Moonlight Window

Snow and ice now encircle the geysers and rime-coated trees hang dormant over any remaining dry ground. Cracks in the lakeshore ice unleash supernatural sounds like a Star Wars weapon and a cold stillness dominates the pine forest on the Continental Divide.

A herd of bison lumbered across the road in the night in seemingly slow motion, as the freezing fog settled in over Hayden valley. The expression in the eyes of one strong calf as it walked into the dark freeze of the November night was fear. They looked like warriors heading into battle against the coming winter. By morning, hoar frost across Gibbon meadows was sparkling like silver glitter. The blue sky was gone before noon and the snow began.

Bitter cold mornings here in the Hole hint that a different kind of storm is coming soon and the Jackson faithful are paying homage to a trusty idol: La Niña.

We may not have services within walking distance in this rural part of the valley, but what we do have is an immense amount of powerful sun and a solid source of groundwater. A small garden seemed like the obvious first step, despite the short growing season.

While I grew up clueless about growing food in a sweltering suburb, where the forests of my childhood were paved into strip malls, Bille came from a small farm in southern Germany. There was hope, despite the snow still falling in June.

Together with some friends, we built the garden with weathered pine from an old buck and rail fence in a frigid spring downpour. Terra Firma, a local company creating organic compost, delivered a pile of soil and we had ourselves 80 square feet to grow organic produce that would never require another drop of gasoline. All it took was an idea, a couple hundred bucks, good friends and a few days of labor.

Now in mid October, we are eternally grateful for our second year harvest, having stuffed ourselves with salad greens, beets, carrots, snap peas, strawberries, green beans, broccoli, and cauliflower. While having fresh organic salads throughout the summer is delicious and satisfying, the biggest satisfaction was in the time spent in the garden itself, watching my three-year-old learn where her food comes from.

Rarely did a snap pea or carrot ever make it to the kitchen. These were daily snacks that we munched on with cherry tomatoes still warm from the sun. Caring for the garden became a type of meditation for me and I found the same peace and slowing of time that I seek out on the Snake river or walking in the mountains. I kept wondering why something so simple and basic to humanity had not been part of my life before, and why it remained foreign to so much of our country.

The small garden. There is nothing unique or complicated about it. It feeds you. It brings happiness, and it is part of the solution. If you can do it in the Rockies at over 6000 feet, you can do it almost anywhere.

This open space has been ranched for 130 years. Last spring, the Lockhart brothers, Cody, 28, and Chase, 25, asked me to photograph their revived family business, the Lockhart Cattle Company that owns and operates the open space, to help them sell local grass fed beef to the community. It was an interesting subject that turned a modern environmental stereotype of ranching on its head. Here was a small family business conserving open space and wildlife habitat by producing local food on some of the most valuable rural real estate on earth–a unique piece of Jackson history evolving from its roots with two fifth-generation ranching brothers– legitimate, local cowboys.

Ten years ago, I had worked a summer for the Bridger Teton National Forest, performing stream surveys and documenting erosion damage due to irresponsible grazing practices. What we found was land stripped of vegetation, mountain streams eroded into giant ditches of polluted water, and widespread noxious weeds . . . not very Shire like.

I agreed to shoot the project as a journalist with the pretense that the Lockharts could use whatever I came up with for their marketing, but there would be no commercial direction. It seemed to me, part of what would appeal to people who are going to buy premium local beef is a real face, an authentic portrait of the ranch. What I discovered was a balance–one the most impressive examples of land stewardship that I had ever witnessed. The Lockhart Cattle Company have the very unique situation of owning enough nutritious grassland in South Park and the Buffalo Valley to feed a small herd of truly local, grass fed cows.

According to Cody, many of the ranching operations could not survive in the harsh Wyoming climate without grazing their cattle on public land, while they grow grass for winter feed. In many cases, due to poor stewardship and political pressure, allotment permits have been revoked and the result is that a rancher is forced to sell to development, eliminating open space and wildlife habitat. This is the unsavory reality of saving one piece of land while sacrificing another. The meat-eating residents of Jackson now have an opportunity to support a local business that keeps the valley open with sustainable agriculture.

This is the time of the year. You can buy 1/2 or whole cows here:

http://www.lockhartcattle.com/index.php/grassfed/order