A great weekend at the ranch
This weekend my wife, Marie, and I traveled from our home in Provo, Utah to our ranch in southwest Montana. When we say "ranch" we mean, as Merriam-Webster and the Cambridge dictionaries have defined a "ranch" or "rancho" (Mexican-Spanish derivition) i.e. "a piece of land and its buildings used to grow crops or raise livestock" or "a very large farm on which animals are kept, especially in North or South America". Too many real estate and dude ranch people have prostituted the name and meaning of a "ranch". On our Montana ranch we "grow crops and [or] raise livestock". As you read this BLOG if you relate to ranches that are gated estates, dude only (e.g. no cows) ranches, former real ranches that have been subdivided, Llama farms, etc., then you will not relate to this BLOG. We are the "real deal" when it comes to cattle ranching. Our ranch is comprised of approximately 7,500 acreas of deeded acres, 10,000 acres of U.S. Forest grazing leases; 9,000 acres of BLM lands, and 1,200 acres of State of Montana grazing leases. We run at any give time 500 Pairs (Cow and Calves), plus Bulls (approximately 1 Bull per Cow), and 15 ranch horses, including two Percheron draft horses. Our "crop" consists of naturally raised (e.g. no antibotics and only natural feed and supplements) beef.
Now that we have qualified our "ranch" and our audience, back to this marvaleous weekend we had at the ranch. We brought along this weekend our eldest son, Matt, and his wife Sabine ("Bine"), and their 9-month old daughter Lisa. We purchased the ranch while Matt was a missionary in southern Brazil (and enjoying eating their excellent beef). Upon Matt's return from his mission he came to the ranch to wrangle. During that summer we had hired a young lady from Hemhofen, Bavaria, Germany to also wrangle at the ranch. Matt got the assignment to pick Bine up at the Butte airport (Frankfurt to Butte!). Matt and Bine soon fell in love, got married, Matt completed his MBA at Cambridge University in England, and they returned home to work in technology in Utah and start their family.
Speaking of our family, our eldest daughter is Kristyn who is married to Nick Efstratis. They live in Salt Lake City where Nick is a partner in a venture capital firm. They spend a lot of time raising two of our other precious grandchildren. Nick and Kristyn, along with our youngest son, Marc, were pioneers at the ranch. Following our purchase of the ranch in the mid 1990s Kristyn, Nick, Marc and one of our nephews, Paul Duncan, all lived and worked a summer at the ranch. They are responsible for much of the infrastructure of LakeSide, our guest area (more on this later).
Our third child, Michael, lost his life in a tragic accident at the age of five. We think that he may take care of the ranch when we are not there. He would have loved the ranch.
Our next child is Allison, who is married to Marriott Murdock. Ali and Marriott were able to spend a summer at the ranch (a kind of sabbatical for our children). Marriott is currently a student at the University of Utah and Ali works with her family and Marriott's family in businesses in Utah.
Marc, our youngest, was married to Lindsay McRae in 2005. Marc has spent the most time at the ranch. He can tell you of the quality adventure of checking and repairing some of our seventy miles of fencing on the ranch. Marc can tell us of the rich experience of loneness with nature and wildlife while working fences on our U.S. Forest and BLM lands.
As our family came to enjoy RanchLife, we thought that we would share this life with others who share our interest in RanchLife. We began hosting guests in 1997 and will host hundreds of guests per summer this summer. Our RanchLife appeals to some of the nicest people in the world........people who share our love of cattle ranching in Montana. We also like to inform our guests of what we strive to do to be good stewards of the land. We teach them every aspect of ranching in the West. Our ranch web site is at http://www.ranchlife.com.
My objective in this BLOG is to give our readers a glimpse of RanchLife. To share with you experiences and adventures that our family, ranch staff, and guests have at the ranch. We will do our small part to help inform readers of what a real working cattle ranch is all about.
This weekend Matt and I decided to do some spotting of elk near Bachelor Mountain, where approximately 300 elk graze during January and February. We drove from our family home (RanchView) near the headquarters of our ranch to Lower Horse Prairie Ranch (LHPR) about 3 miles from our RanchView home. We parked the pick up and started hiking towards Bachelor Mountain. We saw some of the elk crossing the Bachelor Mountain Road in the dark of the early morning so we knew that they were migrating toward Bachelor Mountain. We hiked up ravines and draws to maintain our cover. Of course, we make sure that we were downwind from the elk. Soon, we saw about 8 head, among whom there were three very large Bulls, on the foothills of Bachelor Mountain. Then, as we were scoping the small herd of 8 we saw a lot more moving up another ridge toward the top of the mountain. We had to hurry for a meeting with our ranch manager, Urs Schmidlin (more on Urs later) so I gave Matt the binoculars and told him to hike on toward the larger herd of elk and I would go and get the pick up and meet him on Bachelor Mountain Road on my way back to RanchView.
