Once considered a fixture of the American West, ranching may not make it to the next generation. There are increases in grazing fees, competition with recreation and energy exploration on leased government land, intensive agriculture opportunities, cities seeking additional water rights for their growing populations, and escalating land values from second homes and remote workers who trade big city life for the quieter ways of the West.
Internally, there are the simple and often daunting facts of running a ranch. Ranching is a hard life, physically, financially and emotionally. Because of these challenges, children of ranch families are not often motivated to take over the reins from their parents when the time comes. The result is that ranchers throughout the West feel their way of life is threatened.
Initially drawn to portray a way of life so unlike the one Allen Birnbach experienced growing up in New York, he began photographing The Cogan Ranch in south central Colorado in 1988. The family patriarch, Joe Cogan, and his wife, Arlene, and their children, Bruce, Brian, and Laurie, represent third and fourth generations on their family homestead, started in 1889.
Over the years that Allen have followed them, Joe served as his guide into a new world. Surprisingly, Allen came to understand how much alike they were in their commitment to nature and love of wide open spaces. During one spring cattle drive, Joe got off his horse simply to look at the wild iris that had just begun to bloom. “I don’t go to church,” Joe said. “Being in nature is my religion.” In that moment Allen came to understand that ranchers are great stewards of the land.
"The Cogan Ranch, Portrait of the Vanishing West," was a successful project, with gallery shows and publication in regional and national publications. Yet over time, Allen came to feel that the story of one family’s struggle with the impact of development was not enough to speak to all the issues facing ranching in general. "A Handful of Dust" was conceived with the goal of drawing a more encompassing portrait of ranchers that creates greater awareness and interest in preserving their way of life. After looking at a number of options, the decision was made to focus on two more ranches, ones that faced challenges in the key areas of water rights and the availability of people to carry on the tradition of ranching.
The Baker Ranch in Baker, Nevada is a third generation ranch that runs cattle and grows crops that go to markets both in the U.S. and overseas. Water is critical to their operation and really, without exaggeration, their survival. At the time Allen discovered them, the city of Las Vegas was trying to gain control of the ground water in the valley in way similar to Los Angeles’ successful acquisition of water rights in the Owens Valley in the Eastern Sierra. Once a verdant landscape, without water, the Owens Valley became a desert. With the possibility of that happening in their valley, the Baker family chose to fight Las Vegas in court while continuing their ranching operations.
The Ladder Ranch is a fifth generation ranch that straddles the Colorado-Wyoming border. The O’Toole family had grown the ranch over the years and raises both cattle and sheep. While the family could handle the cattle operation on their own, they needed others to help manage the sheep. Life for these people is solitary; they live year round in remote, wide open spaces tending sheep in what we would think of as a covered wagon with heat, a stove and bed for one. It’s not a job a lot of people spark to, and despite advertising in local and national publications the family could not find people willing to do the job. As a result, they turned to bringing in Chilean sheep herders with an H2A visa. Recently, though, there have been delays in getting those visas, the results of which can be devastating. Sheep need to be sheared at a specific time of year, and the wool sent to market in a similar fashion. If the ranch cannot get workers and the wool is not at market at the right time, the family may have to wait another year before they can sell it. It’s a tremendous financial weight on the operation.
The images seen in the gallery here are the result of numerous trips to these ranches. As well, cinematographer Edward Done and editors Lucas Bishop and David Emrich, shared their creative talents in capturing interviews and footage at the ranches to add another dimension to the story.