There may be life off the ranch, but any Fremont County farmer or rancher will tell you – The #aglife is “the good life!” #Aglife is a County 10 series, brought to you by Wyoming Community Bank, that pulls the curtain back on farm and ranch life in Fremont County.
You might have noticed a few laying hens happily catching bugs along the west side of North 8th West between Webbwood and Gasser Road. They get a few calls a month from concerned drivers that the chickens are out, but they’re not out, they’re just grazing, and they never get near the road.
Dan and Jennifer Bates have a lot more than chickens going on at their 7.5 acre spread. It’s just a footprint compared to much larger alfalfa, grain, sugar beets or cow/calf operations, but this couple has found a way to produce a lot out of just a little.
Both Dan and Jennifer grew up in Sublette County, Dan on ranches outside Big Piney, and Jennifer living with her grandparents in town.
They both share a love of agriculture, producing things, and the outdoors.
Dan grew up on ranches managed by his father, Bill Bates.
“He was a brand inspector in Lander,” Dan said. “He never owned a ranch.”
Dan grew up working cattle, irrigating, and doing the hundreds of things it takes to keep a cow/calf operation running. In the process, he moved a lot.
While he spent most of his youth in Big Piney, he graduated from Lima, Montana.
Later he worked ranches in Gastone, California, on the edge of the San Joaquin Valley for a few years.
“I played cowboy,” Dan said. “It was big yearling operation.”
Then he found his way back to Wyoming, working at the Matador Ranch in Eastern Fremont County, the biggest single ranch in the state at the time and one of the largest in the nation.
“I worked there eight or nine years,” Dan said. “It was a big operation. We always had six to eight cowboys working.”
After his years at the Matador, he moved back to Big Piney, where he worked for the next 18 years.
“I met the love of my life, and we came to Riverton,” Dan said.
Jennifer was already in Big Piney.
“I grew up with my grandparents, Harry and Eileen Cameron,” Jennifer said. “They owned a motel, and I rode my horses. I started a lot of kids in 4H and gave a lot of riding lessons.”
She graduated in 1987 from Big Piney.
She moved a lot after high school as well, working in Montana and then on the Yellowstone Ranch on Twin Creek southeast of Lander, then to Jeffrey City.
She had an interesting experience managing the Split Rock Ranch near Jeffrey City.
“The owners were chicken farmers from Delaware, the Schiffs,” Jennifer said.
From there, she continued south to Colorado for a while.
“I was there when they legalized pot,” Jennifer said. “When they legalized it, they put up a sign at the feed store and you could buy your weed right there. They sold IFA feed and pot.”
The change in Colorado after marijuana was legalized was enough to drive Jennifer back home to Sublette County.
Jennifer and Dan had known each other for three decades.
“I knew Dan when I was in 4H, I was his son’s 4H leader,” Jennifer said.
A spark ignited, and the couple married in 2017.
“We’ve been married eight years,” Dan said. “But we’ve known each other for 30 years.”
They moved to Riverton in December 2017, buying the acreage along North 8th West that was built by Ed and Fern Barnes in the early 1930s.
“It’s a great place to be,” Jennifer said.
Jennifer works as the purchaser for the Lander Medical Clinic and Western Family Care in Riverton. She also owns Better Cleaning in Lander with a staff of four.
Dan works at the Riverton Livestock Auction a couple of days a week and works as a courier for the Lander Medical Clinic and Western Family Care in Riverton.
If the twin wooden gates entering their driveway are open, they’re likely to be outside working, or Jennifer is at the stove baking her delightful creations.
The sign out front, “General Store” takes you back to simpler days, days when the general store was the center of small western towns.
Keeping their roadside stand stocked takes a lot of work.
The Bates have goats, chickens, cattle, horses, a greenhouse, and a huge garden. Dan takes care of much of the outside work, feeding goats, cows, and horses while Jennifer plants and harvests their huge garden, bakes bread, makes yogurt, and markets their products. It’s a shared effort that crosses jobs and responsibilities over many times.
