Who: Moffat rancher Peggy Godfrey
Selling cowboy hats, raising sheep and working the night shift at a neighboring ranch during calving season, Peggy Godfrey, 59, scrapes together just enough to stay on her San Luis Valley ranch north of Moffat. For not much money, she’ll also weld your baler back together or liven up your Fourth of July picnic with her cowboy poetry. And if the conditions are right, she’ll bring her sheep to town to “mow” overgrown yards, vacant lots, alleys and right-of-ways for free. (Their work helps cut down on fire risk, grasshoppers and mosquitoes.) All that, and she still has time to ride herd on the Sawatch County Sustainable Environment and Economic Development documentary series. The first episode, “Don’t Fence Me In,” is a 30-minute ranch heritage video for K-12 classrooms that features a live calf’s birth and lots of other stuff city kids seldom see firsthand. It should be ready for release later this summer.
When you’re down in the muck playing midwife to a cow, do you ever fantasize about changing careers? No, but I sure do get a lot of poetry out of it. I usually give myself 10 minutes a year to consider working for the government or Wal-Mart, and it gags me. I always want to be where I can smell the rain.
Cowboy poets often spend more traveling to their gigs than they ever get paid, so what’s the payback? Our economy is as much a soul economy as a dollar economy. But I served my stint as a volunteer. (People will say) “We can give you exposure, but we can’t pay you.” You can die of exposure.
Why a ranching documentary for kids? I’m going to be irrigating a lot of young minds.
You donated a kidney to friend you hadn’t seen for years? Why? I suddenly heard the question in my head, “Would you give him a kidney?” I realized I’d rather die saying yes than live saying no.
The town of Moffat declared Sept. 12, 2004, “Peggy Godfrey Day.” How’d you rate? I think the town council designated it my day because it was my seventh year to take my sheep to town to mow. Moffat celebrated with a pie and ice-cream potluck and music and storytelling in the park.
Why do you keep ranching when back-to-back droughts forced you to sell your cattle herd? During the 2002 drought, when I first thought I would have to sell my livestock, I started thinking about what I would do if I weren’t ranching. I thought I might become a nurse, and every time I thought about it, I just cried and cried.
I’ve been here 30 years, learning to dance with the seasons. Saying it aloud just deepens my reverence for life. I’m so blessed.
Does anything get you down? The presumptions city people make when they move in to ranch country! People think there’s nothing to it. They can’t comprehend that they can’t shut down the wind.
YOU CAN SEE “THE MIRACLE”
Filmmaker Kent Gunnufson captured the story of why Peggy Godfrey gave a kidney to a long-lost friend in “The Miracle of Peggy Godfrey,” which was screened last summer at Crested Butte Reel Fest. You can catch a four-minute glimpse of the documentary at mountainmagazine.com/film/videoprofiles.htm.
To round up a copy of “Don’t Fence Me In,” send a note to Godfrey at poetpeggy@ctelco.net or write her at 19157 County Road 60, Moffat, CO 81143. The video alone is $15, plus shipping and handling, or $20 for a package that includes the associated school curriculum. Use the same address to get a copy of Godfrey’s five volumes of cowboy poetry, including her first, “Write ‘Em Cowboy,” which is also available as a live-performance CD.
To lasso an anthology that contains some of her poems (or for all the information you need to become a cowboy poet, or just a fan) visit cowboypoetry.com.
