“When I meet Matt, he shows me one of their new hay barns. The old one caught fire earlier this year. The school bus driver saw the fire and radioed for the fire department. But by the time Matt got there, he was only able to save a few pieces of equipment. The barn and hay were a total loss. Matt’s insurance for replacement of the way was at last year’s normal hay price. This year, however, a Read More …
“It’s cold. I mean really cold, the kind of temperature where my nose hairs freeze as soon as I step outdoors. It’s minus twenty degrees this morning on the Circle Bar Ranch. I am thankful that it’s a perfectly calm day, one of the few days of the year when the wind isn’t blowing here in Wyoming. I have done a fair amount of winter camping, so I know how to dress for this kind of cold, but Read More …
June 24, 2014 Dear Mr. Dittmer, After reading Mike Callicrate’s article about you in the OCM newsletter, I feel compelled to respond to your recent blog about me and the good hardworking employees at GIPSA that I was honored to lead. Two old sayings come to mind when dealing with you. First is “a wise man has something to say and a fool just has to say something”. The other is that “some people would rather climb a Read More …
“The ranch was established just over a half-century ago when Charlie and Della Van Norman bought a small homestead called “The Smith Place” near Tuscarora. Charlie had just returned from duty in Europe during World War II, where he served as a decorated captain under the famous General George Patton. Charlie and Della bought two mares and began breeding touch, athletic quarter horses in the 1950s. Sons Bill and Rob followed in the couple’s footsteps, taking over the Read More …
“John Hardison Redd freed his slaves in 1850 and moved from his Tennessee plantation to the Salt Lake Valley in Utah. His son, Lemuel, married two wives and eventually had twenty children. He left both families in the town of New Harmoney and joined a Mormon mission group traveling to establish a community called Bluff. This party of 70 families, 400 horses and oxen, and 1,000 head of cattle incredibly trekked a virtually impossible route 150 miles across Read More …
“Dean established the ranch’s horse-breeding standards with ten athletic quarter horses that were gifts from his father. In 2000, the American Quarter Horse Association recognized Dean with a unique award for his 50 years of champion quality quarter horse breeding. The patience and perseverance of the Reeves family is seen in their son Tom, who consistently placed in the World Saddle Bronc Championship but never won throughout his seventeen years of competing. Showing a spirited determination, Tom finally Read More …
“Likely, California, population 200. The town may be small, but it’s even smaller from my airplane window, where miniature buildings and ant-sized vehicles continue to shrink with each dizzying foot we climb. I try to relax a white-knuckled grip on the arm of the passenger seat of John Flournoy’s vintage 1952 light plane. I laughed earlier when John asked if I was sure I wanted to go up to take aerial photographs of the ranch. “The last plane Read More …
“Geese, ducks, and other birds fill the streams and small ponds that we drive by. Passing a wheat field, we startle some pheasants on one side of the trail and sage grouse on the other. Richard prefers to use this ‘mule’ on many parts of the ranch since it is gentler on the land than his pickup. When I remark about the abundant wildlife, Richard mentions that Malheur Migratory Bird Refuge nearby, established in 1908 by President Theodore Read More …