Idaman

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BIZIN":1x0d70ne said:
IDAMAN...What size would your cows be with a calf at side? Frame wise? And what would they weigh do you think? So would your herd be similar to Deewalls?
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Our cows when they come in off of the winter range will weigh about 1100 to 1200 lbs. By fall they are maybe 1300 to 1400. They probably are somewhat similar to the Deewall cattle but from vastly different lines up close. Ours are Canadian bred and theirs are L1 and Nash bred.
 
Is east of Trinidad the Pinon Canyon land that is the big debate over the military expansion?
 
There is another bit of information I would like to add to this Nash cattle business. I just thought of this today and my memory may be off some but I believe that when Franklin wanted to sell off most of his ranch for subdivision he needed to sell the cattle.
That was, maybe around 1990, and he contacted several people to see if they wanted to buy them. My memory is real fuzzy on this but I think I remember his calling me. We were living in Oregon at the time and that was from1988 to 1995 so those times would work out. We had to decline and I regretted that but these were not the final cut that Deewalls got. Franklin had retained the Deewall cattle for probably just this possibility.
Jane would have to correct me but I think this was about how it went.

The man that ended up with that cut was Jack Orr from Denver or near there. Jack was a friend of both Franklin and me. Jack is or was a fantastic cattleman and they would be in tremendous hands if he still has any left, he just may and I will try to find out if he does. He might be a great source for females. Two very interesting points about Jack are that Fred Debarard was his grandfather and Fred originally bred the Nash and L1 cattle. So the bloodline is making full circle. The other point is that Jack is the man who recognized BIG MAC and uncovered that whole fiasco. BIG MAC had been shown by the kid of Jacks foreman in the local fairs and Jack recognized him in Denver sporting a new color. Jack is just that sharp and has a tremendous eye for cattle. He was by the way a realtor. Jack moved those cows down to the Red Top ranch southeast of Pueblo Co. as he had that place leased.
 
stockman12":2brd4wj5 said:
Is east of Trinidad the Pinon Canyon land that is the big debate over the military expansion?
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It is. The place we looked at was east of the proposed plan some distance and is not supposed to be affected.

We are lookin at another place 60 miles east of the first place.

I knew some of the ancestors of the people that are leading that fight. We used to hunt bighorn sheep with them up in the Medanoes east of the Baca Grant.
 
Before I move on to other subjects I need to digress and talk about a couple other great men that graced my life. Carl A. Martin Jr. would be one of those men. Of all the cattleworld men I have known Carl would easily be ranked one of the most honest along side of Jack Koster from BC. I rate them up there because of their personalities which definitely affected their honesty. They both had no desire whatsoever to have their cattle or themselves accepted by the people in cattle circles. This intense desire for privacy freed both men from the pressure of compromise that the need for acceptance demanded and most succumbed to.

I had a very tough time approaching Carl for the first time. When Paul ??? first told me to contact him I got right on the phone, after I finally found his number I called him and he nearly refused to talk to me. After a couple of months I called him again and it seemed that he had warmed up or as the Bible says he realized that I would just keep knocking and that resistance could be futile. After several calls I stated that I was coming down to his place to look at cattle and he somewhat reluctantly agreed. My wife and I flew into San Angelo, rented a car and headed for a motel in Menard. The next morning I met him out at the ranch as he lived in Menard.

We spent the day looking at his cattle and he really began to warm up once he realized that I wasn't a spy from the AHA. I never even broached the subject of acquiring a bull during this first visit. I just didn't want to blow him away. After two or three more like trips I finally brought up the subject and was able to secure a bull. As the years ensued I got several more and the rest is in our history.

I say all this to preface my knowledge of Carls' WW2 experiences which after some time he really wanted to talk about. When Carl first joined the Army and became an officer he was assigned to train a company of one half negros and one half Mexicans. They were trained as a calvary unit but for some unknown reason were transferred to Michigan to form a skl partol company. After completing that training they were deployed to Europe and began their battle. Carl was by that time a Major and served right under General Omar Bradley. Bradley was reporting to Ike so Carl was very close to the top of the chain of command. He met with Bradley every night and then accompanied his men during the day. This practice and level of involvement was a major block in the relationship with his men.

