All things change with time.......

afford it.

Roger

...... it is being sold as a working ranch, and not for development .

Maybe some big agri-busines will buy it.

Sure is a pretty place!!!

Angeline
Speakeasy Moderator
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semods4@yahoo.com

even if you had the $115M, how much would it cost to run the place?

.,

Hi Folks,

Step down and sit a spell, and I?ll share a short story.

Cowboys on these large ranches are horseback everyday. Fences, windmills, cattle guards and roads, etc, are done by someone else.

For me, ?Cowboying? is an itch I can?t scratch. If I can do it from the back of a horse, I?m more than willing, otherwise find someone else. As a teenager I was a cowboy on a large ranch, part of which was in Texas and part in New Mexico. My life?s travels took me in other directions, but the ?itch? was always there.

Another gentleman who rode with me in those early times, and whom I?ve stayed in touch with over the years - his son has spent a career at the Bell. Started as a single cowboy, then was the Wagon Boss, and since this picture was taken , is now the Manager. That?s my connection to the Bell.

From time to time I have spent time at the Bell, other than spring gather, in an attempt to scratch my "itch". Here we're in for lunch after six hours in the saddle. Horses first, always.. [url=http://www.netmdc.com/~judi905/forum/bell horses first.JPG

At Spring Gather is where/when roundup and branding takes place.

The horse drawn Chuck Wagon has been replaced by a modern gas fired kitchen, with running hot and cold water, outfitted on a semi-trailer. The Cook and his helper will feed 25 to 30 people every meal. The meals are above criticism. Fresh baked bread and biscuits; fresh salads; meat to perfection; fresh vegetables; cobblers and pies.

The Wagon goes out following Memorial Day and the Gather will last 10 or 12 days. Will brand 450 to 500 calves each day. The Wagon (camp) will relocate every day or so to a different spot on the ranch. Two or three of us will take our pickups, to assure transportation in case of an emergency, otherwise individual cowboys have their own small teepee type tents.

Here a few pics from a recent spring gather.

Selecting horses to go with the wagon.

Remuda arrives at camp site.

Early morning, and the remuda has been rounded up.

Time to get saddled up.

Let?s go to work.

.In three or four hours, the ?gather? starts to arrive at the branding pens.

400 cow and 400 calves in the pen at same time. Lots of activity and very noisy.

Just making a last check to see if any unbranded calves are yet in the herd.

Hope this gave you some idea of what cowboy ?work? might is be like.

...montage of a snapshot of life in New Mexico...and I might say in Texas as well.

I would love to own a place such as this, but I just bought the "Running W" AKA the King Ranch, and I'm a little short on cash...LOL...and I'm lying like a rug.

But this is a fairly accurate statement about the "Running W". It used to be over a million acres, but they sold off a "little piece" larger than the Bell Ranch and it's now down to about 825,000 acres. I don't think anyone really knows how big the King Ranch was nor is today...but it does occupy several Counties in South Texas.

Again, thanks for an interesting story. The pictures are stunning. The story of the King Ranch is really interesting as is the Bell Ranch.

Not for everyone, but I like it.

and failed. All I was getting were ranches for sale, dude ranches, hunting on ranches, and so forth. I couldn't think of the name of the ranch that bordered our property and wanted to find it. I guess that was too much to ask.

When I was young and cowboying full time, an older gentleman told me that I would get old enough to quit cowboying, but I would never be rich enough. I thought on that for a while, decided he was right, and went to doing other things.

And there is the crux of my problem. When I was young I was counseled to leave cowboying to make money, and now that I'm older and retired, I'm told to stay out of the way. With cowboying in my blood, ?.?it's an itch I can't scratch?.

Many years ago a gentleman by the name of Allan Fullmer penned a piece about this conundrum, that I saved. He lived in El Paso, Texas, at the time and was teaching English literature and history. He said he gave up full time cowboying before he married. He offered, "My wife and I have a unique arrangement. I can cowboy in the summer all I want; the rest of the year, I teach school."

