(wind whistling) (gentle music) (water trickling) - Be as rough and tough as you want to be, but never mean nor small.

The Robinson Ranch is located in Southwest Montana, in the Madison Valley just out of McAllister.

Right now I'm running 150 head of mother cows, (cows mooing) and we have a section of ground that is basically 80% irrigated ground.

And we summer them at the opposite end of the valley on the Idaho border on the Hidden Lake Bench Allotment.

It's my heart and soul, ranching is.

I couldn't do anything else.

I feel pretty good about the fact that I raise food and fiber, but I've never had any really deep desire to do it.

I was just bred into it.

(voices chattering) Montana's so huge and vast, and you don't really appreciate the sky here until you go somewhere else, and then you see why it's nicknamed the "Big sky country."

I'm not poetic enough to describe mountains.

You gotta see 'em for yourself to do 'em any justice.

The sunsets, the sunrises in the winter, especially with the white, the contrast, it's amazing.

In the spring when it's green, the valley floor is amazing also.

And the grass that grows here, that's what we make.

That's what we convert into beef.

I know Grandpa Armstrong had a story about the first time he came over the Norris Hill on the wagon and looked out and he right then knew.

He said, "This is home."

When you're born, bred and raised in one spot, it becomes a part of you.

(wind whooshing) (tractor whirring) (cows mooing) Well, what got me started was my father, and I was the youngest one of six children.

Everybody else had the sense to take off, and I was the last one here.

That's why I'm still here.

I stayed at the ranch because all my siblings were gone.

There was no one else to help run it.

I wasn't inclined to go to college.

I didn't see the use in it for myself and there again, born into it.

It's what I'd always done, and what I'm still doing is ranching.

What life held out there for me.

(voices chattering) (cows mooing) Ranching is a very good way of life.

I mean, it's spiritually fulfilling.

It makes you feel good.

You're producing something.

One of my favorite feelings, having the cows up on the bench up there, and having a good year.

The grass is just beautiful.

Get on our ridge, above the cows, and see 'em all spread out, grazed and happy, in that beautiful setting, and yeah, honest to God, can it get any better than that?

Having that experience could well make the whole thing worth it.

You aren't skating along on euphoria very often.

(cows mooing) (hooves thundering) (voices chattering) It isn't long before you turn your horse around, start worrying about how you're gonna get the hay put up, if there's gonna be enough water.

And the idealization of being a cowboy, and the real thing of being a cowboy are polar.

But that's not to say that you don't get a lot of inner satisfaction working with the cows, working with the land, working with the horses.

It's all very rewarding.

Calving is probably the most stressful, busiest time of the year.

Depending on the weather, obviously inclement weather, then it's a lot of work.

Nice weather, it's not so much.

Then one out here that I tubed and covered with straw.

So we're gonna go check it first, and the other one, as we get done with that, I'm gonna go back in and get that one off the hot box and take him back out to his mom.

Most of the time, a calf like this, I wouldn't, especially if she were standing there.

'Cause now that she's not there, it's like, what the hell, I'll go throw him on the heater, 45 minutes, an hour, 45 minutes.

And take him back out, put him on that straw.

Oh, wow.

You wanna see the hot box?

- [Speaker] Yeah.

- Come on in.

(groans) This one isn't near as heavy.

(heater roaring) I'm glad I got up... (calf moos) extra early this morning.

Well, I got to bed early.

That helps.

But if he had been out there another hour, hour and a half, he... would've been in danger.

Oh, yeah.

Get him warmed up.

That tubing is a lifesaving magic.

He's gonna go up to his mama, and hopefully it won't take long before he's nursing.

It was just that cold.

I think the wind chill was 17 below this morning.

Pretty cold.

Pretty cold.

(gentle music) Hopefully your mama's standing out there where she was.

That's the one down in the hole, the one covered up with straw.

That's its mother right there.

(cow moos) - [Speaker] We've gotta release baby.

There we go.

Okay.

A baby heifer.

- [Speaker] Here it comes.

- There are still people out here that will steal.

And when you have something sitting out there, that's worth eight, $900,000 a unit.

You want your brand on it.

Well, if we didn't have to brand 'em, we wouldn't.

'Cause it's an extra, why do it?

A lot of people just think we do do it for show, just keeping up a tradition, but it's not a show.

You brand 'em so you know who they are.

(cows mooing) (cow mooing) (voices chattering) Also when we brand, they get their spring vaccinations, that mostly are protecting against respiratory diseases, which is huge, something you have to do anyway.

In the 60s, 70s, there were a lot more family ranches in the valley.

But as market value increases on the land, more have sold out or pared back.

The fact that I don't have anyone to leave the ranch to, that's here helping me now, that wants to carry on with it, gives me very little incentive to keep working at it on into my older age.

There's really no legacy or there's no incentive to keep going.

With the land values what they are now in this beautiful mountain valley, it becomes more and more, just easier to decide to quit.

But I have no plans in the immediate future to stop ranching, to give it up.

But it's nice to know that the value of the land is there.

That's huge in the back of your mind, just knowing that it's there, and not having any help or anyone to leave it to, it's a no brainer.

What's it gonna look like in the next 50 years?

As long as people wanna eat quality beef, we'll be here in some form or another.

(cows mooing)