The cookhouse is a low log building with a wood range older than I am, a screen door that bangs, and a table long enough to seat thirty shoulder to shoulder. Almost everything that comes off it started on this ground — our own black Angus beef, eggs from the henhouse, tomatoes and squash from my garden, honey from the ranch hives, huckleberries we pick by the bucket in August. High summer might be brisket with my mustard-and-honey glaze, charred corn, warm tomato salad, skillet cornbread, and huckleberry buckle with cream; cooler nights, a Dutch-oven pot roast or a green-chile stew that simmers all afternoon.
We seat cabin guests right alongside folks who drove up from Columbia Falls and the crew that's been horseback since dawn. When the weather's kind, we pull the picnic tables onto the grass, light the lanterns, and somebody brings out a guitar. The best part is the hour after the plates are cleared — when the coffee comes around and nobody's in a hurry to leave.