I have included it here, hoping others can get an understanding of ?the itch?.
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Even though a cowboy must sometimes give up the job he loves most, he never forgets it.

You have turned your horses out, loaded your gear and all your household goods in the pickup, packed up the wife and kids, and left. You have barely driven out of the gate and you already miss the next day's work. You envy that 20-year old, half-wild kid who has been riding for you. He'll get all your good horses, but won't appreciate the work it took to make them good. However, he'll be at the ropes the next morning. You?ll be in town and your wife will be relieved.

This kind of experience is all too painful to the men out on the ranches who maybe should have quit long ago. Cowboying, like any occupation, has it's turnover, but the men who quit never seem to get the work out of their systems. They get out for many reasons: They are fed up, their wives are fed up, their kids aren't faring well. . . . it's just time to move on. For some it's the end of youth. The last vestiges of their free-roaming days draw to a close when they give notice to the cowboss. This time when they roll their bed, it won't be to move to different ranch, it will be to a different life.

No good marriage is worth a job, and more than a few men have quit because they love their wives more than the cowboy work. Anyone who has ever worked with married cowboys can tell you that some men shouldn't be in the business. They may be the best hands, and only good at cowboying, but their families, especially wives, really suffer. Isolation, long periods of separation, often poor pay and living conditions, and no mental stimulation all wear on cowboy wives.

Many good women have been on the verge of insanity when they are stuck in some isolated, run-down cow camp with the kids, out of money, and a husband gone off on the spring wagon having a good time. No one, absolutely no one, can blame a good woman for being fed up in a situation like this. Men whose wives had had it with the whole lifestyle need to examine their options. It is a tough call that some married cowboys are loathe to make. Undoubtedly it is a tribute to the man, who, while loving the work, rejects the lifestyle that goes with it for the sake of his loved ones.

What men miss is the spontaneity of the work that a town job just can't provide. You started the colt, put the first rides on him; he nearly dumped you a few times, but you got him rode. Now you've got 20 rides on him, he's starting to turn around, to stop nicely, to work a rope in a noisy branding corral. Then on ride 21, for no apparent reason, he drops his head and nearly homesteads you, but the same day you rope a wild cow on him. This is what men miss when they quit. . . . the unpredictability and challenge each day offered. It was what held them to the job in the first place.

Working on the ranch brought a soft, quiet, daily satisfaction, even though the work was not soft. It is hard to believe someone would pay you to have such an enjoyable job. It wasn't all easy, but it was mostly enjoyable and each evening brought anticipation for the tomorrow to come.

Cowboying is like baseball. The pitcher throws a series of balls at a batter. This gets monotonous and the batter doesn't swing for a while, but as the count builds, something must happen. It is inevitable; a hit, a walk, a strike-out, a run, whatever. Then it is a new batter and the monotony of the pitches begins once more.

So goes cowboying. All is sedate and serene----then your horse stumbles or bucks, the herd breaks for the brush, or a cow gets on the fight. The challenge is met and handled, then all becomes slow and quiet again. From monotony to chaos to monotony in less time that it takes to read this sentence. Few town jobs offer that.

However, once you quit, you become everything you loathe about not being a cowboy: baseball cap, work boots, confinement indoors, lunch box, off to some job that stimulates only your pocketbook. Days, swing shifts, graveyard shifts, and the list of dullness goes on. It wasn't so bad when you were cowboyng. You could respect others who had to go off to a mundane job because you didn't, but now there's a difference. Often the town job is on the edge of the ranch country that you used to be horseback in. You run across friends who still draw cowboy wages. They miss you; they miss your skills. You envy them their lifestyle.

Whatever becomes of you, there will always be a feeling of love, longing, or fondness for cowboying, especially if you have pursued it for any length of time. It is an occupation that engulfs you, forever, Forever. The perspective of the man or woman who has been immersed in the trade does not change with the ending of a career. The habits and skills of the cowboy become unrelinquishable. You never truly sever the ties to the work, even if you may not be actively doing the work. It holds you with a long, long rope.
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