Dave Perry – Faith, Grit, and Passion: Building Perry Cattle Company

and within a one year period, I had moved my wife and two little girls five times.

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Hey there and welcome to From the Ground Up Show, the show where we encourage and inspire the next generation of free thinking leaders by telling the stories of those that have

been there, done that, and are still getting it done, building a life that they love with their hearts, their hands, and their hustle.

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Today, I am really excited.

I am joined in the studio by Dave Perry.

Dave is our first guest in the agricultural space.

He has spent his career and really his entire life building and running the Perry Cattle Company in Arvada, Wyoming.

Dave is a father, a husband and a follower of Jesus.

So, Dave, thanks for joining us.

If you want to snag some new from the ground up show merchandise, coffee cups, sweatshirts, hats, whatever you want, we have it there.

Check out our online store at shop.fromthegroundupshow.com.

You bet.

So I already get to correct you.

It's in Claremont, not Arvada.

That's a big deal down there.

is.

A couple miles difference makes a big difference.

anyway, glad to be here.

We'll see how she goes.

All right.

Well, we like to start off every show just getting to know you a little bit.

Can you tell us a little bit about your life growing up?

My dad was always in the ranch.

He was a ranch hand.

And I mean, it was tough for...

monetarily but us I have two brothers and we grew up and dad worked for all several different outfits before he became a foreman but during all them other previous years even

though it was tough us boys never felt it we never felt like we were short on anything we lived off a wild game mostly but three boys you got you got to keep something in front of

them all the time but anyway so I've been

exposed to ranching all my life, grew up that way.

And dad, when he became a manager, it was actually with a man that he had trained that had come out here from the East.

And he worked on dad's place, or the place dad was managing in Big Horn uh with him.

And then after he decided he loved the ranching in the country so much that he moved here from New York and he ended up buying a ranch.

And he got dad to manage it down on the, on the power river.

So that's when we moved down there and I went to high school and whatnot down there and, kind of went from there.

And so it was, it was a, it was a good move.

We was down there and, and, and the man was Charlie Whiten.

And, and, uh, he was very good at letting us expand.

He encouraged us to do what.

We wanted to, and so we got to run a few cows as kids and whatnot in high school and kind of got a little herd started and had a few horses because we was passionate about roping.

But went to college and I decided I was going to be a veterinarian because well, I didn't think there was any way I could get in the ranching business without just being a ranch

hand.

or a manager like dad, if you worked your way up, but I decided, nah, didn't want to really do that that way.

But, uh, got through the three years of pre-vet and worked for a vet for summer.

And I should have did that first.

Cause then I discovered I didn't want to be a vet.

It was not, it was, you had to deal too much with people.

had to do with,

small pets and stuff and that's where the money was.

And it was like, I didn't want to do that.

So that was, so I went ahead and went back to college was fourth year and thought, well, I'll get some kind of degree.

I, but it was like, I went a half year and then my brother came to me, Mike and said, why don't we go to Arizona and rope?

I said, that's a lot better idea.

haven't this college is so to my, to my mother's.

dismay, I went three and a half years and didn't get a degree.

So, but I had no idea what I would go in that would, that would help me to do it.

anyway, so we, and, roping was a passion for us.

I was under no illusion.

That was something where some way that I wanted to make a living.

was still wanted to be.

in the agriculture in a ranching business.

were a step above most cowboys.

Well, I mean, we loved roping.

mean, was, in fact, I joke when somebody said, how did you find a wife that put up with you guys going roping?

said, I took her to the worst arena in Wyoming.

And if she wasn't smiling when we came back, then that person wasn't.

m

for me that very selfish attitude on my part, but, but Carol passed the test and, and, uh, we got married in 81 and, and, uh, we was on, uh, it was right.

Actually, he had sold the place down.

Charlie had sold the place down at the powder river, uh, and had bought a place in Sheridan outside of big horn, right up against the mountains.

And we went there and so that's where Carol and I was and, and we stayed with, stayed with Charlie and like say he, he was very good about letting us expand and whatnot.

And he put up with some things that I look back on it and think that, well, if one of my hard men did that

crap to me, I'd probably fire them.

But anyway, he, he was very good and very encouraging and we ended up,

Increasing our cow herd up to 90 and we had to pay for the winter feed ourselves, but we didn't take any wages and but he provided the house and utilities.

So it was a way for us to get get some livestock paid for and kind of be ready in case something else changed, which it did in 1980.

Well, it was.

Let me back up there.

I was gonna say about the other one but in 86 It had the last couple years had been pretty tight and I didn't know what was happening with Charlie and I mean he had me I'd advanced

to the forming position, but he was I could see that he was struggling with the place and There's a very high dollar maintenance outfit

a lot of irrigating and when we was doing a lot of haying and anyway, I thought, I see the writing on the wall and I went to this seminar and a gentleman by the name of Alan Savory

had come over here from South Africa and him and another gentleman by the name of Stan Parsons had started this, they called it HRM, which was holistic resource management.

And basically they were, it was a ranching school.

And these guys had developed methods and had proven that the college ag departments that was at the time were wrong in the way that they wanted to manage grass.

And it was a whole issue of time and whatnot.

And they had time and time again been able to

Increase it substantially and sometimes up to double if not more of your of your carrying capacity Wow, so I thought well if Charlie does not stay in the ranching business I need

to know how to do this so that I can survive And so I I told him I said I'd like to have Have a week off.

I'm gonna go down to Albuquerque to this school.

I said and see about it.

Well, Charlie had seen some of it too and he said

I'm going to go with you.

said, okay.

Well, that was good.

Cause then he paid for it.

anyway, we went down there and, it changed both of us immensely because it not only was it on, on land management, was also people management and the finances tie in all that

together in a, in a big picture as, as opposed to, uh, just focusing on one area.

know, people

you get focused on just the people aspect of it, then you lose track of your finances or you get focused on just the finances and then you're there by yourself because people

don't want to hang around you.

So anyway, come back and he was also on fire and we sat down and he showed me his finances on the place.

and he was in a wreck.

It was not good and we brainstormed and actually my brother was also had went down with us and we just loaded up a suburban.

So we was brainstorming on what to do and it was come up with some different ideas and he had been doing a lot of haying and selling hay.

and it was a losing proposition.

mean, machinery was super expensive.

Hay was not that high.

It was wrong end of things.

And we calculated up what we could do with the cows.

And we ended up coming up with a plan where we was going to divide up the irrigated meadows.

had like, I don't know, there must have been 800 irrigated meadows there, I think.

And 800 acres of irrigated meadows.

And...

And plus he had some dry land and decided to push it to the max because he's in such a tough thing.

we went out and bought 800 cows and we was putting it on there.

Trouble is we had the metals in such good shape with the alfalfa that it was hard to manage it properly.

And we thought we had some, some anti-bloat things and stuff, but we didn't.

And we got in a heck of a wreck and we lost like 80 cows that summer and it was tough.

But that fall, the FDIC came in and shut down the bank that had his note.

So I don't know if you're familiar with what happens then, but most of the time they just foreclose on you.

But he had those cows and so he had the assets and we had a plan still.

Even though we'd lost those cows, it was still, this was hard for people to believe.

that fall we made more money with even with that massive loss, a 10 % loss is unheard of.

Unless you have something, but we made more money for the place than he did when he was selling hay.

And I mean, and that, and that looked good to the FDIC.

And I mean, we had to go through that whole next year.

They had control of everything.

I mean, you had.

your money automatically went to them.

what we I got the most intense ah financial planning I've ever and negotiating I've ever had in my life.

We was leasing grass from different people and by then we had the metal straightened out so we was able to get that kind of going too.

But we leased some grass and if we bought anything, always had to have them write it as a lien against us.

We actually had the paper that we had a lawyer write up for us so that when we sold any bunch of calves or anything, these guys would come in and the guy that we sold to had to

write a check to every one of them.

Otherwise, they could be out of money or...

I don't know if they'd ever get paid because it was operating out of Denver.