One time Carl was on patrol with his men and was hit in the thigh with a piece of schrapnel. It penetrated his pants and his leg but left the major part protruding out. Carl grabbed the schrapnel and jerked it out and went on with the patrol. This earned him the Purple Heart but he said that was nowhere as important as the resulting respect from his men. Of course as the story spread through his men the story grew as they tend to do. By the time of the final telling the story was that the old man had had his leg shot off and he just stuck it back on and didn't even limp.

The Mexicans came up with the bright idea of some of them sneaking out at night with just their knives and giving some of the Germans a second smile. This was a very effective ploy as it completely unnerved the Germans and tickled the Mexicans to death. It was so effective that the negroes, who were afraid of the dark, became very jealous and fights started breaking out. Carl called in the non-com who was the spokesman for the negroes and asked him what could be done to even things up. The non-com said that what they really wanted was to be called the "Fighting Black Tigers With Knots In Their Tails". Carl immediately ordered a patch for the sleve of every negro and the problem was solved. - To be continued rather than lost.
 
Continued - Carl was one of the most highly decorated men from WW2 2 Purple Hearts, CMA plus many others. Of the company that left El Paso in the beginning only four returned and Carl was one of those.

On the funny side of Carl there are also some great stories. One of the first times I was there we were driving around his pastures and a small rain passed over. Carl turned on the windshield wipers to clear the rain and then he was so concentrating on what he was telling me that he never turned the wipers off. Those wipers ran so long on the dry surface that they left a black deposit of worn off rubber on the windshield. We never turned them off that day until he shut the truck off in the evening. We even drove clear back to town with them running.

Another time Carl had planned a trip for us and our wives to go down to Beeville and meet his old friend down there that ran an experiment station. That man was named Ed Neal and he was the last calvary noncom for the US Military. Carl was concerned enough about our trip that he put brand new Goodyear Double Eagle tires on his four door Thunderbird. All he could talk about was how good those tires were since they had an inner tire so that if the outer one blew we could continue on the inner tire until we could get it fixed. Sure enough somewhere along the way the outer tire blew and we dropped down on the inner tire. Carl was so pleased with himself and those tires that he nearly burst at least for about a quarter mile when the inner tire blew. We pulled off the road and got out. Carl opened the trunk and got the jack out and handed it to me. He then began to dance around the car and lament our condition. After a while I realized that if that tire was going to get changed I had better do it. I don't know to this day whether he didn't know how to change the tire or whether he tricked me into the dirty work. Carl was truly amazing.


One time when he and his wife were visitig us in Colorado I struggled with having him meet Franklin. They were both so strong in their opinions and were at such opposite ends of their breeding philosophies that I decided that I had better pass on that job. If I would have gotten them off on the war experiences it would have gone well but I decided against it. I think now that I under estimated both men that time and they should have met each other.
 
Idaman, I don't mean to interrupt your story but do you recognize this kid?

jackiespics001.jpg
 
Ned Jr. - Where in the world did you get that picture. Of course I recognize that picture it is like looking in the mirror except for the balding and gray hair.

I really wish I had one to return the favor.

My wife really cracked up and nearly died laughing.
 
Idaman":1ra7tnw5 said:
I really wish I had one to return the favor.
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I hope that don't happen. :D I was a goofy looking kid.

