David Capocci is one of the owners of the homestead campground, Paca Pride Guest Ranch, along with his husband, Glenn Budlow, and business partner, Tim Leingang. Learn more at https://pacaprideguestranch.com
We had prepared for bears, cougars, coyotes, bobcats, storms, power outages, a freezing wellhead, and the occasional tree deciding it had stood long enough. Twenty-plus years of mountain ranch life have taught us to think in terms of the big natural disruptions. But we can never really be prepared
At the mouth of Robe Valley, tucked into the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, lies a well-traveled route of humanity. It is in western Washington, north and east of an area the Indigenous peoples used as a portage between two rivers, now known as the city of Granite Falls.
Spring on the mountain is when connections become visible. And if you spend enough years paying attention to Nature, you begin noticing something else. Healthy systems are built through relationships; not through dominance, control, or uniformity. They are built through connection. Lately, I’ve been thinking about that old phrase:
The plant we were taught to overlook, even despise. The one that shows up anyway. The one that goes where the ground has been disturbed and begins, quietly, to make it whole again. We’ve been conditioned to see dandelions as an invader working against us. They are not a
We knew from the start we’d be putting ourselves on a literal ‘front line’ when we built this ranch in an economically depressed, conservative rural area. It was the entire premise behind our vision statement: “make manifest the change we wish to see in the world through hospitality”. Being
March at the mountain ranch is not a soft awakening. It is an active negotiation. One morning the ground loosens and trees start to bloom. The next morning, it locks itself under snow again in a final act of winter defiance. We refer to March as the season of Sprinter:
There is a particular kind of anticipatory quiet that settles over the ranch in the early morning, before guests emerge from yurts, before tours and questions are asked, before engagement arrives along with coffee mugs. It’s in that quiet that I’m reminded why this place matters. Not just
January has a way of stripping things down to essentials. Our mornings are frosty, our breath steaming the air. The daily work does not care who won an election, only that it be done. Out here at the ranch, the seasons keep their own rhythm, and that perspective matters when
Happy Reclamation Season! “Reclaiming my time!” — a phrase popularized by Rep. Maxine Waters in 2017 — has been around for far longer than the meme. But this year, I’ve noticed the profound influence “reclaiming” has had across the nation. It signals a deep, positive shift: people taking back ownership of
Thankfulness is found in the turbulent waters of this historic time, by charting a path toward community and away from the idea of rugged American individualism, self sufficiency, and the nuclear family. So many dream of moving to the mountains and become as self sufficient and removed from urbanity as
We tease here at the ranch that we have animal pastures and people pastures, and both require husbandry. There is much to be learned about humanity by caring for animals. Particularly, camelids, which include alpacas and llamas, bring a very unique set of lessons to the human than that of
Recently, we had a party check into one of our yurts, a grandpa and adult son coming up to help the grandson build a house up the road from us. It was their first time staying at the ranch. During our check-in routine, grandpa pipes up, “my wife wanted
Nothing can give one the truest sense of what it means to be an American, then to live through being marginalized by your fellow citizens, forming close-knit subcultures and communities, being overrun by a plague and the associated stigmas, and then finding the strength and fortitude to overcome...all
There’s a quiet strength that settles in your bones when you care for your elders. Not out of obligation, but out of love—and reverence. The ancient Confucian value of filial piety has become more than a concept to me; it has shaped the arc of my adult life.
When people first hear I’m critical of organized religion—especially Christianity—they sometimes assume that our guest ranch might not be welcoming to people of faith. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth is, I care less about what God you pray to and more about
It started with a simple question: “Can I ask you something?” A seven-year-old, fresh off an overnight in one of our yurts, held a mug of morning cocoa like it was sacred. She’d barely slept, the anticipation of seeing the animals too strong to let rest settle
