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Doing without

Cowpuncher

Well-known member
I was born in 1937 during the great depression. We didn't have much, except always ate good because we had a ranch with a garden, milk cows, pigs and chickens.

I grew up without indoor plumbing, electricity or central heat. I started helping with the ranch chores at age 8. We had no tractor and farmed only with horses.

Of course, we had no medical insurance, but 4 of the 5 kids got to be 18 years old without ever seeing a doctor.

I graduated from high school in 1954 and enlisted in the Army. I was an infantryman on the East German Frontier when I was 17.


After discharge, I intended to return to the ranch and join my brother in running it. He was impossible to work with.

After an arguement, I got into the car, drove to Boulder, Colorado and enrolled at the University of Colorado. Got married so had to work, too.
Graduated in 1961.

Went to work for big oil as an accountant. We continued our frugal ways, loosening up with the cash as our income increased. Stayed with Big Oil until I was 49 and retired, with no intention of working for anyone else. Built the house we are living in today.

Looking for something to do, ended up buying a ranch in Eastern Colorado, which we still have. It had about 350 cows on it when we bought it in 1994 and now has over 750.

The point of all this is that America is the place of opportunity. By taking opportunities and getting an education, we have gone from a very poor beginning to having anything we want or need..

People who claim to be victims of circumstances have the opportunity to climb out of poverty and be as good as they want to be.
 

BBJ

Well-known member
I wish more people could hear your story. I know it's a stretch but why doesn't the media tell story's like that? (I know why :wink: )


You should be very proud of yourself, it might not count for much but I am proud of you. GREAT JOB.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
"...as good as they want to be." That says a mouthful.

The defuct contractor we had that left town with $30,000 of other peoples money (some of it ours) got sentenced last Tuesday. He got 5 years suspended sentence on the condition that he make restitution. He is on parole and if he doesn't make restitiution he goes to the pen. We also found out he is $25,000 behind on child support to two different familes.

I went for the sentencing and there he sat. Big, good looking guy with his life in total disarray. It made me feel so bad inside at what he should have been; what he could have been. He is about 38 years old. Can do really good work and he is just a bum. I don't think he will be able to work to make the restitiution. He has no work ethic. Smooth talker for sure. The parole officer made a recommendation that he work for a contractor instead of being self-employed so he didn't handle money. The court didn't make that part of his sentence, however. He is not to charge materials for any job and collect the money for materials. They figured working for a contracter he was capable of making $80,000/year. Now why would you not choose to do that and get yourself out of the mess you are in?

Our life is filled with choices and so many choose wrong.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Faster horses said:
". We also found out he is $25,000 behind on child support to two different familes.

They figured working for a contracter he was capable of making $80,000/year. Now why would you not choose to do that and get yourself out of the mess you are in?

.

You may have just answered your own question...Many of these child support avoiders don't want to work for a business or wage- where the court can automatically remove the child support...Instead working on their own they can "hide" much more income and its tougher to collect...

Some I know have quit good jobs just to spite the ex and/or the court......
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
Interesting, OT. Thanks. And you know I give you much of the credit for catching this guy in the first place. Without you, he'd still be doing what he seems to do best.
 

Jinglebob

Well-known member
Cowpuncher said:
I was born in 1937 during the great depression. We didn't have much, except always ate good because we had a ranch with a garden, milk cows, pigs and chickens.

I grew up without indoor plumbing, electricity or central heat. I started helping with the ranch chores at age 8. We had no tractor and farmed only with horses.

Of course, we had no medical insurance, but 4 of the 5 kids got to be 18 years old without ever seeing a doctor.

I graduated from high school in 1954 and enlisted in the Army. I was an infantryman on the East German Frontier when I was 17.


After discharge, I intended to return to the ranch and join my brother in running it. He was impossible to work with.

After an arguement, I got into the car, drove to Boulder, Colorado and enrolled at the University of Colorado. Got married so had to work, too.
Graduated in 1961.

Went to work for big oil as an accountant. We continued our frugal ways, loosening up with the cash as our income increased. Stayed with Big Oil until I was 49 and retired, with no intention of working for anyone else. Built the house we are living in today.

Looking for something to do, ended up buying a ranch in Eastern Colorado, which we still have. It had about 350 cows on it when we bought it in 1994 and now has over 750.

The point of all this is that America is the place of opportunity. By taking opportunities and getting an education, we have gone from a very poor beginning to having anything we want or need..

People who claim to be victims of circumstances have the opportunity to climb out of poverty and be as good as they want to be.

Sounds similar to my father and mothers story.

Both born in 1914. Both went thru the depression. Dad quit school at the end of 8th grade to stay home and help his father. Mom remembered cooking potato's in a skillet so big she couldn't lift it, at age 7. Her father died that year and left a wife with 11 children, but most of the son's were older and they all moved home and pitched in to help their family. Mom's brothers started a construction company and built the first road thru' boulder canyon, between Sturgis and Deadwoood. Mom helped cook an d clean for the crew and iron all of her brotyhers white shirts as they thought they ought to have a clean one everyday. When she was a little older she cleaned officers houses at Ft Meade at a very young age. Mom went on and got her teachers certificate. Dad graduated from the school of hard knocks.

