Two riders search the hills at the base of the Elkhorns, the Montana range above my family's ranch. Another rider and I go low, and as we round a bend, our offending cows come into view. Some lounge, others twitch their tails as the neighbors' three red bulls drool and huff. As we move our cattle into a bunch, calves find their mothers and knock noses into milkbags.
Savanah McCarty was not riding across the wide-open prairie when a horse accident nearly killed her. She was in the driveway of her leased farm outside Bozeman, Montana, waiting for a student's mother to arrive, when her horse seized and flipped over backwards, landing on top of her. The horse, it turned out, had a neurological disorder linked to possum urine. McCarty never imagined it could cause this.
In 2001, Don and Bo Sosebee picked a spot for their house on a small hill overlooking a pasture where their horses and cattle roamed. They spent the next three years building a one-story cabin there. Don hauled in 6×12 logs from Mount Juliet, Tennessee, for the frame. He lined the interior walls with lumber from his old barn and nailed white pine across the ceiling.
