been places I’ve worked that didn’t embrace the same viewpoints. There is a 77 year-old retired dairy man who still jumps at any opportunity to help work cows with me because he still just loves it. We can’t talk about politics or gender/sexual identity but he’s always there when I could really use a hand. Just like with the livestock, it’s about mind-set and finding common ground.
At large, vast areas of grazable lands that need ecological focus are sold to those with the money and intention to develop rather than restore. Many sit vacant for years becoming prone to fire and invasive species encroachment. Contracts that once granted land access to young farmers are being cancelled. DEI initiatives completely erased. Corporations are actively working to privatize agriculture as a whole or mechanize everything about production.
For myself, I think it’s important for norms to be challenged and space made for dismantling assumptions of systems being so rigid or only “one way” to achieve any goal. Our society tends to interpret the natural world through the lens of cultural norms, and their inherent bias. Ecology in itself highlights many, many queer behaviors in nature, sexual fluidity of plants and animals for example. Diversity and non-normative relationships are common, natural, and complex. The environment is amazingly chaotic, dynamic, and intimate. I think that reimagining the queerness of it allows for more honest and inclusive interaction and connection with it.
I think it’s best to keep an open mind, and eat your heart out.
