Camas Prairie, Mont.
photos & story by Dameon Matule
There's something about owning
For many people, breeding large animals probably might not be their idea of a good time. For Marjerrison, it's a passion. Once she had five mares that were producing at least that many foals a year, but a full-time job and the recent economic crisis made it difficult to keep up those numbers. Even though she's breeding less often, she says it wouldn't be possible without her two kids. "My kids do half the responsibilities," Marjerison said.
Marjerrison is up at 3 a.m. most days of the week, leave the house by 4 to get to work before 5:30. That means Garrett and Demi are responsible to get themselves up, feed the animals and eat breakfast, before their uncle takes them to school.
A single mom and nurse, Marjerrison lives with her two children, Garrett, 16, and Demi, 13. Diamond T Diamond Paints is a 60-acre ranch with a barn, seven horses and a handful of chickens.
Marjerrison lives just east of Plains, Mont., over hills too small to be named, in a valley called Camas Prairie. There are few places in the U.S. like it. A straight line of faded and chapped blacktop divides the long, narrow valley as it runs north.
Below the tree line, the hills turn green in spring and gold in the fall. The entire valley has about as many people as a small neighborhood; family ranches inhabit most of the land and there are only a few houses per square mile. Near the center of the valley lies their ranch. Here, out of her modest barn, Marjerrison and her children breed tri-colored horses.
According to the American Paint Horse Association's website, an American Paint is a horse with an athletic body wrapped in a coat that is one of three different color combinations: overo (white over dark body markings), tobiano (a pinto of any color with some white crossing its back and a solid colored head) or tovero (a mix of tobiano and overo colorations). Marjerrison's mare and stud possess identical genes for tobiano. A horse that is homozygous for any of those three color-types will only produce offspring of that combination. That means that all of Marjerrison's foals will be brown, black and cream.
Each of her horses has a tall, muscular frame, wrapped in a coat that resembles a Henri Matisse painting. All of them are calm, inquisitive and quick to walk up to a stranger for a good sniff, before sticking its head against your chest to coax one to give it a scratch below the ears.
Marjerrison grew up around horses. She said she always wanted to breed but it wasn't until about eleven years ago that she was able to do so. While looking at a ranching supply magazine, Marjerrison came across a breeding stud that was exactly what she was seeking. She talked to people that owned horses sired by him and decided to do it. "I leased a mare to breed," she said. "I was trying to get a stud to go into the breeding business."
She talks about the mare's pregnancy like some women talk about their own pregnancy. She thought about the foal's disposition, its gender, if it would look more like its mother or father. "[My] barn wasn't even close to being finished, but I had a little corral set up out here and a little baby monitor. So I had one of those sitting out here and the little part you can hear in the bedroom. I heard the mare lay down and I could hear the water break. I jumped up and was like, 'HERE IT COMES!' so I ran out to the barn and I was right there when he was born … It was just like having one of my kids. I had been there for a long time and I was so excited that he had nuts -- I just yelled it! It was such a great day, just a total dream come true."
He looked just like his father, and Marjerrison said, and that was exactly what she wanted. Now nearly twelve years later her stud, Chief Smokin Jet, or Chief, is the cornerstone of Diamond T Diamond Paints. However, things have changed since he came into the world.
"I have a camera set up in the stall that we watch, so I get to see the mare foal every time," she said. "We all get to come out when the baby's born."
Marjerrison says that if she could make enough money, she'd leave nursing and raise horses exclusively. While she admits that some people don't like tri-colored horses, she thinks there's none better.
"I think everybody is different. Some people don't like paints at all, some people are only into quarter horse, plain colored… like that bay gelding back there," Marjerrison said. "To me it's like buying a fancy car 'cause that's what I like. I mean how much prettier do they get than that -- well my horse."
A project by the University of Montana School of Journalism