I soon picked up Matt and he was excited that he had seen the larger herd. It's quite a thrill to see the silhoutte of a large rack against a clear morning sky as a Bull makes his way along a ridge. It was breathtaking. What a way to greet sunrise!
In meetings this weekend I dealt with water rights, ranch improvements (e.g. jackleg fencing of riparian areas, the planning of additional stock tanks), and planning for our flegling outfitter business, which has so much potential. I love every aspect of RanchLife. It is an entrepreneur's dream diversion. Unfortunately, because I founded another technology company, I am an "absentee" ranch owner. In other words, I do not live and work full time on the ranch. My wife, Marie, does during the summer months as she manages, with Urs, our guest operation. Marie was the pioneeer of the guest operation. She has a natural talent for hosting and has developed a world-class summer guest operation, with nearly seventy percent of our guests repeat guests. She has been amazing. I have put a lot of miles on my pickup truck during the past nearly 10 summers and have loved every minute of seeing and supporting Marie's efforts with our guest operation.
We have two other incredibly key people at the ranch. Elias Cervantes has lived on the ranch the longest of any of us. Elias started working at the HPR in the early 1990s. Elias is married to Maria and they have two daughters (AnnaMaria and Marianna) and one son, Rudolpho. Elais is the farm boss, responsible for irrigation, building jackleg fences, haying, stacking and feeding the hay, and many other key jobs on the ranch.
The next key person at the ranch is Urs Schmidlin from Lucerne, Switzerland. In 1997 I asked Urs, then a young cowboy with limited ranching experience, if he would be manager of the HPR. Urs said that he could do it so I brought him on. He has, for now nearly 10 years managed the HPR like a Swiss watch! He is the best............at everything. Urs is married to Laurie and they have one girl (Alison) and three boys: Jared, Bryan, and David. They are a wonderful ranch family.
My dream of owning a working ranch in Montana started fifty years ago when Dad took us on a vaction from our home in Joseph City, Arizona to Montana. I was eight years old when, after leaving Idaho Falls on I-15 travelling north over the Great Divide, I awoke, looked out the window somewhere between the Montana boarder and Dell, probably near Monida, and asked Dad where we were. Son, Dad responded, "that is Montana"! From then to today I cannot stop taking my eyes off Montana. It is such a beautiful state and we are so blessed to own and work on just a small portion of it in extreme southwest Montana. Every time I ascend and decend the Great Divide on my way to the ranch I think of that summer morning in 1956 when I first saw Montana.
Now that we have qualified our "ranch" and our audience, back to this marvaleous weekend we had at the ranch. We brought along this weekend our eldest son, Matt, and his wife Sabine ("Bine"), and their 9-month old daughter Lisa. We purchased the ranch while Matt was a missionary in southern Brazil (and enjoying eating their excellent beef). Upon Matt's return from his mission he came to the ranch to wrangle. During that summer we had hired a young lady from Hemhofen, Bavaria, Germany to also wrangle at the ranch. Matt got the assignment to pick Bine up at the Butte airport (Frankfurt to Butte!). Matt and Bine soon fell in love, got married, Matt completed his MBA at Cambridge University in England, and they returned home to work in technology in Utah and start their family.
Speaking of our family, our eldest daughter is Kristyn who is married to Nick Efstratis. They live in Salt Lake City where Nick is a partner in a venture capital firm. They spend a lot of time raising two of our other precious grandchildren. Nick and Kristyn, along with our youngest son, Marc, were pioneers at the ranch. Following our purchase of the ranch in the mid 1990s Kristyn, Nick, Marc and one of our nephews, Paul Duncan, all lived and worked a summer at the ranch. They are responsible for much of the infrastructure of LakeSide, our guest area (more on this later).
Our third child, Michael, lost his life in a tragic accident at the age of five. We think that he may take care of the ranch when we are not there. He would have loved the ranch.
Our next child is Allison, who is married to Marriott Murdock. Ali and Marriott were able to spend a summer at the ranch (a kind of sabbatical for our children). Marriott is currently a student at the University of Utah and Ali works with her family and Marriott's family in businesses in Utah.
