CONTINUED >>
Kirkpatrick Ranch
It was after sunrise, but there wasn’t really a dawn. Thick, low clouds cast a dark pall across the valley. Visibility was nonexistent and the wind drove heavy snow perpendicular to the ground. It stung as it hit the exposed skin on my face. It was early February and I was on the Kirkpatrick Ranch in the Big Hole Valley of Montana photographing the winter feeding of cattle with two four-member teams of draft horses pulling a pair of hay sleighs. Dennis, his wife Mykal, and their two children, Sidney (23) and Troy (21) work the ranch. Previously owned by Dennis’ grandfather, Ray Bacon, the ranch is divided by the Big Hole River with the winter range and hay ground on the West side, and the summer pasture to the East in the foothills of the Pioneer Mountains.