Last August I made the seventeen-hour drive from Los Angeles to an area just south of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Destination: the 87,000-acre Chico Basin Ranch. At the end of a bumpy dirt lane I found the three-bedroom house I would share with some of the people who worked on this ranch (and some mice). I took a small room at the front of the house where I could happily roll out my sleeping bag on a red metal bunk bed.
It was a pretty giant leap to leave behind my cozy life in LA, a city I had come to love. But, I am a photographer who has done a whole lot of everything but take photos. I spent the last few years in volunteer positions purposefully exposing myself to unfamiliar territory in hopes of finding not only where my talents lie, but also what makes me feel the most fulfilled.
I was an intern at a nearby horse stable when I heard of an opening for a photographer at a working cattle ranch in Colorado, Chico Basin Ranch. Thanks to the year I just spent learning the basics of horsemanship, riding, and how to take orders from girls—who as one teenager put it, I was old enough to mother—taking a job on a working ranch seemed to be just the interruption my comfortable Los Angeles–life needed.
Holistic land management, in practice at Chico Basin, is a system where cattle participate in keeping the land healthy. The ratio of cattle to pasture size, based on grass assessments, helps determine how long the cattle can stay on an expanse of land as a vehicle to regenerate vegetation (the way it would naturally when herds were allowed to roam) before their presence becomes a detriment. On a grander scale the system also relies on the premise that, if managed correctly, the cattle can help reduce the carbon in our environment ultimately having a positive affect on curbing climate change.
When I arrived at Chico Basin, I met my boss in person for the first time. It was also the first time I received driving directions with descriptions like “head for the tree by itself” or “pass over two cattle guards and count three telephone poles and you’ll be there” to get me where I needed to go. It wouldn’t be the last.
The houses where the ranch apprentices, manager, and interns lived were spread over a seven-mile area. They were far enough apart to make me uncomfortable on nights I spent alone and the distance inconvenient enough that I didn’t want to forget something I promised to contribute to a group dinner. I became aware of how living free of people-noise can physically change you. This wasn’t one of the many car camping trips, beach days, or hikes I took when I was a kid.
Days were filled with work and sometimes a lot of driving, but at a pace and with an intent that never mirrored my work or life at home. I loved shooting six days a week, the pressure of editing and turning in images on a weekly deadline, but time moved differently on the ranch.
Everything was a little brighter and a little louder. After a few weeks, I could see the difference between a cholla cactus and sagebrush as well as a wayward heifer and her calf. On the ranch it became clear, you can’t rush in anything you do or it will work against you. A new challenge arises and something else breaks. So, I learned to slow down, hear the gravel under my feet and the birds I never noticed before, look for the one hawk that lives on a dead cottonwood tree and takes flight at the sound of the truck’s shifting gears every morning as I pass. If I were persistent, and a little bit lucky, eventually the task at hand would be done.
There were days I would put my camera aside and just do the work with the interns and apprentices. Amy could troubleshoot a tractor repair and use a special call to bring her herd into a new pasture. A couple months into my stay, she taught me to ride a dirt bike. The training was brief and after two rides around the headquarters building we immediately went looking for stray cattle.
Soon after, I rode again with Kerstin, animal-loving vegetarian and devoted cowgirl from Germany who had volunteered her time on the ranch for over a year. She took me with her over ditches, through dry creeks, and between cactus to help run in the horses. The whole herd headed toward headquarters at the sound of our bikes coming, but the sight of them running through the corral gates kicking up dust and moving together as a unit heightened the drama of our task.
When we weren’t riding dirt bikes or horses, we drove trucks that had frequent breakdowns. It was normal to get stuck in the sand or have a door that didn’t open from the inside. The ranch truck I usually drove was called “The Sawed-off,” a 4x4 with roll bars but no seat belts or windshield. I complained the first day that I had already been pummeled in the face with three rocks. My boss Isaac grinning replied, “those aren’t rocks, they’re bugs.”
The days when I really got to participate were usually the most exciting. One afternoon the ranch manager, Michael, asked me to help sort the cattle that were being sold to another owner from those being sent off for processing and those being kept. My horse that day, Cocaine, ran a group of cows down to the gate at a breathtaking canter, then shot me down the side of the coral to pick up the next group, poking his nose in and stepping out to meet the cattle if they tried to turn back.
For periods of time throughout my stay, I would travel through the high mountain desert valley two hours south to work briefly at the better-known Zapata Ranch, managed by the same company that runs Chico Basin. Zapata sits just below the Great Sand Dunes National Park. I was usually there for a special project or to get to know our sister-staff better, but it was dream-like to see the thousands of Bison roaming around with snow-capped mountains as a backdrop.
My respect for this work grew as I saw that conservation and sustainability could be just as big a part of ranch work as raising livestock for food. I came to appreciate how ranchers needed to be a little bit biologist and a little bit ecologist, proficient with numbers and sensitive enough to have an intuitive understanding of the needs of animals. On top of that, they needed to be athletic and resilient enough to ride all day.
On one of the last warm fall Sundays we had off from work, I joined a group of women to ride our horses bareback to the headquarters pond. We rode into the water where the horses dug in their hooves and splashed, some going in up to their bellies. I felt a special sense of freedom and connection to my horse. I was aware of each step forward this beautiful being took as we trotted back home.
Some nights the family of barn owls living in the grove of trees around the house hooted and shrieked. Other nights the pack of coyotes would join in by belting out the cries they make when they’re feasting. Stars shone through in greater numbers than I had seen before. This place was so big, so far away from anything else, so affecting … despite being agnostic, I started to understand what people mean when they call it God’s country.
The seasons changed and I saw the grass turn from green to brown and the cottonwood trees turn to a solid golden yellow. The calves and foals went from wobbly, long-whiskered scaredy cats to curious and more independent roamers. The flies that were in my eyes and ears when I arrived in the summer heat were traded for mornings where my hands went numb on the reins and on the shutter button from cold.
On a cold October night as a last gathering before I left, Amy cooked up Frito pie and along with the with the whole Chico team, we drank beer and cider with whiskey around a campfire. Michael and his wife Dawn, brought us all to tears singing cowboy songs about the beauty of the work and land around us. My final farewell included a gift from Kerstin of found ranch treasures including shed snakeskin and a horseshoe. I said goodbye to the pastures and my animal friends.
Kerstin told me that the key to coping would be to find a way to integrate the experience I had on the ranch into the life I would have at home. I know now that I have a real need to work closely with the land, engaged in work with human and animal alike.
