Cows at the Sustainable Settings milking facility. Aspen Times file
Brook LeVan with horses at Sustainable Settings near Carbondale. Aspen Times file
Rose LeVan milking a cow at Sustainable Settings. Aspen Times file
Grower Michael Long at Sustanable Settings in 2018. Aspen Times file
In the dusty root cellar of an 1893 farmhouse south of Carbondale near Mount Sopris, Brook LeVan is showing me a cow horn stuffed with manure. The horn has been buried in a raised bed here in the subterranean storage room just tall enough for us to stand up in. To get here, the farmer, rancher, and owner of Sustainable Settings led me down a set of steep stairs through a hatch in the floor of his kitchen. One wall is made of wide stones the home’s original dry-stacked foundation.