Here's the really long explanatory post about the ranch. I'd skip reading this one if you don't want tedious details. It might make understanding things easier though.
The manager's name is Jeff. He lives at the main house at headquarters with his wife Sarah and little baby son Ethan. Sarah is constantly pulling Ethan around in a wagon. She does most of the office work. Ethan likes to take the cat, Floyd, by the tail and put him in his swimming pool. Floyd puts up with this 'cause he's a team player.
Sarah's brother is Luke. He lives about five miles from headquarters with his wife Nancy. Luke knows all about mechanics and fixing vehicles on top of being a pretty good cowboy. Nancy works in an office in town but is quitting her job soon so she can spend more time out on the ranch. Luke and Nancy are both in their mid-twenties and are really fun to hang out with. Also, they're completely obsessed with guns and like to go out looking for coyotes and prairie dogs (which are each in abundance).
My Uncle Stephen lives with my Aunt Kate about nine miles from headquarters. Stephen is the cowboss and is in charge of all things cows. Kate is a lawyer for the Navajo currently working on water rights and works out of Albuquerque during the week. Stephen is also a blacksmith by trade but had to go back to work as a cowboy because of the recession. They still have a small ranch with a few cows in Bingham, about two hours from here.
Jim is the only guy living in the bunkhouse and usually works with Stephen. I think he's trying to make a career out of cowboying so he's incredibly helpful and works insanely hard.
Also there's Juan, a mid-forties Mexican cowboy who lives a little off the ranch and knows everything there is to know about water systems. He's probably the most experienced one out here and has been at this particular ranch for 12 years. Considering that Jeff has been here almost one year and he's in second for longest tenure it's a pretty impressive stat. So Juan's really well versed about the ranch. Unfortunately, he's still not too versed in English so we get Spanish lessons from him all the time.
The Great Western Ranch is the fourth largest in New Mexico spanning 450 miles over a pretty high area of the Rockies. It's owned by a large company that really has nothing to do with ranching; I think it's mostly railroads and industry things. The whole thing is kind of shaped like this:
The big draw down the west is for the most part a lateral valley making it incredibly windy all throughout. According to Luke the northern pastures are a lot flatter but I haven't been up there yet.
Headquarters consists of the main house, a bunch of pins, a barn, a shop, the saddle house, the hay barn, some gas tanks, the bunkhouse, and a garage area with a bunch of trailers and trucks.
Right now the two big operations going on are raising cattle and starting a farm. There are 1200 cows out here and since calving takes place in the spring that number is now up to over 2000. Calves are really funny things. They act like puppies. I think I said that before but it's just really odd how their mannerisms are so similar. The whole point of the cow side of it is to get the calves all the way to late fall when they'll be sold to those feed house places so they can eat all day and get fat. This is basically just the breeding center. Some of the heifers are kept every year rather than buying new ones so that the numbers can be higher each year. The farm is still in the works but is nearly up and running. They've leveled two fields and installed irrigation systems and pivots out on them. Pivots are those big watering machines that basically suspended hoses with holes in them. They've been seeding the fields lately but there still aren't fences up around them.
The fences that have to go up are 8 ft. tall to keep out the elk and have to go up soon. No fun will be had there.
Now you'd think that with nearly 500 miles to cover consisting of 2000 cows, thousands of miles of fences, a brand new farm, and all the other issues a ranch has to deal with there'd be more than 6 people working out here. There should be. There's no money. Because it's owned by a big corporation that doesn't ranch everyone gets spread really thin. This makes everyone have to work over 12 hours almost every day while "days off" are spent doing the easier maintenance and going out of town to get supplies.
Also, check out this arrowhead I found the other day.
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