Welcome to the Lazy EL, our home, our heartland.  When you visit us, you stay in family homes and eat at our dinner table.  You become a part of our family.  If you are looking for polished service complete with a mint on a satin pillow, keep looking.  If you want to join in the ribbing and laughter at meal time and don’t mind picking up your own plate or pouring someone a cup of coffee since you’re already up, I think you’ve come to the right place.  Pass the bread bowl, please.  Grab your horse, it’s an early morning.

Getting to be on the EL and running this business was a dream of mine.  As a woman, certain aspects of the “cowboy” world was reserved for my brothers and male cousins.  Summer work meant being hired as a cook or for lawn work, not as a hand.  Roping lessons were for the men and I could come along and watch.

Though I have no memories before being horseback or before working cattle, much of this business I’ve picked up since 2002.  Thanks to some fantastic mentorship especially from my uncle, Billy Mackay Jr., and a lot of grace and patience, I’m still here.  Both sides of my family came from ranching and there’s something grounding about continuing in the family business.  Every time I work cows in the corrals I think of my great-grandfather, my two grandfathers, my own dad.  I ask for their help.  Sometimes they grant it, other times they tease me, and one grandfather most confidently cusses me proudly.  In any case, when I’m in those corrals, I know that I’m riding with them.  

It’s an honor to steward this place.  My predecessors are men for whom I have high esteem.  Each one was remarkable in his own way.  Malcolm gave us this place; without him none of us would know each other or have this deep sense of roots.  Grandpa Bill extended his leadership beyond the ranch to state level politics and to founding civil institutions locally.  Uncle Billy innovated agriculture and was part of a larger progressive movement rethinking the relationship between cattle, grass, and the people who manage them.  My brother Derek secured this place by successfully getting three generations to agree to a conservation easement and by negotiating a land swap along one of our boundaries, thereby protecting this place from the vision of a neighboring sub- development. 

These men laid a great foundation for those of us who call this place home.  The women’s accomplishments are often less seen, definitely less talked about but they too significantly contributed.  Granny Kay, Malcolm’s wife, saw that the family collection of Charlie Russell’s staid together in Montana for the public to enjoy.  Granny Joyce, bred, trained and showed horses, ending up with a champion AQHA gelding in four categories.  Helen Mackay is the current board president and guiding us to the next level of progressively securing this asset for the next four generations. 

It is upon all these shoulders that we do our present work.  Our current values of environmentalism, community responsibility, family, and progressive agricultural can be traced to their good work.   It is my hope that in this era we too contribute to this list and make improvements that last beyond ourselves.  

We welcome you.  Gerald and I and our son Luke will be there to greet you.  Luke can give a roping lesson.  Gerald is likely to take you out on the jeep to see new vistas.   We’ll have some adventures.  Tighten that cinch and come ride with us.