Expanding

Being very happy with the money from the sale of the heifers,($1.10/lb on the hoof), we offered to repay our grandfather back his initial investment.  He encouraged us to reinvest it in something else.  We wanted to buy more cattle but with only one acre designated for calves, we wouldn't be able to expand.  What we needed was more land.

heifers being sold

 Our dad happened to mention what we wanted to do to a neighbor of ours. A week later he came back with a proposition.  His father owns the land directly behind us, 17 acres, which he was willing to lease for a few years.  It would take a lot of work though because the fence needed fixing.

Time for a family talk.  Mom and Dad made sure that we knew this was "our deal" meaning we would have to make the deal and do the work on our own.  Not knowing how to put up a barbed wire fence would require research and time.  We would also need supplies which took money that wouldn't come from Mom and Dad either.  Luckily, a few people heard about what we wanted to do.  It turns out that people like self-motivated kids that don't mind breaking sweat.  The land owner's son taught us how to stretch barbed wire and oversaw us doing the work, even working along side us sometimes.  And the rancher whom we would by the cattle from, blessed us with 80 T-posts and a roll of barbed wire.

What came next was a couple of weeks of hard work.  Up at 6, out the door at 7, working 10 hours somedays, covered in poison ivy.  We learned a lot in those weeks and built some muscle too!

clearing brush

drilling post holes

finishing off the holes

It was a lot of work but we were on our way to ranching.

before

before



after