When Mom and Dad moved to Michiagan City Indiana, in 1941 so dad could work in the army effort welding tanks together, Mom drove herself from here, to there. She had a lady who rode along and payed for the gas as far as the Twin Cities. Mom was afraid of running out of money, so ate 1 bowl of soup a day. Her only meal. She made it out there and they made a go of it. They moved back to the place when Grampa was ready to quit in 1950. They raised us in a lot better, ecomomy, then they grew up in and we were all basicly spoiled as we always had food and clothes and everything we really needed. Oh and chores! :wink: I loved them and the life I was raised in and the one I still live now. Money isn't everything, but it sure helps to pay the bills. :lol:

I was always trying to get Mom to write down her and Dads life story as I thought it was very interesting and all the history that they lived thru'. "Oh, we never did anything worth writing about" was always her reply. Like hell! Sure wish she would have done it. :cry:
 

Cal

Well-known member
What a great post Cowpuncher! Too bad their are so many whiners and blamers who just won't understand or appreciate how YOU made it happen.
 

Soapweed

Well-known member
Very good post, Cowpuncher.

Here are a few axioms to live by from the book "1001 SMARTEST THINGS EVER SAID" Edited and with an Introduction by Steven D. Price:

"The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it." ~John Ruskin~

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." ~Henry David Thoreau~

"The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them." ~Robert Frost~

"Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises." ~Demosthenes~

"Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes." ~John Dewey~

"Luck is the residue of design." ~Branch Rickey~

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. ~Calvin Coolidge~
 

Tap

Well-known member
I am sure glad I stumbled over here to the Political page Cowpuncher. You are inspiring! You made it sound like you bought your present ranch out of boredom, but I bet you are the type of person who has drive, and likes a challenge. No wonder they call yours "the greatest generation".

On our ranch here, we are taking some risks (or better yet, an opportunity) and adding some acres to our ranch. We are doing some land trading to hopefully make a better, easier operating business. It is scary at the same time to delve into it, but I agree with you that is what the american spirit is all about. Hope it works.

You add a lot to ranchers.net Cowpuncher.
 

CattleRMe

Well-known member
I'm just curious what the land value was compared to land value now when you bought your place? When my grandparents passed away in 88 land value was $99 and now that same land is valued at $300. Big difference in getting a start ............
 

Cowpuncher

Well-known member
Oh, those land values!!

The place where I grew up, the one I walked away from so many years ago. My father bought it out of foreclosure in 1937. Paid $10,000 for 1520 acres or $6.58 per acre. Brother just signed a contract last week to sell it for $3,000 per acre. He wasn't much of a rancher or farmer, but 40 years of muddling really paid off.

Our current ranch in Cheyenne County, Colorado. We bought it in 1994 for about $90.00 per acre. This was an old-time ranch founded in 1883 and it had been plowed up for wheat land. Drought wiped our the wheat idea. John Hancock insurance had foreclosed their loan on it. They spent a lot of money returning it to ranchland and had a lot of land in CRP.

John Hancock had signed a very bad lease on the farmland. They rented it out for cash - $85,000 annually. The farmers collected $158,000 in CRP payments annually and had 2600 acres of farmland with no rental. It wasn't easy to live through the end of their lease, but we did it.

There was another similar ranch nearby for sale at the same time. It was $1,500,000 for 20,000 acres or $75.00 per acre. It was in foreclosure by the Production Credit Assoc. of Texas.

We have bought land adjacent to the ranch in the past few years at prices from $100 to $234.00 per acre. These were mainly smaller parcels within the ranch and we bought them out of estates as people checked out. I guess most grazing land in the area is selling for about $225.00 per acre, and I don't think that would work out, even with high cattle prices.


Good ranches are harder to find now and they cost more. I guess if I was 25 years younger and wanted to buy a ranch, I would go to Farm Credit and see if they were aware of any foreclosures. Also insurance companies end up with foreclosure properties. Will definitely take time - we looked a couple of years before finding our ranch.


Before we bought our current ranch, I heard of a 14,000 acre ranch in foreclosure a lot closer to civilization. It was owned by Travelers Insurance, again a foreclosure deal and they wanted $130 an acre for it. It had a couple of section with trees. I could of bought it and sold the treed land for enough to pay for the whole place. They even accepted my offer on December 26th with the condition it had to be closed by year end- fat chance of doing anything quick at that time of year.

There is a neighboring property of about 40,000 acres now leased for $4.50 per acres. The owner allows the tenant to run 1,000 pairs. It is grass and cake country and that pencils out, but I doubt the absentee owners would sell for less than $150. Even that is a lot of money.
But with current beef prices, the rental deal makes sense if it is a long term lease.

Some say buying out of foreclosure is taking advantage os someone else's misfortunes. I guess I think people make their own good or bad fortune.
 

Tap

Well-known member
Yes, land prices have even gone crazy in our remote part of the world. We are about sixty miles north of the Black Hills, kind of in the middle of nothing, but people seem to be finding us. A ranch a few miles west of me here, that runs on some National Forest, but the deeded is mostly open country, sold for well over 400 an acre. This same ranch could have been purchased in the late 80's for somewhere in the 50-60 dollar range/ac.

In those days, there was not a big difference in price between the "pretty" ranches, and just good rangeland. Now there may be twice the price on the pretty ranches. I cannot see that trend changing much, as the buyers for those ranches are usually from out of the area, and they think it is still cheap.

I think the future is going to be in leasing land for those wanting to run a few more head of livestock.
 

CattleRMe

Well-known member
I think you are right about the leasing.

Around here the big guys come in and buy it up. We have Ted Turner, the owner of the 4th largest feedlot in the state of Nebraska, and Coloradians to contend with. Some guys we know north of Ashby Nebraska who have been in the country down there forever. Said a couple years ago they were gonna have to go introduce themselves at brandings that year. Most of the original neighbors had sold out.
 

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