I mean, it was crazy.

Anyhow, was kind of a, like I say, that was a year and half of extreme intense thing.

And he got it all negotiated with them finally and pulled out of that.

And we went and had a good plan and everything was going pretty good.

And some other things had happened and-

he had some grass come up and we was working on that and go back for us.

Now I was all excited.

I was looking at it and I thought, I'm going to be able to expand here pretty good.

And then some big money came in and they really wanted that place.

And, Charlie thought I can get out of this and just retire.

So that's what he did in 1989.

And it was, it was a cause a lot of turmoil.

had, I had the cows.

mostly paid for.

I had a hundred head at that time and.

so we was able to survive on that and and then Carol was doing she had went uh and was teaching and that was a very helpful thing to keep us afloat.

That second check my uncle always said

Mary and a school teacher is a good idea.

Dave is like having a hundred head of cows paid for.

She didn't appreciate that at first, but afterwards she kind of understood it.

But so anyway, we, we, uh, after that point, we was.

I had a bunch of small leases around Big Horn.

don't know.

It's, it's, it's way chopped more chopped up than it is here in the Buffalo area.

So, I mean, I had, and I was getting by doing a lot of different things and, and, and making it work and.

that first year we had to move off the place.

Cause the other guys was coming in, of course, before that year was out

and

and within a one year period, I had moved my wife and two little girls five times.

she stayed married to me anyway, but it was, I mean, it was so we'd get into a place and that was for sale and they just wanted us and.

I mean, we had a rep.

Carol had a reputation keeping everything up.

And usually she fixed it up better than what it was when we moved in.

Well, Shucks, they'd sold in a month and then we was on our own again.

And anyway, we moved around there till we finally found a place over on crazy woman.

And, they at least that to us for six years.

So we felt like the guy.

when you're showing it to us and he says, well, how long are you guys thinking?

And my wife said, how about 50 years?

She was tired of moving.

but anyway, she, she quit teaching then.

And because she just wanted to be there as the kids down on crazy woman.

And we just kept building the cows trying to, it was pretty tight.

I mean, we wasn't getting that second income in and, but

we was doing good definitely not super flesh by any means but

I was increasing my asset in a slow manner.

we was getting them paid for and keeping ahead of the game.

And then we lost that lease and it got tough.

And I thought, well, I just need someplace to hang out.

I found another small lease that I could keep.

or two small leases, I could keep it on and kind of went in with my brother on some stuff he was doing very well.

uh

some friends of ours said because they in this trailer house that they had that they're hired man, they didn't have a hired man in it at all, I said.

And I said, I'll fix that trailer house up for you if I could just stay there for a while.

And they said, and if.

he said you can stay there, especially if you'd help us irrigate a little bit down here.

I said, no problem.

So that was, that was in the ah early spring and 90.

95 and

I was working for my brother, doing some things and must've been around the end of April.

think it was, I was out fencing and tipped a four wheeler over on me and broke my back.

Yeah.

And I, I spent three months in a turtle shell and house.

Obviously I didn't do any irrigating and, and, uh fortunately, well, my, my nephew was living with us.

was in high school and.

So he took care of the cows and stuff.

So we got through all that and got through there and friends that all forget about the reason it's no big deal.

You can just stay there.

They wasn't going do anything with the trailer house anyway.

And I was very thankful for that.

They was helping us out like that.

And so anyway, it was a, it was a kind of a tough thing.

then, and then, it must've been that fall.

They asked Carol if she would teach in Claremont.

And she, so she was teaching and that, got us actually, was, I said that wrong.

It was actually right before we moved into the trailer house.

We was still a crazy woman and she went and was teaching and she didn't want to teach.

She was loved at being with the girls, but, uh, so she got her resume ready and went over there and talked to them.

And they looked at her and said, well, what do you need from us?

crying because they just hired her because they wanted her backspend.

anyhow, uh, but that was fortunate because while I was laid up, we really, really needed that, uh, Income for certain.

anyway, we got to that and it was not, we was there for like four or five years and I did different leases.

I, I worked for a couple of different people and they let me run some cows and

it was always a

short term thing.

And so it was, it was pretty tight and we was pretty nervous about it.

And we kept trying to figure out a way to buy a place and we couldn't figure it out.

And then finally in, uh, uh, 2000 of one, we got things together and,

And made an offer on the place that we're on and my folks was getting ready to retire.

They had no place to go.

Uh, they had, they had a decent retirement that they had built up with, uh, the, through the last place that he was managed for, for, for 20 years or something.

was there and he said, and, so they had the money, but they didn't know what they wanted to do.

they decided, well, how about if we put a house on your place?

And I said, cause they, heard, I'd been talking to them and I didn't have enough down payment.

and they came up with some money.

And then I had two friends that came up with some money.

One of them wanted to just, she was retired and, and she just wanted to work on the place and maybe eventually put a house there or something.

And, then another person owns some money.

If you get in a deal like that and you.

you, uh, I needed to, I basically, what I did is I had to have enough money to get the down payment and get the note for one year.

And then the bank sees that your plan actually was what you said it was.

make your first payment, you can refinance it and then I could pay them people off.

Okay.

And which I did with two of them, mom and dad, they, they did end up moving on place.

So we just,

uh...

basically give them some land and uh...

put a house on there and went from there.

So anyway, so we've been there since 2001 and the whole process, my wife reminded me is that just like with the veterinary stuff, I didn't have a passion for that.

There was no way that was going to work.

But I've always had a passion for the ranching.

and, and you can stay in.

You can get a business going if you have the passion for it and are willing to.

I mean, we had to sacrifice quite a bit several times.

Oh, man.

And for not a short period of time.

Well, and that was married in 81 and you finally got your own place in 2001.

Yeah.

I mean, it was we had to work at it quite a while.

and and I this HRM.

they they actually became an organization and they have several teachers.

and so i would bring these teachers in and so that people could uh...

and they just have friends come ranchers whoever was interested i'd usually had around twenty people at a time and i don't know i did that like five times i think or six times

and and i always people different times there's always an excuse well it's hard to get into the ranch now

they said the interest rates are too high it cost 10 % to go to buy land

uh, and, and, to do anything.

and I said, Carol and I in 82 got our first 20 cows and.

We had to get a note for them and, we did at 22%.

Thank you, Jimmy Carter.

That was, I mean, that was in the eighties and that was, that was rough.

And I mean, so when they tell me, well, the interest rates are too high.

I can't do that.

Well, you aren't determined to do that.

I mean, just like, just like when I was talking about when we got, had to come up with the, the down payment for, for the notes and stuff.

We had to do that in order to, I mean, we had to get creative in order to get that done.

Yeah.

And, and all that time, from the time that Carol and I was married, we had

the one thing that the HRM school really taught me was to look outside the box.

Nothing is a bad idea till you can prove it's a bad idea.

You can't just assume just because.

dad didn't do it that way or your neighbors aren't doing it that way, that it's not a good idea.

That's good.

Nothing is a good idea until you can prove it's a bad idea.

Nothing is a bad idea until you can prove it's a bad idea.

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I mean, we, and fortunately we had a banker that kind of had watched us and everything.

She was actually in that bank that went down.

and then she went to work at another bank and we stayed with her and she knew what we did and another thing that we did is uh the school had taught us to make sure you had your

cash flows and everything up to date all the time.

To some people that seems kind of ridiculous to even have to say it but it's amazing how many people have all their stuff in a box someplace, receipts or whatever.

Yeah.

And, uh, so anyway, uh, we was able to go to the bank and we'd show them the plan.

I mean, it was always, it was always, did there for quite a while.

We didn't have a lot of equity.

And I mean, we come through a couple of snow storms, uh, or a couple of bad times.

One of them was a snow storm.

And one of them was when we lost the lease and I broke my back the same time.

And, uh

It was almost like starting over.

Yeah.

