Home Land: Ranching and a West That Works

by Laura Pritchett (Editor), Richard Knight (Editor), Jeff Lee (Editor)

Overview

In this collection of 22 essays, the editors have brought together some of the best--and most insightful--writing on ranching in the West. These writers explore the changing landscape of the West, and how, in an age of huge, corporate-owned ranches, the small rancher can survive. This book brings together the best writers in the West today--including poets, ranchers, and conservationists--in a one-of-a-kind look at the West.

If you care about the West, you must care about the lands of the West--lands that are disappearing rapidly, along with the people and cultures that go along with them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781555664008
Publisher:	Bower House
Publication date:	02/28/2007
Pages:	217
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Laura Pritchett is author of a novel, Sky Bridge, and a collection of short stories, Hell's Bottom, Colorado, which won the Milkweed National Fiction Prize and the PEN USA Award for Fiction. Her work has also appeared in numerous magazines, including The Sun, Orion, High Country News, 5280, and Pulse of the River: Colorado Writers Speak for the Endangered Cache la Poudre (which she co-edited). She holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Colorado State University and a Ph.D. in literature from Purdue University. Laura lives in northern Colorado near the small cattle ranch where she was raised, and often writes about ranchland preservation.

Richard L. Knight is interested in the ecological effects associated with the conversion of the Old West to the Next West. A professor of wildlife conservation at Colorado State University, he received his graduate degrees from the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin. While at Wisconsin he was an Aldo Leopold Fellow and conducted his research at Aldo Leopold's farm, living in "The Shack." Presently he sits on a number of boards, including the Colorado Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust, the Quivira Coalition, the Science Board of the Malpai Borderlands Project, and The Nature Conservancy's Colorado Council. Richard was selected by the Ecological Society of America for the first cohort of Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellows, who focus on leadership in the scientific community, communicating with the media, and interacting with the business and corporate sectors. With his wife, Heather, he works with his neighbors in Livermore Valley on stewardship and community based activities.

Jeff Lee is director of the Rocky Mountain Land Library, a nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to encourage a greater awareness of the land. For the past twenty years, he has also been a bookseller at Denver's legendary Tattered Cover Book Store.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction Teresa Jordan 1

Bridging the Great Divide: Reconnecting Rural and Urban Communities in the New West Richard L. Knight 13

Confronting Fear Diane Josephy Peavey 26

One Sweet Evening Just This Year Paul Zarzyski 34

The Western Range: A Leaking Lifeboat for Conservation in the New West Nathan F. Sayre 36

Looking Back Teresa Jordan 49

Hoof Making Contact Laura Pritchett 51

A Buddhist in Cattle Country Kim Stafford 63

Wasted on a White-Collar Job Joan Chevalier 64

Our Lands in the Belly of the Beast Drum Hadley 83

She Poured Out Her Own Julene Bair 85

Things of Intrinsic Worth Wallace McRae 99

The New Ranch Courtney White 101

Who Are We Here, Wanting to Know? Alma de mi alma, A Song of the Vaqueros of Mexico Drum Hadley 121

The Farm Rick Bass 124

Atlantic Rim: The Seekers Trail Sharon Salisbury O'Toole 132

Words Meet Deeds on the Land Paul F. Starrs 134

A Poem from the Edge of America James Galvin 147

Birth, Death, and Renewal: Living Heart to Heart with the Land Page Lambert 149

Wintering Mark Spragg 160

In the Clearing Linda Hussa 181

I remember my father in the future Aaron Abeyta 189

Bob Budd, Otters Dance 194

Editors and Contributors 207

Rocky Mountain Land Library 213

Colorado Cattleman's Agricultural Land Trust 214

Credits 215