Marc, our youngest, was married to Lindsay McRae in 2005. Marc has spent the most time at the ranch. He can tell you of the quality adventure of checking and repairing some of our seventy miles of fencing on the ranch. Marc can tell us of the rich experience of loneness with nature and wildlife while working fences on our U.S. Forest and BLM lands.
As our family came to enjoy RanchLife, we thought that we would share this life with others who share our interest in RanchLife. We began hosting guests in 1997 and will host hundreds of guests per summer this summer. Our RanchLife appeals to some of the nicest people in the world........people who share our love of cattle ranching in Montana. We also like to inform our guests of what we strive to do to be good stewards of the land. We teach them every aspect of ranching in the West. Our ranch web site is at http://www.ranchlife.com.
My objective in this BLOG is to give our readers a glimpse of RanchLife. To share with you experiences and adventures that our family, ranch staff, and guests have at the ranch. We will do our small part to help inform readers of what a real working cattle ranch is all about.
This weekend Matt and I decided to do some spotting of elk near Bachelor Mountain, where approximately 300 elk graze during January and February. We drove from our family home (RanchView) near the headquarters of our ranch to Lower Horse Prairie Ranch (LHPR) about 3 miles from our RanchView home. We parked the pick up and started hiking towards Bachelor Mountain. We saw some of the elk crossing the Bachelor Mountain Road in the dark of the early morning so we knew that they were migrating toward Bachelor Mountain. We hiked up ravines and draws to maintain our cover. Of course, we make sure that we were downwind from the elk. Soon, we saw about 8 head, among whom there were three very large Bulls, on the foothills of Bachelor Mountain. Then, as we were scoping the small herd of 8 we saw a lot more moving up another ridge toward the top of the mountain. We had to hurry for a meeting with our ranch manager, Urs Schmidlin (more on Urs later) so I gave Matt the binoculars and told him to hike on toward the larger herd of elk and I would go and get the pick up and meet him on Bachelor Mountain Road on my way back to RanchView.
I soon picked up Matt and he was excited that he had seen the larger herd. It's quite a thrill to see the silhoutte of a large rack against a clear morning sky as a Bull makes his way along a ridge. It was breathtaking. What a way to greet sunrise!
In meetings this weekend I dealt with water rights, ranch improvements (e.g. jackleg fencing of riparian areas, the planning of additional stock tanks), and planning for our flegling outfitter business, which has so much potential. I love every aspect of RanchLife. It is an entrepreneur's dream diversion. Unfortunately, because I founded another technology company, I am an "absentee" ranch owner. In other words, I do not live and work full time on the ranch. My wife, Marie, does during the summer months as she manages, with Urs, our guest operation. Marie was the pioneeer of the guest operation. She has a natural talent for hosting and has developed a world-class summer guest operation, with nearly seventy percent of our guests repeat guests. She has been amazing. I have put a lot of miles on my pickup truck during the past nearly 10 summers and have loved every minute of seeing and supporting Marie's efforts with our guest operation.
We have two other incredibly key people at the ranch. Elias Cervantes has lived on the ranch the longest of any of us. Elias started working at the HPR in the early 1990s. Elias is married to Maria and they have two daughters (AnnaMaria and Marianna) and one son, Rudolpho. Elais is the farm boss, responsible for irrigation, building jackleg fences, haying, stacking and feeding the hay, and many other key jobs on the ranch.
The next key person at the ranch is Urs Schmidlin from Lucerne, Switzerland. In 1997 I asked Urs, then a young cowboy with limited ranching experience, if he would be manager of the HPR. Urs said that he could do it so I brought him on. He has, for now nearly 10 years managed the HPR like a Swiss watch! He is the best............at everything. Urs is married to Laurie and they have one girl (Alison) and three boys: Jared, Bryan, and David. They are a wonderful ranch family.
My dream of owning a working ranch in Montana started fifty years ago when Dad took us on a vaction from our home in Joseph City, Arizona to Montana. I was eight years old when, after leaving Idaho Falls on I-15 travelling north over the Great Divide, I awoke, looked out the window somewhere between the Montana boarder and Dell, probably near Monida, and asked Dad where we were. Son, Dad responded, "that is Montana"! From then to today I cannot stop taking my eyes off Montana. It is such a beautiful state and we are so blessed to own and work on just a small portion of it in extreme southwest Montana. Every time I ascend and decend the Great Divide on my way to the ranch I think of that summer morning in 1956 when I first saw Montana.
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