“It feels very peaceful here,” I say as Alex and I stand in his barn with the warm June sun spilling in through the open doors.

“I’m glad you feel that. I wanted a place that felt peaceful because I didn’t always feel that in places growing up.”

Alex has been a farrier since he was in his twenties.

Bill’s family has homesteaded in the Prickly Pear Valley since around 1864. In the more than 150 years since their claim, the ranch has passed through four generations and grown to nearly 3,000 acres, most of which has seen little change since. 

I showed up on Bill’s historic ranch one stormy afternoon last July in the hopes of seeing some bison…