In addition to working full time and keeping their various agricultural projects in production, the couple used to run an auction service, and for a long time, they purchased abandoned storage units and sold the contents.
“We still buy estates, and used to buy storage units,” Dan said.
It was a lucrative proposition for a while, but now they don’t do it as often because of the large amount of drugs they find inside some units.
“We used the storage units to buy cows, horses, goats, hay, our tractor, and this little shed from Tom Evans,” Jennifer said.
That little shed is the log cabin that they moved onto the property to house their General Store.
Some may ask why they make the effort to produce naturally grown local produce and sell eggs. fresh, raw goat and cow milk, and spend so many hours baking and marketing artisan bread, pies, and other baked goods.
The inspiration came a few years ago when prices began to rise, and quality began to drop at retail grocery stores.
“The whole process was to make things affordable,” Jennifer said. “It started with Covid. You don’t have to rely on grocery stores. The old folks taught us to do this.”
In the process, they’ve become a retail outlet for candy, clothes exclusively decorated by Jennifer, and other unique products.
When the store is open on Sunday and Monday, there is a steady stream of traffic arriving.
Occasionally, they’ll hold a Saturday sale with merchandise they’ve rounded up in estate sales and in storage units. North 8th West is often lined with vehicles on both sides of the road when they have a Saturday sale.
Jennifer has recently been bidding on lots of surplus furniture and appliances from retail outlets in Salt Lake City. They sell appliances, chairs, and couches through their store, or advertise it on social media. Their prices are extremely competitive.
While estates, lots, and storage units pay the bills, the heart of their enterprise remains agriculture.
Jennifer’s goat herd is a great example. She milks and makes cheese and yogurt and sells raw goat’s milk. She sells the kids to private buyers and sometimes takes them to auction. The Muslim holiday of Ramadan in the spring each year is a prime time to sell market goats. There are large markets in Denver, as well as a market in Cheyenne.
Another facet of their goat operation is weed control. Most of the herd is out across the Wind River Valley, munching away at noxious weeds and clearing property this summer. When they’re done, it’s better than the results you can get with any lawn mower or brush hog.
Dan milks the cow, and, as with many things, the cow serves a dual purpose. He milks the cow once a day, usually in the afternoon and has a bum calf nursing on the cow in the morning.
Their mainstay has been their laying flock. When eggs skyrocketed in price in January, their hens were still laying well, and they sold out almost every day. The yolks on their free-range hens are bright orange and much more flavorful than commercial eggs available in local markets.
The hens are locked into the coup during gardening season since a flock of chickens can quickly lay waste to beans, tomatoes, peppers, and just about anything green that catches their eye. After the first hard frost this fall, when gardening season is over outdoors, the hens will roam the yard and along the road in search of bugs, mice, and plants.
The frost doesn’t end Jennifer’s garden. She has a nice, glass-paneled greenhouse that extends the growing season a month before and a month after the outdoor garden. She has a little secret in the dining room as well, a standalone hydroponic system that grows lettuce, peppers, and tomatoes year-round.
Perhaps the most delicious item on the Dan and Jennifer menu is actually many items, baked goods that Jennifer makes from scratch, 12 months a year.
Her sourdough bread is extremely popular, and the round, artisan loaves are attractive as well as delicious. Pies, cakes, cookies, along with pumpkin, zucchini, and banana bread fill the house with a wonderful aroma, and they’re quickly bought up once they hit the shelves of their roadside stand.
It’s a busy place at 1461 North 8th West.
Drive by almost any time of the day and you’ll find Dan on his four-wheeler feeding hay, chasing cows, irrigating, selling a few tools from his shed or unloading the latest batch of goods from their gooseneck trailer into the two-car garage.
Jennifer will be working with her goats, feeding the chickens, baking or working in the store just east of the house along North 8th West. If she has a spare moment, she’ll be organizing the latest estate, auction or storage arrivals in the garage to sell later.
You don’t have to have a lot of acreage if you’re willing to make your land work for you. Jennifer and Dan Bates put the “W” in work on their property just north of the Riverton city limits.
That work often results in a delicious product you can’t find anywhere else.