Up here on the high plateau where checkerboarded farmland overlooks the steep valley carved by a meandering Belt Creek, you can feel the change. It’s subtle, but there’s no doubt the rougher mountains and forest to the west are giving way to the “Golden Triangle” to the east. This is the region in north-central Montana […]
On the phone Richard Hamilton told me a visit to his place would, at the least, prove “interesting.” “We’ve got windmills and sheep and…” — that was all I needed to hear. I was in. To drive California, to jet in from its famous coasts and out from its hidden inland cities is a visual […]
Besides a set of old scrapbooks that reveal a rich history in the Angus breed, Abbie Nelson’s table is tidy, well kept like the rest of the place. “It’s not always this way,” she says of the family gathering spot, “especially not during breeding season. We AI all the cows and that’s always a big […]
It’s almost too picturesque, I thought as I stood in Mark and Abbie Nelson’s circular roundabout and stared. The tree canopy I had just driven through lead me here – to a place where Angus cattle grazing golden pastures meet rolling vineyards of zinfandel and petite sirah, the San Francisco coastline a mere 100 miles […]
Part II: Quality always considered “Let’s meet, say just before 5?” Chad Ellingson asks on the other end of the line. It’s dark when we pull up to his family’s property near St. Anthony, N.D., and my headlights catch glimpses of the immaculate scene set before me. Fresh cut grass, well-fed horses, youngsters wiping their […]
