Horses and Herefords

Our horses grazing west of the ranch
 house

Taming horses, guiding and supplying pack horses for big game hunting trips into Yellowstone were the main source of income for my dad. He and other ranchers would roundup wild horses and then he would select those that he liked--some for pack horses, and others for riding horses. Every year during hunting season, he would guide dudes into the mountains by Yellowstone and they would hunt for Big Horn Sheep, Elk, Moose and Bear.  Besides guiding, Daddy would cook over an open fire in a dutch oven, and tell of his adventures. The dudes always came back happy. The hunting season lasted for a couple of months in the fall.  

Pack horses behind our house

So to supplement this we also raised pure breed registered Hereford cattle.  We had a bull and a herd of cows that grazed on our ranch (1000 acres owned, and as many acres leased from the Forest Service. The herd wintered on some of the leased land across the highway, a mile from the house, by the Shoshone Reservoir).  In the spring when they calved, we would select those that we would keep and then sell the others at auction.

In those days, the market for cattle had bottomed out, selling for about $25.00 per hundred pounds compared with $141. now. But we just made enough to supply our needs.  And we had no debt.  If Daddy couldn't pay for it we waited until he had saved up enough money for the purchase. So we may not have had everything that we wanted, but we had all we needed without the stress of money worries. Yes, we were poor, but very happy.