I mean, it was close.

mean, I had a few cows paid for, but it wasn't, I mean, the sales we made was to survive, not to expand.

get a bit different price when you have to sell to eat versus uh holding on until the price is

right.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

And the whole thing there, know, thinking outside the box, one of the things we,

that we experimented with even when we was not experiment so much but well yeah it was kind of experimenting with the the alfalfa metals and stuff when we was with Charlie I

mean even always in that wreck we was able to do so well so much of that stuff and by doing them short-term grazing and stuff and and it just changed and then instead of

another thing that that I did is that

I don't keep replacement heifers if you're familiar with you you build your cow herd up by keeping your heifer calves and then it takes two years before you get the first calf out

of them so you got quite a little money in them and I needed to change money faster than that so I did not keep any replacement heifers and I was buying cows and when we got like

on this place that we're on and I went to the bank with my plan and I oh

had already showed them that I could do it.

And I bought a lot of cows, refer to them as last calf heifers.

They got one more year maybe.

But they got a calf in their belly and we would run them and then sell the cow and the calf in the fall.

And then I would start all over again.

And you could pick them up usually quite a little cheaper.

And, and a lot of times I would buy them.

and they wasn't in that good of shape because like if they come out of say KC country or something, know, it's dry and hard and dry down there and you get those cows that was 10

years old and they'd be fairly thin and I would bring them and I would have uh those irrigated meadows to throw them on and the cows would gain so they would actually become

worth more and then I'd have the calf also so I'd have a cow that was actually worth more.

than what I paid for her as well as the calf.

wow.

So, so that was, that was what enabled us to do that.

And it was, it's always interesting.

I've never lived close to a highway like we did when we bought this place.

everybody sees what we're doing.

So, and it was not traditional.

And I mean, we got 500 irrigated acres down there.

and there's only 330 dry land.

I mean, to run cows.

you had to use irrigated.

Yeah.

And I did not want to buy a bunch of expensive equipment and do a traditional hay base or anything.

I can buy my hay and, uh, cheaper than what I can put it up for and make more money off of that with the cows than I ever could by raising my own hay.

So unless there was just a year like this last year that...

I mean, had so much grass and everything, cause it was such a beautiful year.

I ended up doing a little bit of hay and I just got some old broken down equipment.

I can get by, but I'd if I did 500 acres, then you gotta go spend a lot of money.

And I mean, it's just like any business, machineries went through the roof.

man.

Yeah.

As you're well aware.

So anyway,

well, I want to.

roll back and dive in on a few more details.

know you said you grew up for the most part out on Powder River.

That was kind of the first move.

What was going to school like on Powder River in the 60s and 70s?

Did you get bussed into school or was that a small country school?

was 40 miles.

We was in high school at that time.

Well, Mike and I was.

Steve was a seventh grader, the youngest brother.

It was 40 miles of gravel to get to high school and to Broadus, Montana.

And we rode the bus a lot and we also drove.

then after the first year, mom and dad decided, we can't torture you guys that much.

And we was playing football and well, and Steve and Mike both wrestled also.

And, uh, so they bought us a little, a little trailer.

And us three boys, which I don't think the town of Broadus is very happy with mom and dad.

Us three high school boys was by then Steve was a freshman.

So anyway, it was, but we, so we'd stay in there during the, during the sports season and then drive back and forth all the time.

But, uh, I mean, it was a very isolated place.

was, you know, I said, mentioned that about.

Yeah.

When town is Broadus.

And Broadus is like.

I don't know.

There must be 500 people there.

Maybe.

even 30 years later, there's not much in Bratus.

And so, so anyway, it was, it was, uh, I liked it, but also back up.

I, when we was, uh, still up, dad was, uh, working out towards Deckard.

I, and I went to a one room schoolhouse out there and I was the only eighth grader.

And then top of your class.

Yeah.

You've made valedictorian pretty easy.

And, uh, but when I became freshmen, they bused me into Sheridan and there's, I don't know, was 180 kids or something in a class when I was out of my element.

The only thing to save me is I had relatives and some friends in there.

And so you kind of felt kind of like he's going to get by, but I mean,

I can remember the first week I was lost all the time because it was three story big old high school block building there.

And I was definitely out of my element.

But so going to Broadus was actually a good place for us.

I mean, there were 60 kids in my class and it was good.

And then went straight from there to Bozeman and it was not a tough move at all.

Of course I went.

a lot of kids from Broaddus close to Bozeman.

So anyway.

Yeah.

And you said you did three and a half years of college and then didn't finish.

Do you ever regret that?

I regret it for my mom.

Dad, he's like, whatever works.

But it was, I don't because I didn't have a passion for anything that I was learning there.

And I don't know how many times I've talked to people.

I got more out of that five day HRM class.

Of course, there was some five there.

I went to three other classes afterwards.

They would break it out and have just the financial planning, like a three day class.

And so you'd go to that and then they break it out and you'd have just a three day on grass management planning.

so I went to those three schools and

and it was actually i learned more in that than than i did for the whole three and a half years

that would be my next question sounds like you pursued you actually pursued a lot of education it just wasn't necessarily uh...

in the classroom you went out and found places to learn what you needed to learn how has that experience

affected your view of education with your kids or your grandkids?

Would you encourage them to go towards a college education or not?

Or does it depend on what they're interested in?

Mostly that last part depends on what they're interested in.

I mean, don't go to college just to get a degree.

I mean, you can read all over the place about the kids that got degrees and they don't can't get a job.

And it's like, I think so many kids will go to school and have no focus on

or idea what they want to do.

which was, mean, I kind of had an idea.

thought I was going to be a veterinarian.

And the more I did it, it like, I ain't this.

And by the time I got done with my eighth chemistry class, was like, I know I don't like this.

So anyway, yeah.

In fact, both of my daughters, uh one got an engineering degree and the other one got a

Her master's in psychology and Lane is still using the master's in psychology.

And, but she said, I am not going to make my kids feel like they got to go to college.

She said, you look around at how many people and she actually got done, just got done going to a Claremont and was talking to the kids there.

They asked her to come down and just visit.

And she said, if you've got a goal,

and know what you want to do, then you should go to college and pursue that goal.

If you don't, how many people you can talk to that have just been innovative.

She talked about some guy, I don't know if this was in Sheridan.

I think it was in Sheridan.

He started dog poo, picking up dog business.

the guy is making.

Six figures.

Oh, it's huge.

Yeah.

They're doing Sheridan, Angelette, and I forget the name of the business, but it blew up pretty big.

It

did.

And I mean, it's just what you do.

if you're innovative and you want to be a businessman, then do that.

If you want to work for somebody, there is a ton of money to be made in trade schools and stuff.

mean...

you look around right now you can talk to anybody and there's a shortage on so many things you can go to trade school for a year and and you're set to go

yeah yeah i have a pretty similar opinion is go to college if you have a specific goal and a plan to get there yeah you know whether it's scholarships or if you have somebody

funding that for you or you know a really good plan to pay off those student loans but

to just wander into student loan debt without a plan of where you're going and why you're going there.

It's not a good place to be.

And my second brother and I both kind of had ended up the same deal.

We went to school.

kind of thought we had a plan.

mean, Mike was actually going to go into law enforcement.

And just because he couldn't think of what else to do, I think.

But it was like, and we went there for a while and it was like,

both of us like, this ain't what we wanna do.

This is not it yet.

And so anyway, and I mean, I was good at school and stuff.

I I kind of joked around.

said, I really didn't want high school to end, because then I gotta go to work.

But it was, I mean, like I say, was a salutatorian in our class and, but.

and did good at college.

mean, OK, I had a 3.3, but it was like, uh, just.

It wasn't there wasn't anything that was clicking, yeah, and I mean, I could pass classes and do all right, but half the time I just got tested and it was in one year and out the

other, and that's not good either.

So so anyway.

You mentioned, I think you said for a little while, one of your brothers kind of partnered with you and was ranching with you.

Are they involved in ranching?

Did they stay in the industry?

Mike was for quite a while.

