Slow Life with Real Food

The Dragoon Mountains, in Southern Arizona, is home to Stronghold Cattle Company, owned by Kevin Dumais. The Dragoon Mountain Ranch is at a 5000 foot elevation, located on 57,000 acres of pristine pastures, knobby hills, and rocky outcroppings. Cochise, the famed Chiricahua Apache Chief, and approximately 1000 of his people lived for 15 years in the natural fortress of the Dragoon Mountains, protected by 2 days of visibility. Eventually Cochise and his people were starved out by the US Army, and forced to sign a treaty for survival. As part of negotiations they were told that they could keep the land surrounding the Dragoon Mountains, but were instead shipped to Florida.

Letting bygones be bygones, Kevin is actually a nice guy. He has tremendous respect for the native culture, and is proud of the history of his land. He took us on a hike to visit ancient pictographs and the 'cave' homes of the members of Cochise's tribe. From the elevation, we could see the green town of St. David and the faint outline of Tombstone in the distance. After this brief lesson in history, we went on a search in vain for Kevin's small herd of Angus cattle. Due to the large size of the ranch, we were unable to find the herd of 50. Instead of finding the cattle, we decided to eat them, so Kevin took us back to the 19th century ranch house, and made us tasty 1/2 pound burgers from his grass-fed beef.

The cattle is fed on perennial grass all year round, so they are not fattened up in the winter by corn or diet additives. This makes for very lean beef, and very flavorful. Due to the slow growth of the cattle, it takes about two years of growth before they can be slaughtered. Near the ranch is the University of Arizona, where the cattle is taken to be slaughtered under USDA rules and regulations. Kevin sells his beef by the side to individuals and restaurants, some of which are located in historic Tombstone, immortalized by the legendary Wyatt Earp.

To reach the ranch, we took a 12-mile motorcycle drive on graded dirt roads, which meant that we had to take another 12-mile trip to get out of the ranch, heading over to Tombstone at Kevin's recommendation. It was a jarring and nerve-racking ride for me (quite literally, talk about a headache!), but for Guillermo it was like traveling in Peru again. It was well worth the trip.

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