Off the Grid
Debra Buckner is a woman out of another era, though whether it’s the past, the future or a little bit of both is difficult to say. Buckner dresses like a cowgirl from a Western movie in knee-high leather boots, blue jeans and a crisp white button-down. She raises goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, horses and mules on 50 acres a few miles outside of Mesa, Idaho, and breeds show-quality Anatolian Shepherd dogs to guard them. She built her own barns, repairs her own deck and makes goat cheese by hand.
But Buckner is also a businesswoman. In addition to caring for her livestock, she’s turned her home into a cozy bed and breakfast that sleeps 10 guests. People from all over the world stay at Elkhorn Bed and Breakfast to experience Idaho’s wild side and bike the Weiser River Trail. Many of them consider Buckner “a frontierswoman,” but when she feeds her goats, she listens to classical music that plays from an old stereo wired into the barn. Twice a week, she sells goats’ milk, chevre, lamb meat, goat-milk soap and more at the McCall Farmers Market.
It’s a simple life, and it suits her. She started raising her own animals, she said, to try and live more sustainably.
“I had traveled to Argentina, stayed in the Pampas and stayed at a B&B out there, and had seen so much poverty. It’s like, ‘How do these people survive?’ And that touched my heart, because if they can do it I [knew] I could do it too,” Buckner said.
Elkhorn Bed and Breakfast eschews stereotypical B&B frills in favor of antlers on the walls, animal-skin rugs covering the floors, and a jungle of philodendrons that brings the outside in. Visitors are greeted at the door by four mismatched rescue dogs, and walk in to huge windows and a riverstone fireplace. In the mornings, Buckner cooks guests chicken-fried elk steak, lamb chops or eggs benedict—hearty fare that harkens back to her days living and working in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range.
“I was a snowcat operator in Mammoth and an equipment operator in the summer, and I worked in the backcountry as a camp cook, a dude string guide and a packer,” she said. “My whole life has been a survival thing.”
Buckner has lived on these 50 acres since moving to Idaho 16 years ago. She started the B&B licensing process right away, but the livestock came later. Two years in she began raising sheep, and four years after that bought her first goats. Today, she has 25 goats, 35 sheep and six guard dogs on the property, in addition to four house dogs, three horses, three mules and plenty of fowl.
“Even if I didn’t use my milk to make goat cheese, I’d probably still have a handful of goats, because they’re just neat to have around. Some people like cats, but goats are fun! They’re fun to watch. It’s like going to the ocean and watching the waves,” she said.
Buckner loves her animals, but most of them also serve a purpose. The goats offer milk, and some of the sheep are slaughtered for meat. The 100-plus-pound dogs, which she breeds for their strength, toughness and guardianship instincts, protect the livestock from the hazards of living in central Idaho.
“A bear was just here last week,” she said in early October. “He’s eating the plums around the property and along the road. And we have wolves. They haven’t come to my house yet, but that was the main idea behind me getting these Anatolian Shepherds, or livestock guardian dogs, was in case the wolves come. It’s effortless for them to get right in a pen and slaughter a whole herd.”
Bucker said the ruggedness of the landscape is a selling point for her B&B guests.
“I got more international people coming because they really want to see our country; they’re really into our national forests, Hells Canyon and the Frank Church [River of No Return] Wilderness,” she said. Bucker has also listed Elkhorn on an agritourism website, and pulls in foodies and ag enthusiasts with the promise of helping out with the livestock. The fact that she makes her own cheese and other products on the property, endeavors that were largely self-taught, is also a draw. When she first started exploring the possibility of making chevre, she said, none of the local cheesemakers would help her. Finally, Marv Patten, chief of Idaho’s USDA Dairy Program, took her under his wing, helping her build a healthy, productive goat herd that produces delicious milk.
Between Patten’s instruction and her own research, Buckner became a dab hand at cheesemaking. Now, she can make up to 40 different flavors of chevre (including lemon-pepper, basil, cranberry and fig) twice a week for the McCall Farmers Market.
With its snug kitchen and expansive view of the mountains, Elkhorn Bed and Breakfast is Buckner’s own little kingdom—though one that welcomes visitors. Buckner recently acquired a beer and wine license, and hopes to convert her kitchen into a small caf., so that she can serve guests more than breakfast.
“It’s been really fun, because I’ve met so many great people,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”