Of course, Mike, it was so ironic.

mean, he was one of these guys in school that in college, a good friend of mine that's got a degree in engineering, helped these two guys get through.

basic algebra basically.

And I mean, he was so happy to get D, he stand it.

Terrible at math, very good at business.

he started, Mike is the one that had the Perry trailer sales.

So he was ranching.

Yes, to answer your question, he stayed in ranching and he loved the ranching.

But he loved the pursuit of the business end of things more than the cow end of things.

uh

I enjoy the cows and that stuff as well.

I I'm not attached to them because when it's profitable, they get to go.

They taste pretty good.

They do very well on the plate.

But anyway, to answer your question, he ended up getting out of the trailer business and he was in just straight ranching.

And that's when he got a big lease up north.

behind uh on the Montana line and he could take some more cows in and that kind of saved me during that period just before we bought the ranch.

And uh I was able to, he helped me out by helping me get through that.

And uh then he ended up selling his place and he decided he didn't want to fight the ranch anymore.

I ended up on the wrong side of the markets a couple of times and

kind of pulled him down pretty hard and, but he come back from that and, and he bought some houses and was trading houses, uh, fixing them and trading them.

And then, then he went in and, and his oldest son was down in Rawlins and, uh he was down there, visit them in this motel was a real good buy.

He every friend that he had told him, don't do it.

So anyway,

So Mike is in the motel business and he's, and he, think he's done trading houses right now, but he's trying to just get retired.

But he's when you're in motel business, you can't retire.

anyway, but anyway, he's a pretty diverse career track.

It was, it was for him.

He, like I say, he, he loved the business end of the ranching, but I think he was, uh, when he loved doing other things too.

mean, he was extremely.

successful in the trailer business and stuff.

So that's when he decided he didn't need have any cows.

And you mentioned something earlier that struck out or struck me.

I was curious if this was a normal arrangement and make sure I understand it right here.

When you're working for Charlie trying to build your own herd.

You owned your own cows that you ran on his place with his cows and in return you kind of worked for free.

Is that the arrangement you had?

Correct.

So you got to use his land and his facilities and in return you kind of managed his herd along with your own?

And that was something that came from that school.

Well Charlie was helping us out a little bit before the school.

Like I say, Carol and I had 20 cows and he ran them

He completely covered.

all the grass and hay on them.

I'd have to my own vaccine and stuff.

But that's something that came out of ranching, the HRM school is that.

have your hired men buy into your operation.

they are not thinking they're super important in the operation, and I heard that gentleman that I was telling you about talk about that same thing, and well, and you had mentioned

that keeping hired men is a tough deal as it is, and if they aren't feeling like that this is where they really belong, then it's impossible.

And so anyway, that's something that come out of that.

And that's when Charlie started letting us expand, which he was pretty cash poor, as I was saying at that time.

that actually, where we could come up with the grass, that actually helped him with his financial part of it also.

and that's something that I was struggling with is trying to, I always give my hired men an option.

And, and when I was listening to Reggie Brock and he was talking about, you know, trying to get your people to understand how important they are to you.

And I've, and I've struggled with that.

I think I'm doing it.

And then it's like, dang, I was going like two years and then they said, this ain't for me.

I'm going, well, well then to be honest, to give myself a little bit of a break is they, two of them.

hadn't ranched before and they wanted I mean it sounds like a really good idea yeah and they were actually both very good hands in the first year I was excited for both of them

and uh and then uh the second year they started on them they really wasn't cut out for this and well one of them was my son-in-law he'd never had anything to do with agriculture

whatsoever and he was a but he was

ex.

and did really good and I was excited.

But I told him when he asked him and my daughter come and ask us if they could come because they knew I was needing some help.

I said, absolutely.

But you have to promise me you will leave two weeks before you'll never speak to me again.

So yeah, so he did.

And I'm glad he did because he's doing very, well.

He's in the medical field and he loves it.

And so that's, that was what needed to happen.

Yeah.

It's definitely a lifestyle, not a job.

It is.

And, and, but I think in a, a certain extent, any business to a certain extent will be a lifestyle.

mean, uh, anybody that has their own business, you, you have to work around the everything.

your business and not mess up with your family and everything else.

uh But my wife, Carol, when we was talking last night, said, they gotta have the passion.

And these people that wanna get into ranching, we are doing very well from my standpoint.

There's people, I'm sure.

When I went down that list of podcasts, he did that.

I am a pretty small potatoes compared to these fellers.

But, it was very, you know, we had, we had a note, they was planning on it being a minimum of 30 years to get it paid off.

We paid it off in 21 completely.

And I mean, so, I mean, we have a lot of equity and from my standpoint, that now I mean to have.

land of course has increased in value and cows have doubled in value and we have them all paid for now and it's like and somebody said well Dave why don't you sell that and just

retire and I said and what am I gonna do?

I said I love what I do I want to have a hired man there so I could do less of what I do yeah that's my whole goal and because I mean it's just

I couldn't, I couldn't imagine not, not doing something in the ranching business or in agriculture.

and not, I said, I don't, I'm not interested in expanding, you know, that Reggie, Reggie Brock really brought that home to me that, know, them guys was going to expand and it was

going to get bigger.

But I mean, he was going to make some more money, but their time is going to be shot.

So you make your.

make your value decisions that way.

so, so anyway,

it's

it's sounds like a good place to be for now.

It's we're, we're, feel very, very blessed.

I mean, the whole thing, you know, it was, that was something, uh, you know, back in 1990, uh, uh, kind of right before all the real rec started, I guess, or I, I had, uh, accepted

Christ and

from that point on, it was like, okay, my focus is a little bit more towards, not a little bit more.

It was a lot more trying to figure out what God wanted me to do instead of me thinking that I had it all figured out.

You know?

And I mean, I, and it was, and that was fortunately, I knew the Lord when I was laying up, laid up there was a broken back is like, my goodness.

was,

It was like, why'd this happen to me?

If you didn't know him before you'd get to know him that three months later.

Of course, you know, it was, I'd seen people that had had the similar similar kind of injuries that were in a wheelchair.

And so I was thankful for that.

You know, it was, I was, I was still mobile and that was, and I come come out and I have no, no repercussions from it at all.

So that was, that was definitely a God thing in my opinion.

So.

Yeah.

So anyway, was.

I know you mentioned a few times that you've kind of taken a unique approach and, yeah, done the new thing, the creative thing, rather than the way granddad and dad always did

it.

I know I've talked to some people, especially in other industries that have tried that and it doesn't work out for them.

How do you weigh?

these new ideas or unique ideas against the way it's always been done.

How do you weed out the good ideas from the bad?

Well, it wasn't like I was the first one to do it.

So all I had to do is just monitor the situation all the time.

mean, like say we, we monitored them dead cows that first year at Charlie's.

It was a tough, it was a tough year.

mean, we was the quality of life sucked.

was highly stressful.

So that was grazing the alfalfa was obviously a stupid idea.

I mean, we couldn't handle the non-bloat.

The feed we had for non-bloat was not, didn't work.

Didn't work enough, I should say.

So anyway, but...

We got, you know, figuring out cash flows and stuff.

If you're being honest with yourself and that's a critical issue, anytime you're doing a cash flow, mean, you can, you can manipulate numbers however you want.

If you're going to, if you're going to do that, but, uh, you know, that's the, that's the, that was the start all the time when we was looking at different, doing different things,

but, and talking to, talking to people all the time.

uh

the guys that had been through the school stuff when we first went down there i can remember sitting at a little seminar and alan was there and uh...

and and he had talked about some stuff and then they had some university guys talking and stuff and it was obviously thought he was full of crap i mean they wouldn't even listen to

him because it was so and that was the way it was for probably

oh at least ten years and we actually we actually uh...

i got with several other guys there's like ten of us then we started an organization uh...

justin just out in wyoming to promote schools and to help ranchers and stuff and was very successful and got a lot of people introduced to the whole to the whole thing and i can

still remember going to a thing that the bank had and they asked me if i'd come in there

it was basically they had some professors and some financial bankers and stuff doing a two-day thing right here in Buffalo and I can remember these guys was talking about

different ways to make your place pay and this one guy was talking about trying to get cows and

and improve your ground he says

and I said, well, if a guy can do better time management stuff and he goes, you're that guy.

