Cow Camp at Pumpkin Creek

Pumpkin Creek cow camp

We've lived in cow camps ranging from a place to pitch a tent to a two-story house. At the Steen Place on the edge of the Zumwalt Prairie we summered in a 100 year old log house with walls that bore testament to some of the previous residents via initials carved into  the front porch. There was also a barn, extensive corrals, and out behind the kitchen, an enormous multi-chambered root cellar in a state of collapse. The cellar had a log front and thick stone walls that birthed boulder-sized rocks, pushed out by the settling hillside. Even though it was our summer place, we stayed there into December while the cows were in the breaks of the canyon, and we were thankful for the enormous barrel stove and the thick logs insulating us from the cold. 

At Pumpkin Creek, the accommodations are simple. A roof overhead and all the basics you appreciate at the end of a long day and a steep trail. 

"Fully equipped" kitchen

A "real" bed

Last weekend, Mike installed an old cast-iron dry sink for the kitchen, an improvement I'm looking forward to using. While he built the sink stand, I hiked the steep norths above the narrow bench to gather cattle and move them up Pumpkin Creek. I had to work two good dogs while keeping a pup and a big slobbering Labrador out of the way, which proved interesting at times. 

Mike builds stand for the dry sink

Narrow trail on a steep north

Frozen spring shedding ice in the sun

The sun was brilliant and the ground still frozen as I side-hilled along, gathering up little bunches of cows and heading them south. At one point, I came upon a spring flowing out of the ground above a rock outcrop. The rock face dripped with moss and a few stalwart icicles clung to the basalt, while the ground below was strewn with chunks of ice fall, collapsed in the sun after the night's frozen temperatures. 

Looking north toward the Imnaha

It was nice to have most of the snow melted off after the last storm, to have open ground for the cattle to travel in. Looking  back toward the Imnaha River, I saw the high snowy rims of Haas Ridge, and was reminded that winter has a long way to go yet. 

From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef 

Hats Off to Customers

Steel blue-grey sky and snow-covered fields outside the kitchen window as dawn creeps into the Wallowa Valley. On this 15 degree morning, I'm thankful the Oval cookstove still has coals in the firebox and all I have to do it drop in a couple chunks of wood to get the fire going again. It's the season of thankfulness and for days now I've been ruminating on how much I appreciate our Bunchgrass Beef customers. 

Cold morning in the valley

Customers--hats off to you! Not only have you supported us financially by buying our locally raised beef, you have been my teachers at Customer College. Your questions have helped me tell our story. Your feedback has given me perspective, everything from how great your cholesterol levels are to how people at your barbecue went wild over the amazing flavor of a Bunchgrass Beef burger. 

I love that you love feeding your families with natural, healthy local beef. I love that you are connected to Magpie Ranch and want to keep family ranches on the land, supporting local knowledge and our efforts to raise food sustainably. 

Packing salt to cattle in the canyon

I love how diverse you are and the many ways you inform me. Why does an animal yield more meat one year than the next? How come my raw burger turns dark after I leave it open in the fridge? How do I decide which "quarter" to buy? What do I do with this big roast? What makes this meat so flavorful? Why are the fats different in grassfed meat? 

When I'm struggling to get a fence back up on the edge of a canyon, or chopping ice at a water hole, or crunching numbers and making calls, your words of encouragement are right there, they are a part of what keeps us going. 

So give yourselves a gold star, for patience, for sincerity, for caring about local food and most of all, for letting us know what you think. And here's a big cowgirl whistle for you too. Plug your ears!

From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef

 

Out with the Plymouth, in with the Oval

Floyd Peterson’s staggering collection of junk, mostly metal scrap, was stored in and around an enormous well-weathered building next to the old Mill Pond in Enterprise. Somehow Mike figured that amongst all that junk Floyd might have a cookstove, which Floyd did, which is how for the grand sum of $25 we became proud owners of the Plymouth.

“It’s all there,” Floyd said, pointing to a pile of metal that he claimed was a functional wood stove. “We raised six kids on it and it’s been right there ever since I took it out of the house.” Mike brought the pieces home and indeed, it was all more or less there, from the somewhat-repaired firebox, to the black-trimmed white porcelain warming shelf, to the oven temperature indicator reading: “warm–slow-medium-hot-very hot.”

For twenty-five years, the Plymouth served us well. It was about as non-airtight as it gets and wouldn’t hold a fire for more than an hour (well, maybe longer if you put some apple wood in it). At baking temperature, the inside of the oven would be 500 degrees in the left rear corner and 300 degrees in the right front. If you forgot and set something breakable on the warming tray, it would soon vibrate toward the edge as people walked past and then fall off and shatter on the cast iron stove top.

In short, the Plymouth was a beloved fixture in our otherwise frigid farmhouse. The center of every winter morning, and every holiday gathering, loaded with simmering and baking foods, a place to dry out and warm up after cold, tiring work, the Plymouth was like an alter in the middle of our lives.

Several firebox repairs and about 150 chords of wood later, we’re not exactly getting rid of the Plymouth, we’re just putting her into semi-retirement. We’re modernizing. For our thirtieth wedding anniversary Mike gave me a brand-new modern, efficient, wood cookstove. As of this very moment, all six hundred pounds of the Oval are resting on the new tile hearth Mike built, hooked up to the new insulated chimney that Mike put in, burning a toasty fire of wood that Mike and Zeke harvested. She’s a beaut.

The old Plymouth hasn’t quite made it out of the kitchen yet, but will likely head to the canyon to take up a service in the ranch bunkhouse. She’ll need a new firebox first. And the bunkhouse needs new sills, a chimney, a door…it could be a few years. But that’s okay. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a useable cookstove is worth hanging onto.


From Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef

The Third of October

Snow. Closing in like a flour sack being cinched around our valley.Where were the mountains? Where was the neighbor’s house at the far side of the field? I could barely see the barn through the frigid wet clouds that had settled onto us like a hen on top of her nest.

We were building corrals as the snow fell ceaselessly, heaping up on surfaces like some kind of water-saturated frosting. Jarred loose by our hammer blows it splatted in little glops on our hats, shoulders, hands.

As we pounded and sawed and measured, wrapped in our slickers and wearing our winter boots, we kept saying, “Wasn’t it ninety-one degrees a week ago? We were out in the yard in shorts and t-shirts, barbecuing up Bunchgrass Beef burgers!”

I escaped the wet and the hammering and headed to the kitchen to start lunch: a huge pot of minestrone soup, batches of yeasted rolls and apple pies. Zeke and three friends from Portland, a couple more friends from Enterprise, and Bryan and Tanyia were here helping and before long, the wet and hungry hordes would need a warm and tasty refuge.

There is nothing quite like coming into a savory kitchen, dumping your sodden muddy layers in the porch, and being enveloped in the smell of soup simmering, bread baking, and bubbly cinnamon-apple pies resting on the sideboard. A hot beverage is pressed into your hand, and you wedge into the circle at the table, elbow to elbow, stories and laughter swirling around you as your weary muscles relax and good food fills your belly.

Saturday showed me more of the ‘neighborly economy’ that goes into the raising of Bunchgrass Beef. The untimely snow may have dampened our labors, but the spirit of camaraderie kept us going. Night began to fall and with it snow-laden trees that collapsed onto power lines taking out the power at farmsteads all along Prairie Creek. We lit lanterns and candles and pulled out extra blankets, grateful for the warmth of friendship and the old upright piano, as the timeless music of familiar hymns filled the living room.

From Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef