August/September 2002

August/September2002

There is about as much money in writing articles in sheep magazines, as there is sitting and watching T.V. There are many rewarding factors however, that being the great letters I get and the people I meet. I’m sure writing is like speaking, the farther one gets away from home the better they are accepted. Most of the mail I get is from the western part of our country. I love their rugged land and the proud people who grind out a living in this wild and unpopulated country.

To make a long story short, I got a card from a Beverly Gibbs, who lives in Jordan, Montana, last Christmas. I was so touched that I answered her the following day, and we became pen pals, something that few people do in this day and age. I’m sure that we both were very curious about our life styles and how we manage to survive the tough life of farming and ranching. She invited me and my family to come visit them in Montana. Without ever seeing or talking to them, my wife Thelma and my granddaughter Kristi and I flew to Billings, Montana, July 25^th. Billings was a beautiful, modern, clean town of over one hundred thousand people. It is the biggest town in the state of Montana, and it seemed to be the main attraction for everyone. In fact, I think that they said that there were more people in their city than in the largest 16 counties. We rented a car and drove 200 miles to Jordan. The ranch was another 25 miles from there. Jordan is in the eastern part of Montana, known as the Bad Lands.

After re-reading my cynical, negative article in the August-September issue of the Suffolk News, I thought it best to lighten up before all of you get tired of my deep thinking. For you good people who live in Montana and other parts of the west, this article may not interest you, but I find it fascinating- a different world that I feel worth sharing with my readers in other parts of our great country.

I, of course, thought that these folks were in their late fifties or early sixties. Come to find out, they were in their forties, which was shocking to me. They had two sons; Jay was eighteen and Bill was twenty-one. Their sons, like most of the children in their territory had little interest in the ranch at this time, and I doubt that their families wanted them to stay. Their lives were just too tough and like so many farming operations back here, not enough money to go around. Jay was just out of high school and was going into the Air Force; Bill was in college and going to Australia for more college credits. There were eight boys and girls in Jay’s high school class. Their grade schools were nothing more than a modular home parked in a field where twelve kids attended the school.

The Gibbs were wonderful, giving people, and had our five days planned out almost to the hour. Not only were they great hosts, they were as well informed on all subjects, plus being almost articulate on everything that they did, as were all of the ranchers that we met. Beverly was a petite, cute lady and Pat looked like the cowboys that we see on our billboards advertising some product. Grass and water were their number one priorities, and they didn’t waste a blade of grass or a drop of rain. In fact, their annual rain fall was twelve inches. For hay, they planted barley hay, the more weeds in it the better. They knew the protein count of everything that grew, even the weeds, and you can be sure that they cut it at the proper time. I doubt that there was a tractor in eastern Montana that wasn’t close to twenty years old, the only new equipment were round balers. I would have hated to have been an equipment dealer; the nearest one was ninety miles away.

The most amazing part of all of this was that the sheep and cattle were almost fat. Their pasture was not eighty percent moisture like ours is. The grass and the weeds must have had more nutrition than ours because there wasn’t a lot of pasture. They could pasture ten cows and calves, maybe twelve at the best on a section of land which is six hundred forty-acres. They never talk about acres, it is always sections. The Gibbs had four hundred cows and a large flock of Columbia ewes, plus a small flock of Suffolk ewes. They leased a big ranch about ten miles from their home. Pat and expert horsemen drove these cows home the first of February and started calving during the middle of March. Pat said that he could do it in eight hours. He told about driving them one year when it was forty below zero. It took three men on horseback when they took the cows with their calves back in late April.

They have six great riding horses. When the boys were younger, they used to enter endurance contests with their horses, which was their hobby. This sport was very popular in Montana and it probably still is. The contests were between twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred miles long. Pat said that he had ridden a horse one hundred miles in twelve hours. They said that it took close to three years to get a horse ready for this treacherous event. They were very competitive people, especially Pat. I wouldn’t have challenged him in a competition with the best horse in the world, even if I was in the prime of my life.

Their sheep were kept close to home because of the coyote problem. One rancher with three thousand white-faced ewes had an airplane that he had been flying for forty years. They’d shoot the coyotes from the plane with a shotgun; a rifle wasn’t as good because they weren’t that good of marksmen. This ranch had two hundred sections of land and the rancher would check the sheep and cattle early each morning in his airplane. He said that their biggest predator was the bald eagle; these powerful birds would pick lambs up, fly high into the air and drop them just for the fun of it. Now, they lamb all of the ewes in a very modern sheep barn and won’t let them out until they are at least two weeks old. This has really helped the eagle problem. The rancher was probably sixty-five years old and was a brilliant, informed person who was a treat to be with.