The word was out on me and I was a Mark man and didn't even know it.

But the ironic thing was they got all done with this.

the last speaker was a university professor.

he went through there and he was talking about all the things they did on this ranch.

Like it was their idea.

they had put fences in and divided some fences and they were rotating cows through these pastures and they had improved the water and so on and so forth and like it was their idea

and he gets all done and he said and then in this year they came to it was called wire at that time which was sponsored by the UW and they came to a wire class and I'm going

these guys was working HRM the whole time and then

boys at the college was monitoring them and they was taking that on as they're, they were the ones that did it.

I'm going, okay, fellers, this is you guys are coyotes.

But I mean, and now, and now it's, it's in all the colleges, all that stuff I'm talking about with HRM stuff, with the grass management, they are promoting that, uh, all kinds of

high tech with a

callers.

don't know if you've heard about the cows.

put a collar on a cow.

and you'll have and you'll have different Towers on your pastures or in on your place I mean and you can draw a line on your phone and Cow will not go past that line Because

it'll just give it starts to starts to buzz a little bit.

and if they go too close to the line it shocks them.

Yeah

I've got something like that for my dog.

It's exact same thing.

So ventless pastures

and they are having.

extremely good luck, which is that's really, really good for like when you got elk or something.

Yeah.

Cause I can, I can run, I can run hot wires really cheap.

Elk can destroy miles of hot wire and nothing flat.

They do not get trained to hot wire.

They just tear it off.

But.

but I mean, so that kind of technology, you know, back to your question, I mean, you, those kinds of things you can.

you can, if you're on the right path and just keep trying to go with it, and the numbers and the time and all that stuff coincide properly.

I mean, it's, it's exciting to me because, you know, this is not really a feather in my cap, but it did make me feel really good.

when, when we first moved down there, of course I brought in 250 cows and I grazing the meadows.

There was only one meadow that had alfalfa in it.

So I hate it.

There was 80 acres and the rest of my rotated cows, I put hot wires up.

I don't have help, fortunately.

So I mean, I could run one more hot wire and my neighbor down the road right next to us, it was watching it and everything.

and And like four years later I'd been there for four years or something or five

and come and told me, says, yeah, I watch how you doing that Dave.

And I gave you two years before you'd lose it.

and he said, I am really impressed.

You're probably making as much money as anybody in the Valley now.

And, and I thought, well, it was.

interesting, like I say, being on the highway to everybody can see you.

It caused a lot of, a lot of gossip up and down the Valley.

a lot of conversation Maybe I should say not gossip But anyway, but I thought that was I was I was very very pleased that he noticed that you know He was he was watching it pretty

close to see what happened.

Yeah, and it was so anyhow

Yeah.

When you first said something about being on the highway, that never occurred to me because I'd drive back and forth and never pay attention to what was going on over there.

oh

I guess a ranch has a habit of looking across the fence to see what's he doing there?

What's that past year like what's going on there?

So, so anyway,

well, I know we talked about it a little bit.

There's some things that are a little bit unique to the ag business and especially the

the cattle business that make it different from other industries.

What are some of the difficulties you've noticed running an agricultural business or especially a cattle business that maybe other businesses don't have to deal with?

I don't know if that's, mean, there's every business has their own thing.

I think is the way I think you'd have to look at it.

The one thing that is different.

mean, you're dealing with, with live animals, so you got to keep them alive.

And, so, so I mean, that's, that's your biggest challenge is, keeping them alive and keeping them profitable.

You know, uh, you know, but I would compare that to a lot of different businesses.

I mean, it's the same.

I mean, and, and, and you're, you got to keep your equipment going.

You got to keep, uh, all that stuff going.

And to a certain extent, I mean, it doesn't like a live animal, but that's probably the biggest thing.

And you're always dealing with live organ.

And I mean, you're talking about your grass.

I mean, that's basically what I do is I harvest grass.

Um, that's what, that's what the cows are for, you know, that instead of running a swather over it, I run cows over it.

Yeah.

And, uh

the most efficient way to turn plants into meat.

you go.

That's, that's my whole goal right there.

You summed it up.

That's, that's it.

And, and, but I'm thankful that guys like to hay, uh, and, and there's a lot of people that are, that are profitable at it, for whatever reason.

I'd go head to head with them anytime as far as the cash flow about what they could make off that ground, you know.

But I know it was a cost to, you know, you'd pay 250,000 for a swather nowadays.

It's nuts.

But anyway, fortunately they are, because I buy most of my hay and put up very little.

And I basically just wait a year.

Like last year, we had a super good year and these guys had piles of hay everywhere.

And I said, well, you got to have for it.

I mean, you, get it sometimes for half of what it costs if you buy it that same year and, two year old, Hey cows, my cows will eat it.

They will eat it.

So, so I mean, I can, I can pick it up for that.

And I mean, a guy can do different things, but it's, mean, that's the same with any businesses.

You're looking at where you can save money, where you can turn, turn something that maybe be a loss into a profit.

And, and you know what, but you know, it's so easy to get anytime you're dealing with the live stuff too, like you're talking about, it's easy to get caught up in, in the newest

and greatest things.

I mean, I don't know how many seminars I've been to for like the vaccines, the newest vaccines, the newest implants, so on and so forth.

And I said, if I did everything you guys said,

They tell you, if you do this, you'll gain X number of pounds, so on and so forth.

My calves would weigh 2000 pounds if all that worked.

And obviously it won't.

And you can spend a lot of money.

I mean, everybody's trying to sell you something.

But back to my, I think that any businessman has to be careful because there's always somebody wanting to sell.

And a lot of it is good.

You just have to determine what will work for you.

We saw that it was always the labor saving devices and you know, this, piece of equipment will save labor, save labor, save labor.

And like you say, if I bought all of those, these roofs would put themselves on.

Exactly.

You got to figure out which ones work for you and your guys and your system.

And, yeah, they're not always what they're cracked out to be.

And, and I mean, a lot, like you say, a lot of it is good stuff.

I mean, I don't know how many times they've tried to sell me something to feed a different way to feed the cows.

It'll save you 10, 15 % of you.

You'll have 10 to 15 % less waste on your hay when you feed it.

said, I don't have 10 or 15 % to save.

said, they don't leave that much.

My ground is bare when my cows get done.

So what are you talking about?

So anyway, that was, that was interesting too.

So.

Well, you've had quite a career raising cattle.

um Are there any specific highs or lows that stand out of uh maybe the most difficult time, the most difficult season?

Well, it was, it was very, it was, I thank the Lord that my wife stuck with me during them one years were they were, they were tough after, you know, we was so excited when, when we

come out of the FDIC and I thought, Charlie, okay, we are going to roll and this is going to be good.

And, and then he decided, I just want out.

The pressure was, was tired of it, which I totally, totally could understand.

And uh so anyway, those those years after that, I mean, they was they was pretty tough there for a couple of years.

And then when we got the lease at Crazy Woman, that was actually almost a relief.

We loved it down there.

We loved the community.

But I mean, it was I was not.

I was not getting ahead that much.

We was doing all right, but it was we was not.

So, but it was when we lost that lease, them five years in were probably the toughest force of any time we was.

But, you know, that was.

It was an interesting, it was even during then, you know, it was definitely a time of grossness.

was my, was my relationship was, I was my Lord, you know, and, trying to figure out what Jesus wanted me to do here.

It's like, okay, I'm trying to this out.

And then I said, fine, I'll just work for the rest of my life for five bucks an hour.

And I tipped over four wheeler and broke my back and like,

Thank you that I can walk.

I will not complain again, which I failed at that, but, it was, but I was, it was, uh, it was an interesting time.

know, and, and I, I'm sure you've probably went through that high and lows when we got the ranch bought and we was so excited on the one hand, on the other hand, I was scared

because I was more debt than I'd ever had in my life.

And I mean, I, I,

I probably had 50 cows paid for when we went into that and I had to buy some more and I had the other stuff going on and it was in that first year.

I mean, I seriously, I was out haying.

We had to hay just about everything because I had to lease with my brother at that time.

So most of the cows was up on his place up north.

And uh so we was haying and I was.

I was burning the candle at both ends

I honestly was out there.

I'd hate during the day and I had to irrigate and, and, uh my girls were to help me.

They was at that time, uh, a sophomore and an eighth, no, a freshman in a sixth grader.

And they, they was doing a lot of the irrigating and stuff that in different places for me.

And, and I mean, I was, I was working so hard and I.

was out swathing one day.

after I'd been bailing most of the night.

then, and, suddenly I said, I got it.

I got to stop.

I'm just gonna have to lay my head down.

I laid my head down and went to sleep.

And when I raised up, I had no idea where I was.

I could not figure it out.

thought, well, I'll follow this Monroe and I'll come to me.

I was so rum dumb.

It was unbelievable.

And I thought, okay, this is getting tough.

I got to pay attention better.

But what really came home to me was one day, lane, the youngest of sixth graders, she had been down doing some flood, your gating.

And it was, we had a drought on top of everything else.

That's what you want your first year.

Yeah.

New place.

it had been a drought the year before.

So everything was really tight anyway.

And, uh, she, her and Aaron had been down irrigating and she lane come in and she had wore shorts and a t-shirt because it was so hot.

But everywhere that she slapped a deer fly, was mud smashed on her, know, whether it was a face or wherever.

And she came in crying and she goes, is it always going to be this hard?

I'm going, holy crap.

I got to slow up.

I said, okay, girls.

I got everything shut down and we went up on the mountain for, for two days just so they could.

breathe, I'm going to burn them out.

it was, and that was a lesson to me that you got, you still have to keep the main thing, the main thing.

so back to your question about being hard.

was, it was a, you're juggling what needs to be done with what has to be done and your family has to be done.

I mean, if I, if I had a messed up there,

that would have been a forever sorry moment for a guy, you know?

Yeah, that's good.

You're juggling what needs to be done with what has to be done.

think determining uh which things fall into which category is where a lot of us get sideways.

and it's and it was we got done that fall and made the payments, had money left over and it was like the bank.

was off our case and I was able to pay them.

Other people were refinanced and paid it off.

And then

I mean from then on it was just a matter of of paying attention to things I mean the opportunity came must have been in a what was it 2006 when the interest rates dropped so

much I can't remember yeah probably about that time anyway and we refinanced everything well on top of my my folks had up there and and and uh

had borrowed the money for their modular that they'd moved in in the garage.

And I said, Mom, let's refinance this.

She says, Oh, I don't know if I want to do that.

says, I'll help you.

Let's just do that.

mean, it'll save you.

And we refinance it so that it would save them.

I think it was like $200 a month or something, which is pretty good little spending thing for them, you know?

And she said, well,

we can't take it out 30 years.

I ain't going to live 30 years.

said, so what?

I'm taking it over if you, if you guys die anyway.

so just, just have this.

I mean, it was down to 4%.

And I said, just lock it in.

It's good.

It's a good move.

So I mean, they had it at seven and a half or something at that time.

I mean, things like that, you know, you just take an opportunity.

mean, even though things were good right then it was, it could be better.

without it costing a bunch of time, labor, and horrible.

not horrible, but oh additional time away from what needs to be done.

Is there a lesson that you wish you would have learned earlier?

I don't know which one I should talk about.

I mean, that's, you know, that, that, that whole thing about hindsight being 2020, uh, you know, there's.

There's some of them things it's like, I'm sure that if I'd have worked out a different, probably could have not had to be.

Well, moving my wife five times, nobody should put their wife through that.

In one year, no, somebody's complaining.

I've had to move twice in three years.

going home.

Whippy dippy.

I hate moving.

that's like my least favorite thing when,

oh

We bought the house that we're in now.

told my wife that she could pick where she wanted to go, but she better like it because I'm going to die.

Well,

we got rid of a lot of things.

I, my wife had these three barrels.

Uh, I don't know.

It was like, I don't know.

They must've been like 30 gallon barrels or something like that.

And of her college stuff, I'm going after the third time I'm going, are you serious?

I am not going to move these anymore.

I said you are never going to use any of these books.

And while she kept some of her math books just in case so she could use it teaching while she never used any of We moved them, but it was the rest of them.

went and sold them where we could.

So anyway, it's just, you know, it would.

Uh, of course, I always wish I had accepted Jesus a lot earlier in my life.

You know, I thought I kind of, but it was, it was an interesting thing.

We had, Aaron and she was a year old or something.

Maybe, maybe she was pushing too.

And I decided we need to start going to church.

My aunt and uncle went to church and I, and I really was impressed with how their family was, you know, and stuff and.

And of course, there's wonderful people.

I said, I think we should go to church so that I said.

I'm tough enough to handle hell, but I don't want my daughter growing up that way in my ignorance.

Once again, had no idea what I was saying when I said that.

And, and then I found out that I needed, I needed God as much as my kid, even more than my daughters did.

So, so anyway, but that.

I'm thankful that even though it was so late in my life, so to speak, uh it probably would have saved me from lot of wrecks in high school and stuff, and college, if I would have

been a Christian then.

But uh I'm so thankful that it was then that it happened, at least when it did, because then I was able to be focused on my family better.

And that was the most...

most...

That's been the greatest blessings is watching them and their walking stuff now.

mean, it's from all the way down to my grandkids.

mean, it's wonderful.

Yeah, that's great.

Is there an opinion that you held strongly at one time that you've changed your mind about?

I doubt to think about that a while, Eric.

uh You know, I've changed my mind several over the years, of course, but I don't know if there's one that I held really strongly that I...

I guess I kind of think about my attitude towards education, towards the college guys.

I was so disgusted with them in them first years of after we'd been to the.

to the ranching schools and whatnot and their whole attitude.

And I was like, I just wrote them off.

And I thought, that's the wrong way to look at that.

Just keep going on.

And when I seen them starting to...

to accept that and helping the ranchers out.

mean, what they was doing before was not helping.

I mean, there was more than one guy that went totally broke following their teaching and stuff.

And that was a good thing.

Of course, I got, this was when we was at Crazy Woman.

Like I say, I had that whole attitude and then the opportunity came up.

They had one of their ag teachers at Sheridan College uh passed away.

And my banker said, Dave, I put your name in to be a teacher to help these guys out for a semester.

And I said, you did what?

I said, I don't even have a degree, Roberta.

And she says, no.

She says, talk to these guys.

And I said, OK.

So I went and talked to them.

And so I ended up teaching a, I taught an HRM class is what I did.

I went through the book and the whole thing.

And there was 20 some kids in there.

And it was like,

this was really interesting and i got to talk to a couple of the other instructors a little bit and i thought so i suppose that was probably the biggest changes that i became

for that very short time part of the education system instead of instead of uh...

just knocking them but uh...

and it's been it's been it's been fun watching that that whole change uh...

it's been difficult for him because you think about those guys that wrote books on some of that stuff.

mean, they made their living doing that and suddenly you're telling them that stuff you're teaching is crock.

And that would be hard for him to accept.

mean, anybody to accept say, okay, I guess I got to change my whole deal here.

This ain't fair.

anyway, so I guess that would be, I don't know.

Like say there's other things all the time.

Any time we're moving forward, you better be ready to change.

Just like I was talking about that day when the girls came in and they was beat.

And I thought, we gotta change this.

making this pay is not the most important thing i mean we can make it both work but we're gonna have to take care of the first part first you know things like that i mean people

should be aware of that kind of stuff all the time

yeah what has been your biggest win

well if didn't say my wife I'd probably get thumped when I got home.

uh

You I, I, I just been thankful for so many blessings that I've had that, I mean, God was protecting me before I was serving him.

