SEEMS TO BE DISAPPEARING

[BEN PASCOE]

SEEMS TO ME EVERYWHERE I TURN I SEE A NEW HOUSE, NEW PAVEMENT,THE OLD SIMPLE WAY OF LIFE IS REALLY HARD TO FIND ANYMORE. GREAT CATTLE COUNTRY IN AZ ?? THERE WAS AND STILL IS BUT DEVELOPMENT IS ENCROCHING ON EVERY CORNER. IT IS JUST SAD TO SEE IT GO. HARD AS HELL TO FIND A JOB PUNCHIN COWS AROUND HERE ANY MORE. WHEN YOU ARE BORN AND RAISED ON THE DESERT RUNNING CATTLE, CATCHIN WILD CATTLE AND ALL THESE NEW DEVOLPMENTS POPPING UP THEN WHAT???

 

[sw]

Ben P,
You should see what we had to drive through today in good old Bozeman MT. Makes me sick, what used to be pastures and hay fields are condos and malls, it is now the environmental capital of the west and those tree hugging bunny huggers think our cows do more harm than their thousands of wells and septic systems, roads, and carving out their peice of heaven on a mountain side. Do this several times a year but today with the green grass which we have not seen for awhile, it was even more sickening.
Glad to see you on :!:

 

[Faster horses]

sw, we totally agree.

We are from Buffalo, Wyoming and the same thing has happened in that area. We were just there for Memorial Day and that beautiful country from Sheridan to Gillette along the foothills of the mountains, is just house after house. My husband says they have just junked up the countryside. We don't even like to go back because of this.

We have family that owns land at the foot of the Big Horns, going up Crazy Woman Canyon. A beautiful, majestic canyon, now filling up with million dollar plus homes. Our cousin says it is all to impress someone, and "WE AIN'T IMPRESSED." He says if they are nice enough people, you still can't talk to them. They talk about travel and going here and there. Nothing like the life we live. Some of those people don't even live in those houses except a couple of months out of the year. But they sure keep the gates locked and want no cattle on their property. Horses, maybe, but NO COWS.

 

[Jinglebob]

Same thing is happening in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I guess it's hard to tell someone they can't have their lifes dream if they got the money to spend, but it don't seem to bother the enirowacko's.

I read an article about 25 to 30 years ago that stated "if you are ranching in country that is considered to be beautiful by most, be prepared to move out, as people will be moving in to live there." I didn't think we had to worry, but I'm starting to wonder. We are out on the plains and it's pretty country, but not mountainous (sp) and there isn't much of a way for anyone to make a living here and we do have some rough winters and poor roads, as considered by most.

Ben,
Hang in there, and look around. There must be somewhere you can go to follow your chosen trade. You may have to make a few changes and/or go to a different area, but we of the "cow clan" have had to adjust for years and we are still here and I don't think they will ever totally remove us. They need us to maintain their "wild places"! :lol:

 

[Faster horses]

JB, wish I had read that article 25 or 30 years ago. How do you suppose the author knew that? That kind of stuff fascinates the heck out of me.

When folks came to hunt, the wives were usually anxious to get back to 'civilization' and usually what mama wants, mamma gets. So I didn't think our country (Wyoming, at the time) would ever catch on due to the women folk.


What is your opinion. Why did it happen? I have an opinion of sorts, but don't know if I am even close.

 

[Jinglebob]

I think it mostly came about because of this thing we are using, the internet!

That and the fact that we have more disposable income.

People can come in who have made a good living elsewhere and our land costs and housing cost are so much below the rest of the populated country.

Many who come have roots to the land somehow and moved to the city to make their money and now come here to retire.

Most of the people who are moving into the Black Hills are from Colorado or California.

Many are building "summer" homes. There concept of money is so far removed from ours. We've lived cheap out here in the sticks for so long. What we consider average or slightly wealthy, most consider poor.

Most farmers and ranchers are considered on the bottom of the poverty level, by most of the rest of the populated country.

 

[ranchwife]

YUP!!!! :wink: I agree, sw....good old bozo went from agriculture capital to "greenie/granola" capital of montana in just a matter of a few years....Hell, no wonder they lost the college national finals rodeo!! :roll: More vegetarian/tree hugger types just a stones throw from our place than anywhere else in the state! Makes me sick to watch all that fertile, black, rich land being dug up for condos/real estate agency/financial institutions and car dealerships!! Unfortunately, more and more of those same folk are rolling over our way....the family ranch around here is becoming an endangered species and being taken over the by the real estate brokers who only want to sub-divide and make a buck!