They had a unique way of marketing their lambs and calves. There was a tough old fellow about my age who was filling orders for the feedlots in Colorado. One of the bigger ranchers had a small stockyard and scales back off of the road about three miles. The first morning that we were there, we rounded up the sheep with a motorcycle, a pick up truck, two dogs, and a four-wheeler. The Gibbs had a good corral and sorting pens. We quickly sorted out one hundred lambs, which average seventy-nine pounds, put them into two livestock trailers and took them up the road eight miles. We then drove three miles down the old trail where the stockyards were in a beautiful valley. There were five other ranchers, each with one hundred lambs. Each rancher’s lambs were weighted and put into pens.

There was a huge livestock truck that had four decks which held all of the lambs. They quickly loaded the six hundred lambs and the truck was on its way. The old buyer paid each rancher eighty cents per pound with no commission or shrink. I felt that this was a good deal, as did they. Many of their lambs were sired by Suffolk rams and would make great lambs to feed. I would have loved to have had fifty of our Shropshire and Suffolk rams there that day. I’m sure it would have been an easy sale. These people wanted good, thick, heavy-boned rams with a lot of capacity that could take the harsh conditions of the land.

After they finished, Mrs. Gibbs and another lady had coffee, cookies and donuts for us. We all sat around for an hour or more and had a great visit. I couldn’t help but think that these people didn’t have the stress that we have, or maybe they were used to the hard life and tough times that we livestock people face today.

The highlight of the trip for Kristi and I was helping them bring seventy-five replacement heifers up to their corral where they took out the three bulls and took the heifers down the street another mile to another pasture. These heifers were about four miles from the ranch. We finally found them in a very green valley with a fairly large stream running through the middle. It was a special sight; the stream was about eight feet wide and probably two feet deep. The water was clean enough to drink. I had not been on a horse for fifteen years, and Kristi had only ridden a little bit during college, but we soon caught on and felt like real cowboys. Their sons and two of their friends were also on horseback.

Everyone loved Kristi, and she seemed to be the main attraction. Pat and Beverly would have adopted her in a heartbeat; I told them no way, as she was Thelma’s and mine. These replacement heifers were Red Angus; they seemed to think that the red color helped the insect and fly problem. The heifers were like peas in a pod; they were fat and anyone could tell that they would be great brood cows. We couldn’t get over how tame and gentle their cattle and sheep were. One could tell that they had excellent care.

I could write a book about these amazing people; their livestock and the wonderful sights we saw, but to shorten things up I’ll list a few facts about them and Montana. Firstly, land was selling for $100 per acre, but they said that one couldn’t pay much over $50 and pay for it with cattle and sheep. Land was being purchased by investors. They thought that it was mainly for hunting. There were so many deer and antelope that you could have hit them with a stone. Second, the Gibbs have 75 miles of fence, maybe more and you could spend all of your time fixing fences. Third, the main country roads were fair, but most were nothing more than farm lanes, running through ranches. You had to open and close wire gates to get to different ranches.

Fourth, on many of the good country roads they had open range with cows and sheep in the roads. Fifth, there were still many old log cabins and stone cabins built in the early 1900s and still standing. These were all by streams; people would always build their homes close to water. Sixth, they purchased land for 10 cents an acre at that time. Seventh, Most of them eventually went broke trying to farm the land that they had purchased.

Eighth, property taxes are one dollar per acre now. Ninth, license plates for new pick-ups are $500; all are four- wheel drive. They drove trucks where I would be afraid to ride a horse. Tenth, few families have over two kids; the joke is that it’s too dry to produce children. Eleventh, every little berg or town had a bar or two, plus a place to gamble. Twelfth, the only movie theater was eighty-three miles away, plus they got mail every three days. I asked Pat and Beverly if a person that wasn’t born in the Bad Lands could make a living there. They didn’t say that one couldn’t, but I knew that they didn’t think so.

Last but not least, these two wonderful people had a special marriage; they loved each other, the land and their livestock. They were amazing parents and they did everything together.

Hey- like I said, I could write a book on Montana and the great people. If I was twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or sixty I’d be gone in a heartbeat and join them. I always wanted to be a cowboy.