I mean, I mean, just helping me through.

years.

mean, like I said, we was, he was very focused on team roping and stuff.

And, but, but always my real passion was the agriculture and the things with cows and whatnot.

And the biggest win.

The big, you know.

typical kid, you you get out of high school and you think, I'll be a millionaire by the time I'm 30.

I assumed you're bulletproof and you know, and so on and so forth.

And, and when we actually, and we actually went in and made that last payment, that was probably one of the, one of the highlights of knowing that, that God had blessed us to

keep going in the right way.

Yeah.

And you know, and that was, that was a big deal.

And, and maybe a little bit of a pride issue there or something for the last 10 years or well, probably 15, you know, when I'd go in to get refinanced or, get my stuff done, I

would shop around at them bankers and I'd say, you got to give me your best deal here.

And I was kind of being

Kind of a turd about it really.

I used to be, I'd go into my hat in my hands and go, Oh boy, I hope I can get this money so I can go on more year.

And now I was like, I'm a good customer.

You guys are going to have to give me a good deal.

it was, and that was kind of arrogant on my part, but, but it was still, but on the other hand, I tell, I've had the opportunity to share those stories with different guys that

have worked for me.

And I said, you go into this banker and if you've got all your ducks lined up so that they can see that and know that you're serious about this, you know, and have some seriously

good numbers and not just say, this is what we're going to do on this blah, blah, blah.

I said, you can, you can do amazing things.

And that's been fun doing that.

But, but anyway, but yeah, probably the biggest one was when we actually was able to say, Hmm, now we'll be able to just.

do it as we want to.

That's a big turn, not having the bank involved in your business.

You know, and I still, you know, we still have the bank, uh, and we got a good relationship with them because I mean, operating loan gets pretty, pretty intense in

between.

I am in our operation again, non-traditional.

sell a lot of short-term cows.

wean the calves in August, sell them cows at the sale barn.

and and of august first of september and and then i start buying cows but i don't sell my actual calves until november so there's a period in there suddenly i can have a lot of

money out and and and lot of times i'll run out of money and i can have all i need is a short-term loan for you know a couple hundred thousand or whatever to cover some cows for

that time for that period till we sell the calves

And, uh, so I'm, I am involved with the bank and I, and I appreciate having a, being able to have a relationship with them.

mean, they're excited because they know they're to get paid back.

But they want to keep you as a customer.

mean, I don't know.

I think the first national used to call them or first Northern now, uh, blue ribbon customers or something.

I'm a long ways from that.

used to get them letters, but anyway.

So.

I know, yeah, you've been through some some ups and downs moving five times in one year, laid up with a broken back at the same time you lose all your leases.

um What is it that motivates you to keep pushing and keep going when things get really hard?

Well.

You know, I don't I've had people ask that kind of stuff for Eric and it's like.

Well, what else do you do?

Give up?

That ain't an option to me.

I mean, that's the way dad raised us.

I mean, you just kept going and, uh, figure out, oh, that didn't work.

You better figure out what does, you know?

And, that's what, and, and like I say, it, and I keep talking about that passion you feel for what you do.

Uh, the passion that you have, you know, now, you know, it's, it's, uh, varies a lot more.

mean,

I still have a passion for ranching, I have a serious passion for my grandkids.

And you know, and watching how my daughters have done and I have a son-in-law, it just thrills me to watch him.

He tries different things.

And, I,

going from ranching to the medical field is pretty good.

Well,

he was in the medical field already, then he thought maybe try the ranching and then he like, don't have that passion.

But I mean, he's a businessman himself and, and, just watching him go through that and, and it's fun because I mean, he'd been successful and sometimes, well, that didn't work

out at all.

go.

Welcome to life.

you know, and it's just uh so my point being and you know, and now having when we have when we have a relationship with Christ and you're you're growing in that relationship all

the time with other people, that's always an exciting thing in itself, too.

I mean, you know, we in our life group, we had this elderly and we referred to ourselves.

as a geriatric group because I'm one of the youngest ones.

anyway, it's uh a.

Seeing the growth in some of them people has been so exciting.

Anytime you get to witness that, I mean, it's easy to see why our pastors have, ah they get such a, they'll get on such a high when they get people coming to Christ.

I mean, it's a wonderful feeling.

So, I mean, you get to have all them things, guess that maybe that's to have to do with age.

You figure out that you don't have to be focused on just one thing.

You can have many things you can be passionate for.

at the same time.

You know uh you mentioned a big passion for you early on was rodeoing and roping specifically.

Did you continue doing that?

You still like rodeoing or did that go by the wayside when you started branching more seriously?

My when I when we bought the place, I was still roping, but I tell everybody, yeah, I pretty much trade my ropes in for an irrigating shovel and it was a pretty poor trade at

the time.

once we got going, you know, we still roped a little bit.

I mean, all the time up until then, but it was ironic because at the same time, Mike, who's the main partner and, and well, and Steve even, uh Steve had moved, he was down in

Cheyenne.

So he wasn't around him very much, but Mike had moved on out of

and was doing those other things himself and so ah both of us kind of it wasn't important anymore it was like it just suddenly was not the passion that we had I my brother Young's

brother went down to Wickenburg where old guys go in the wintertime and and you just they have Robins every single day Steve said you gotta get a horse and come down there and I'm

going

No, when I go down there, I have as much fun riding a side by side as I would rope.

And it's like, we just don't have that passion.

You gotta have kind of a killer instinct if you're gonna compete like that.

That's pretty much gone.

I just enjoy life right now and it's not something that I have a desire to do anymore.

Okay.

I mean, and people are just shocked.

I mean, we, we practiced four days a week and then you wrote two days a week.

Yeah.

I mean, mean, you, you serious about it.

And if you didn't have a rope in that weekend, you was like, Oh man, it's like the world was over.

I was like, really?

So, so anyway, but it's, don't know.

It's a phase of life, I guess, but it was kind of funny how it happened to Mike and I both at the same time.

Yeah.

moved on to the better things in life, even if you didn't know it.

Yeah, that's a way to put it.

That's a good way to put it.

was, and it's been, I mean, no looking back.

It's been good.

mean, it's just, and I mean, it's, I think that happens with a lot of people.

mean, If you cling to something like that too much, I mean, what, no matter what it might be, I mean, you're, you're, you can get things out of focus.

think.

Yeah.

Yeah, you miss out on a lot.

Yeah, well, that's a good way to put it.

Well, this is my absolute favorite question.

I know you've talked about it a fair amount already, but as a Jesus follower, how has that shaped your business, your leadership, the way that you operate?

Well, probably the biggest impact had was my attitude towards the people I worked with, trying to make sure that they felt part of it and being around my neighbors.

Instead of somebody does you a bad turn instead of saying, well, I'm never speaking to that SOB again.

It's like, I think we can work this out.

That's more important than just holding that bitterness forever.

So those human relationships like that, think are the biggest thing.

And just the excitement of like I mentioned earlier about watching my grandkids.

And of course, two of them are girls, an eighth grader and a sophomore, which.

That's some scary, scary times from my perspective anyway.

anyway, but, um,

so what, what's next from here?

said you don't have any plans to retire.

You love what you do.

You just want to maybe slow down a little bit.

Uh, what do you have on the horizon?

What are you looking forward to?

Well, like I was mentioned with my, uh, hired men that I had problems with.

longevity uh...

i'm hoping i got past that i'm hoping the young man i have right now col he already knew he wanted to be a rancher uh...

he doesn't have to be in the bar all the time that makes it a lot easier and uh...

uh...

and he's and he's excited about i mean he's just been there a year but he's excited about increasing his herd and i said i i'll let you i'll let you increase up there quite a ways

I said.

If the guys that I had before had went up, I was going to let them get up to 30 cows right away if they wanted, and if they had done that and stayed and had those cows paid for this

last year, they'd have made

hundred thousand.

Wow.

But with that and the wages that I was giving them and they get their room and board.