 

[BEN PASCOE]

Glad to see other people agree, there are so many things changing here it would make a grown man cry. The ranching industry has many a battle to fight, from the BLM saying no grazing on state land untill we have three years good rain, ( in a row). Yeah, this IS Arizona after all, the enviro-nuts stating that cattle grazing will be harmful to what ever that weird-looking bird is to the border crossers tearing up fence line and breaking floats, tearin up water tanks, pipes, ect.

There was more feed due to the extra rain we have got, all over!! I do not know of one cow turned out in this area. Why hasnt anyone turned anything out this season? Where are the cattle?? Oh I see lots....in feed lots!

 

[Maple Leaf Angus]

YUP!!!! :wink: over our way....the family ranch around here is becoming an endangered species and being taken over the by the real estate brokers who only want to sub-divide and make a buck!

Here in Ontario we are faced with the same type of issue . . . the trouble starts when the transplanted city or town folk take exception to normal farming practices like planting or harvesting crop late at night . . . you see, it disturbs their sleep.

Many of them also seem to think that they are free to roam or drive ATV's over their neighbouring farmers land, but don't you dare set foot on their land. "What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine . . ."

A big contributing factor to good land being paved over is the very poor return on growing commodities. Why grow corn or beans at a loss if the developers want to make an urban-bordering landowner independently wealthy instantaneously?

Down around the city, the farmers have a saying that their best-paying crop rotation is no-till corn, no-till soys, no-till wheat, no-till asphalt.

Sad, but true.

 

[jackim]

Can anybody here tell me how -- in the olden days -- a cowboy roped a calf for branding?

Thanks so much.
Cowboy's daughter

 

[Anonymous]

YUP!!!! :wink: I agree, sw....good old bozo went from agriculture capital to "greenie/granola" capital of montana in just a matter of a few years....Hell, no wonder they lost the college national finals rodeo!! :roll: More vegetarian/tree hugger types just a stones throw from our place than anywhere else in the state! Makes me sick to watch all that fertile, black, rich land being dug up for condos/real estate agency/financial institutions and car dealerships!! Unfortunately, more and more of those same folk are rolling over our way....the family ranch around here is becoming an endangered species and being taken over the by the real estate brokers who only want to sub-divide and make a buck!

ranchwife-- You are right- I used to know all the places in the Gallatin Valley, but the last time I was there I was lost... Starting about 20 years ago many of the ranchs over there that sold out to the real estate people reinvested by buying places in eastern Montana- I can think of Rolling Rock Angus, Hinman Angus, Younkins right off the top of my head- several more... Now it is getting to where we are getting the out of staters, land investors, hunting preserve, mansion on a ranch- 2 horses and a dog type of people buying up lots of places over here too....

 

[ranchwife]

YUP!!!! :wink: I agree, sw....good old bozo went from agriculture capital to "greenie/granola" capital of montana in just a matter of a few years....Hell, no wonder they lost the college national finals rodeo!! :roll: More vegetarian/tree hugger types just a stones throw from our place than anywhere else in the state! Makes me sick to watch all that fertile, black, rich land being dug up for condos/real estate agency/financial institutions and car dealerships!! Unfortunately, more and more of those same folk are rolling over our way....the family ranch around here is becoming an endangered species and being taken over the by the real estate brokers who only want to sub-divide and make a buck!

ranchwife-- You are right- I used to know all the places in the Gallatin Valley, but the last time I was there I was lost... Starting about 20 years ago many of the ranchs over there that sold out to the real estate people reinvested by buying places in eastern Montana- I can think of Rolling Rock Angus, Hinman Angus, Younkins right off the top of my head- several more... Now it is getting to where we are getting the out of staters, land investors, hunting preserve, mansion on a ranch- 2 horses and a dog type of people buying up lots of places over here too....

am i the only person sickened by the ads in the papers for those quaint little "ranchettes".... a whole whuppin 1-5 acres....not even enough for a horse, cow and a good corgi :wink: millions of those darned things springing up all over the place...with their "mansions on a ranch"...how very sad

Maple Leaf Angus.....someone with their head on straight recently came up with a helpful little pamphlet to hand out to all "newbies" in the area warning them of the "nuisances" of rural living...ya know....mooing cattle that do not understand the dark means "quiet".....dirt roads that can and will wash out without warning.....dust being kicked up by tractors....the delicious aroma of manure in the heat....the distance one must travel to see a medical "specialist"....etc...will have to see about getting you a copy!! pretty good reading

 

[SASH]

