Miscellany: Literary Ranch Sale

I’ve always had an awe of the west, some vestigial cowboys and Indians longing for wide open desolate expanses, sagebrush scuttling across my path, clean air and big sky. Every red-blooded easterner has thought wistfully of a return to nature, to the frontier (which exists no more), an escape from the complications of society. I’m no different, and as I age, the comforts of the city become both more appealing and more confining. The call of the wild is stronger but more distant.

So, when I read Annie Proulx’s memoir, A Year of Birds: At Home on the North Platte River in December’s issue of Harper’s I immediately googled ‘wyoming ranches for sale.’ The hefty allure of a new state in which to ply my literary trade is a fleeting, but somewhat therapeutic indulgence.

What's the first Wyoming listing on ranchbrokers.com? That’s right, Proulx’s Bird Call Ranch is up for sale.

The 640 acre ranch is listed at $3.7 million, a hefty, if fair price for the stunning cliff side views (above) and the menagerie of birds and lions and antelope Proulx describes in her Harper’s piece. I’m struck by how lovingly Proulx relates her year alone on the ranch and how quickly she can be unburdened of her property. Maybe the Harper's piece was a bit of veiled real estate promotion. One could do worse than have Proulx marketing one's home.

I’m not sure which stories or books Proulx wrote while living at Bird Cloud, but she sold another Wyoming property back in 2006. So chances are you fanboys can’t purchase the house in which she wrote Brokeback Mountain.

Though I’m pretty faithful to the Audobon guides, Proulx cites the Stokes field guide repeatedly in her article. I’m thinking of checking this one out. Then again I don’t need a more thorough field guide to tell me the squirrels in my backyard are not birds.

Check out one of Proulx’s great watercolors below, apparently inspired by Bird Cloud.

For more information on the historical homes of writers near you, check out writershouses.com.