Yeah.

Or the room and utilities.

mean, so it's it's it's there's there's an opportunity there if you want to pursue it.

And so that's where I'm looking for right now as I'm just praying that Cole and I keep getting along good and and if that works out so that he can

he can keep increasing and i can decrease i mean i don't have to have all them cows because i don't have that big of bills and uh...

when they're paid for that's checks are a lot easier to deal with so i mean so it can be a win-win for both of us if we can handle that right and that's where i'm at and it's i

think and like i say it's

I already tested him out this year.

I was gone three weeks, Arizona.

We was down there and we just, I just kept checking in and I said, how's it going?

And we had a cold spell there.

And I said, how'd you get through there?

He said, well, had a couple of hiding freeze, but I got it handled and everything's good.

I said, everything else good.

He was, yep.

I said, okay, I'll see you in the spring.

Said you can be all right to grub lying out long.

said, well, probably not, but, so anyway, that's kind of my goal.

Just being able, just like right now we.

Uh, my granddaughter said, Oh, got it.

she plays clarinet and she's got a, performance this weekend in Rapid city.

I tell Cole, said, you can be okay here this weekend.

He's the, I can handle it.

said, okay, I'll see you.

We're going to blast down there.

Those things like that.

I'm free to go whenever I want them.

And that's, and that's what my, that's what my goal is with a hired man.

mean, I.

I feel like it's a, you know, and this is, this is something that you, that I have to remind myself just because it was what I wanted when I was that age.

doesn't mean everybody wants that.

Yeah.

And, and so what I think I'm offering them that I would have died to get that when I was that age might not be there after.

And I think that's happened, you know, so far with several of the guys, but, uh, hopefully this, hopefully this one will work.

that's, that's.

That's the biggest thing.

Yeah.

I'm interested.

And it sounds like from that, think there's still, there's still opportunity in the cattle business for a young person that wants to get started.

If you want to, if you, if you have that passion word again, you have to, mean, it might not be easy every year, but tell me a business as it is.

mean, unless dad hands it over to you, they're all paid for whatever business that might be, you know, and, and I really appreciate it.

Listen to

adam weatherby's honesty you know he said you know people don't get in business like i got in business most the time you know and that's and that's the truth of the matter and but

if you if you are determined to make it work there you just but you have to get inventive just like just like i didn't have enough down payment i was not i was not even close uh...

you know and i and through some creative things uh...

with different things

And we got those three people to help me out getting that started.

And I was able to get them paid off in one year just because that's the way it worked with the financial thing.

You have to think things like that, the old outside the box saying, know.

And so it's...

I, it's disheartening to me when I, when I see it's too easy right now.

Cause I mean, there is such a shortage of labor.

mean, just like in Claremont, a lot of them kids, didn't go to trade school.

didn't go to anything cause they could go straight into the methane field and they was making 30 bucks an hour.

I mean, that was like a gold mine to that age.

You know, that's more money than they'd ever dreamed.

They'd ever have in their life.

I mean, this was, this was eight years ago or whatever.

And, uh

and now i mean if they've if they've paid attention i'm sure they can extend they can you can keep going if you're interested in that field but if you're just doing it for the

money you're gonna bounce around and never be satisfied so but back to your original question as far as i'm concerned if you really want it you can find it i mean there are

there are people out there ah

I'm not the only one that doesn't have kids interested in taking over the place or something.

mean, there's guys and they might not want to sell.

I mean, same thing, but they can't run it themselves either.

I mean, you look around, you can find things like that.

And it's a.

And if you come across with a good plan for somebody, I mean, that's just, that's what works out so well for my relationship with Charlie is once we had both been to that

school, then, then we got together and we came up with a plan and that benefited both of us.

And that's what I'd encourage anybody that was new to get into it.

And like we talked about education, I mean, you gotta, you gotta be able to do this stuff.

And if you can,

Now there is so many guys out there you can talk to you.

mean there is uh You know the HRM is the one Avenue and then there's uh It was uh Stan Parsons was actually the original partner was Alan and he started his own company as he

sold it now to a guy that's down in Wheatland and it's the same deal and it's very intense and and and then you have a You have a network to help you all the time

And that's important too.

You know, you can, you can find these guys and that are, I mean, you get rancher talking and he'll talk to you forever.

So, so I mean, it's they can, you can pick up a lot of stuff and sometimes, sometimes it's what not to do.

know,

some of, sometimes those are the best lessons to learn.

There you go.

I mean, when, when I tell people we lost 80 cows and they give me this look like at once one year, it's a.

It was an intense thing, it was extremely learning deal that made the fact that we come out of that better showed me that we was on the right track.

just needed to tweak it quite a bit.

Stay off of the hot stuff and go the other way.

But yeah, I...

To me, it's a no-brainer.

If you are really interested in agriculture, you can do it.

It's there.

And man, I think your story is even a little more unique in that you didn't start out with a family ranch.

You started out as a hand and have worked your way up to own your own place.

That seems like a bit of a rare story.

And you did it through 20 % interest rates.

Yeah.

I love telling that story Eric when them guys whine about it.

said, when I get to tell them, yeah, my first 20 cows was 22 % and they're going, no way that's never been that.

I'm going, that's credit card, you just imagine what a credit card rate was at that time.

can't even imagine.

But, you know, and that's it.

It's there.

There's the stuff out there.

And, and there's, mean, it's incredible to me when I.

hear about the amount of money that's around, that's available.

If you, if you have a good plan for some, mean, some of them guys are willing to startups out.

uh, I mean, it's, mean, I can say it's, always blows me away when I, when I see some of the cash that's flowing, I, I'm, I'm pretty ignorant.

It's when I see some of that, it's like, Oh my goodness.

I mean, so anyway.

Was there somebody that you'd like to see on the show?

Somebody with an interesting story or an interesting industry that you'd like to learn more about?

My new neighbor.

uh I haven't got to talk to him to find out exactly what it is he does.

He is another guy.

They just...

they're in the process of getting this place bought next to me and

he's from down originally from texas and and he's living in torrington right now but anyway he has got all the he's got two he started two other businesses and right now he's

in some kind of a business and like i i don't know what it is but he's never had any college education and he started two different successful businesses and this one here is

in the process of selling for

I don't know how much, but it's a buck of dollars.

So.

uh I mean, guys like that.

with no supposedly according to what used to be the standard if you don't have an education he shouldn't have he shouldn't be there and i mean i think there's a lot more

people like that than a person realizes and he's a super nice guy i mean uh...

i might i might throw his name out to you to him if you your name out to him if you'd wish because he he's in the process now and he just but it's the same deal he decided he's

gonna sell it

and.

I mean, it's an international company and he just, there's going to, family's going to move onto the ranch and change their lifestyle.

Well, good for them.

And yeah, I might have you make an introduction.

See if we can get him on and learn a little bit more about it.

Oh, I'm sure he'd be, he's easy to talk to you.

I think you'd, I think you'd enjoy him.

Good deal.

Well, our last question, I know this might be a little bit out of your wheelhouse, but either to fuel or settle the debate.

If you have a job to do that requires a cordless tool, which brands do you prefer?

oh I have, I started out with Craftsman and now I got DeWalt and, and, uh, and my hired man's got some Milwaukee.

So we got all batteries scattered everywhere when you're talking about cordless tools.

You got the right tools.

Just got to find the battery.

Exactly.

I love them.

Them are, them are definitely.

I am not particular as long as the battery is charged.

Okay.

Well, thank you very much for joining me.

This has been a lot of fun and yeah, I've learned a lot about the cattle business and about you and I hope our listeners have as well.

Well, I enjoyed it.

I was very nervous, like you said, because like I told you earlier, because when I see them, my rollers on here, but that one guy, it was such an encouragement to him.

So I'm pretty impressed with your podcast.

I think people can learn something from that.

Anybody that's interested in any kind of business, there's some people on there that'll help you.

absolutely.

anyway, awesome.

And thank you guys for joining us here on From the Ground Up show.

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