There was a city fellow who moved out down the road from us awhile back. His septic backed up on him so he phoned the municipality (county) to fix it for him. He was quite P'O'd that they refused to fix it. He lasted about six months before he moved back to the city. :???:

 

[ranchwife]

There was a city fellow who moved out down the road from us awhile back. His septic backed up on him so he phoned the municipality (county) to fix it for him. He was quite P'O'd that they refused to fix it. He lasted about six months before he moved back to the city. :???:

is that really all i have to do to get rid of these new neighbors???!!! :shock: :shock: if i had only known it was that easy..... :wink:

 

[Chuckie]

i think a big part of the problem is easy money, want to"get away from it all", the beautiful country (at least in the summer) in the mountains, and there has to be someone to sell the property to these people right?

i can understand (to a point), a guy who's been losing $$ for years, getting an offer of (whatever--but a WHOLE lot more than he's ever gonna get out of it running stock cows), selling out. there has to be those kind, and they've surely been on the land a year or 2; they're your nieghbors, relations, usually in that kind of country: why aren't they being dissed for selling?

i understand, i think, where you guys are coming from, at least a little. but someone has to sell the land in the first place, and it's the 3rd-generation that's doing it. i would LOVE to not see those pukey homes going up in crazy woman--that is some AWESOME country (and it's fun for fishing )--but what to do? how to stop it?

AND--you all will be there LONG after those pukey homes (i can just imagine them..) are long gone. mother nature takes care...

i'm off the old soapbox :roll:

 

[Faster horses]

Hey, OT, those folks moved to E. Montana about 12 years ago, not twenty.

Time flies when you're having fun, huh? :wink:

Are you gonna answer that little lady's question about roping calves at branding?

 

[Northern Rancher]

Faster Horses are they building houses up along that old trail that goes up Crazy Woman canyon-I sure hope not we got stuck up there 4 or 5 years ago with my esteemed guide Earl Nimick lol.

 

[mrj]

JB, wish I had read that article 25 or 30 years ago. How do you suppose the author knew that? That kind of stuff fascinates the heck out of me.

When folks came to hunt, the wives were usually anxious to get back to 'civilization' and usually what mama wants, mamma gets. So I didn't think our country (Wyoming, at the time) would ever catch on due to the women folk.


What is your opinion. Why did it happen? I have an opinion of sorts, but don't know if I am even close.

FH, we knew a guy many years ago who said pretty much the same thing, and I think maybe it was professors in the college he attended were floating that idea. He became a school teacher, and believed we would live to see the day when even rural northern SD plains would be full of houses with commuters flying in to Minneapolis or cities further away to work, maybe just coming home for weekends was the scenario, as I recall. Sadly, he died young and did not live to see it. Wonder about the rest of us? Doubt I will, being nearly 65, buy my children may.
While I don't like what it may do to ranching as we know it, I can, from the viewpont of those building on those "20 acre ranchettes" see why they want to badly to live like that. If I couldn't live on a reasonably remote ranch, that would be next best thing. I would have great difficulty enjoying life with a quarter acre or less for my "homestead".

MRJ
MRJ

 

[nr]

This problem isn't really new. It began in the east coast and continues- we see rich farmland go under to development every month and everyone groans.
But if we must place blame, then place it on the USA.
The USA has become a magnet because it has a stable government and is the land of opportunity. Despite what some nay-sayers would say about our problems, we're still attractive to immigrants because it is a wonderful country for those who want to work hard.

 

[Jinglebob]

Can anybody here tell me how -- in the olden days -- a cowboy roped a calf for branding?

Thanks so much.
Cowboy's daughter

I'm not sure if I understand what you want. But I will try to answer your question.

The oldtimers roped calves just as we do today. By the neck or the hind feet, depending on where you were at and what you wanted to achieve.

Check out the pictures in "Before Barbed Wire" by LA Huffman.

Usually, the bigger calves were/are roped by the heels in the high Plains states. Tho' there are exceptions.

In Texas many/most calves are roped around the neck for branding. If the ground is rough, a calf roped by the neck and brought to the fire, doesn't get the hair knocked off as easy. Bigger calves are easier to handle if roped by the hind feet. In California and in the "buckaroo" regions, the calves are roped around the neck and the heels and afte they are layed down on the ground, the rope is taken off from the neck and put around the front feet and both ropes are held by horses. Every method might be used at any branding.

At the majority of brandings in the northern plains, the calves are roped by the heels and drug out to "wrestlers" who take the rope off and hold the calf on the ground for the branding and vaccinating and any other work that needs to be done.

Hope this answers your question.