On the Prairie
The Hidden Beauty of Fall
Fall is beginning to show its face out at the Cheyenne River Ranch. The landscape will soon slip into a transition of colors from greens, yellows and purples, to bronze and golds. The few trees that do exist on the prairie will start their descent to dormancy in an amazing display of the color spectrum.
Tenacity Through The Storms
Once again, Mother Nature has shown its unpredictability with a late winter snowstorm and relentless rainfall. Last weekend, after a couple of days of nice weather, the clouds rolled in. It dumped two to three feet of snow in the Black Hills, dusted the prairie with a light white coating and then continued to rain for days.
Winter in the Rearview Mirror
When it comes to winters... we are more than happy to see this one go. Here are a series of photos captured this past winter from around the ranch. We hope Jack Frost is in the rear-view mirror!
Saving The Monarch
For the past two years I’ve been gathering monthly with a group of diverse, and talented women. Within the group, there is a doctor, lawyer, political consultant, financial advisor, non-profit manager, artist, director/actress and me - rancher/cook. We discuss all kinds of topics, offer advice and get updated on each other's lives.
My Rocky Mountain Front High, Part II
The Deep Creek Ranch sits up against the Rocky Mountain Front in Northern Montana. It overlooks vast stretches of prairie that go on as far as the eye can see and is nurtured by the fertile river bed of Deep Creek and mountain spring run off. It is beautiful. The ranch is owned by David Letterman and his wife Regina Lasko, but the boots on the ground running the now 800-head bison ranch are Annie and Andrew Bardwell.
My Rocky Mountain Front High
This past September, I had the pleasure of visiting our sourcing partners in Montana. Both ranches run against the Rocky Mountain Front. It had been almost twenty years since I had been in that part of the country, and the images were starting to fade. I had heard the stories of how beautiful the ranches were from the harvest crew and was once again looking forward to being engulfed in that part of the country and all of its majesty. It didn’t disappoint.
Bird Blitz - 2018
I didn’t know this until a week ago, but every year The Nature Conservancy organizes a bird count on the lands that they protect by either outright ownership or through conservation easements. Our ranch is protected from development or exploitation by a TNC conservation easement so we are eligible to participate in what they call the Bird Blitz. The idea is to count as many bird species as possible in a twenty-four hour period. This year the day of the Blitz was May 18.
Signs of Spring
Although winter has held us in it's clutches for far too long, spring is starting to show itself.
A Buffalo Love Story
A few years back, when we moved our buffalo to their winter pasture on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, we left seven behind.
Buffalo Composting 101
Anyone who’s traveled across the Great Plains has seen the vast spaces housing various forms of energy that make up native plants and fauna. Here, plants and organisms have endured hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and developed their own way to utilize the prairie’s sole source of energy, the sun.
Prairie Grassland Birds
Bird watching is a favorite pastime on the ranch, not just for those that live here, but also for those that visit. The old cottonwoods that canopy the house are perfect for nest builders and cavity dwellers.
How Four Ross Students Found Community on the Prairie
After spending our first two weeks in the urban centers of Detroit and Chicago, we knew week three in Rapid City, South Dakota would definitely be a different experience. But the reality of just how different didn’t begin to sink in until we passed through Badlands National Park.