I see my 19-year-old self in our new intern, as she builds her skills and learns the ropes of ranch etiquette.
Essays
Posted inArticles
The outdoors gender gap needs to be closed
Women’s tax dollars help fund public land – yet that public asset isn’t seen as safe for all people to enjoy.
Posted inArticles
Ranch Diaries: Our first intern, branding cattle and renovating an old home
Triangle P cattle know the territory now, so our second summer shouldn’t be as demanding as the last.
Posted inMay 2, 2016: The Gold King Reckoning
The life of a fire lookout is one of the senses
A former lookout finds the woman who used to guard her tower.
Posted inArticles
National Park Week fails to change the game
Last week’s celebration showed how close we are to natural beauty, yet so far from diversifying our national parks.
Posted inArticles
Ranch Diaries: The risks of ranching on a wild landscape
How the threat of predators has fundamentally shaped my relationship with nature.
Posted inArticles
No, national parks are not America’s ‘best idea’
There’s potential to alienate people who value ideas more pertinent to them than the parks.
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Who belongs in the natural world?
The lack of diversity in the outdoors often prompts people of color to ponder their sense of belonging in nature.
Posted inArticles
Ranch Diaries: Sustainability doesn’t always mean regenerative
How I came to terms with my subsistence upbringing, and have started to rethink it.
Posted inApril 4, 2016: A Land Divided
Take a page from the mountain goats
A parent contemplates risk assessment with kids in the mountains.
Posted inArticles
Rants from the Hill: After many years of essay writing, a wave goodbye
All good Rants must come to an end and this marks the final missive from the Ranting Hill.
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Ranch Diaries: I’m starting (another) new business. Will it work?
I’ll soon be delivering our grass-fed beef to the processor myself, and connecting directly with customers.
Posted inMarch 21, 2016: Making Sense of Malheur
Seeds in a sandstorm
A writer contemplates love and disaster in a city of transients.
Posted inArticles
I inherited an oil field. Now what do I do with it?
A writer faces a moral dilemma: fight the bureaucracy to end oil extraction on family land or give in?
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Ranch Diaries: The era of the landless agrarian
I’m part of a generation of young farmers and ranchers who will struggle to ever own the land they work.
Posted inMarch 7, 2016: The Parks You Don't Know
Finding the big quiet in Great Basin National Park
A writer revisits the acoustical landscape of the National Park system.
Posted inMarch 7, 2016: The Parks You Don't Know
The tricky allure of unpeopled places
Longing for solitude on the land, and feeling uneasy.
Posted inArticles
Rants from the Hill: A romance in Reno, land of the second chance
The Ranter remembers being struck down by love for Tonya Harding, the fallen ice skater.
Posted inArticles
I’m garden-obsessed even though it’s still winter
Soon after learning I was less than nine months away from becoming a first-time father, I experienced an unexpected sense of déjà vu. The baby was coming whether or not the room was painted or anything else was ready. That feeling of being hitched to a biological clock that stops for no one is a […]