The daughter of the lady in this picture is best friends with my wife. She's the one with the pictures. She'd mail the first one to you if you'd pm me your address.

jackiespics.jpg
 
There is another bit of information I would like to add to this Nash cattle business. I just thought of this today and my memory may be off some but I believe that when Franklin wanted to sell off most of his ranch for subdivision he needed to sell the cattle.
That was, maybe around 1990, and he contacted several people to see if they wanted to buy them. My memory is real fuzzy on this but I think I remember his calling me. We were living in Oregon at the time and that was from1988 to 1995 so those times would work out. We had to decline and I regretted that but these were not the final cut that Deewalls got. Franklin had retained the Deewall cattle for probably just this possibility.
Jane would have to correct me but I think this was about how it went.
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When Dad decided that he was getting too old to run the cattle anymore, he sold Mike and me 4 bred pairs and gave us one of his favorite pair.That was in 1991. They were what we thought were his best first calf and second calf heifers. Interesting enough the sire of the 908 bull (that was referenced in an earlier post) and the grandam of the bull that just went to Indiana, both came in dam on those 5 cows. He leased all but 9 cows to Jack Orr. From the 9 cows that Dad kept, he produced the pen of bulls that Mike and I showed in Denver in 2000. We still receive very favorable comments about those 5 bulls, today. For the next three years, Dad took his lease money in heifer calves, which provided the rest of the foundation to our herd. Jack leased the cows for about 4 years, then purchased them from Dad, and kept them for around 5 more years. He ended up selling them to a couple with a ranch sale. (We really don't know how that all went down). This couple ended up yarding them at a sale barn. We would have been interested in buying them, but were just getting started and just didn't have the money or acreage to run them.
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1914- Hereford - That fills in the blanks, at least my skeleton recolection was very close. I am sorry to hear of the cows fate as I would have loved to acquire some of them.
 
Idaman":1taf0lj3 said:
1914- Hereford - That fills in the blanks, at least my skeleton recolection was very close. I am sorry to hear of the cows fate as I would have loved to acquire some of them.
Click to expand...

Lots of good Hereford cows of varying bloodlines have been lost the same way in the last 25 years. I've been looking at old Hereford Journals today. Looking at those from the mid 80s with all those pencil gutted frame 8 wonders, all I can come up with is: "WHAT WERE WE THINKING???" :oops:

George
 
Herefords.US":3tqn2nqk said:
Idaman":3tqn2nqk said:
1914- Hereford - That fills in the blanks, at least my skeleton recolection was very close. I am sorry to hear of the cows fate as I would have loved to acquire some of them.
Click to expand...

Lots of good Hereford cows of varying bloodlines have been lost the same way in the last 25 years. I've been looking at old Hereford Journals today. Looking at those from the mid 80s with all those pencil gutted frame 8 wonders, all I can come up with is: "WHAT WERE WE THINKING???" :oops:

George
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Amen to that which makes me so glad to have been out of the mainstream enough to miss all that.
 
After my thorough humiliation earlier, which my family really loved, I will try to continue with at least some semblence of dignity. Down often but never out I will attempt some retaliation.

Probably the best neighbor we ever had was a man named Jack. Jack was so great to help Connie and me when we first started out with our first ranch and our first purebred cattle. Jack and Ned Jrs ' uncle Stan often helped a third neighbor with their carload of bulls at the carload show in Denver. The third neighbors are the only ones I will not mention on CT because it would be almost all negative and I have tried to present people in the best light of my recollection. Anyway Jack and Stan started to scuffle through a fence in the stockyards in Denver. Stan had been a boxer in the military during Korea and Jack was as tough as they come. The scuffle grew more agressive and finally they broke some of the 2x8 in that fence before they had had enough. I never heard who won the scuffle.


Another time Jack and his son were hauling some bulls out to a rented pasture and they wanted me to take a load. When I arrived at their place they were just getting ready to brand some young bulls. Jack was trying to light a kerosene branding iron heater that stood up on legs about 4 feet high. It was made out of a ten inch pipe with a nozzle in one end where the flame came from and you had to light it there. Sooo Jack had his head bent around and in the pipe so he could see to light the flame. It was just after the 4th of July and I discovered that I had some matches and a cherry bomb in my pocket. I got the bright idea to light the cherry bomb and drop it at Jacks' feet. When his son saw what I was doing he started running away to go around the barn. I thought since he was reacting that way maybe I had better leave the scene of the crime as well. There was a terribly loud bang and Jack jumped straight up in the air with his head still in the heater. It bent his glasses tore his ear and left him with a bump on the top of his head. I really did deep down feel bad after I saw the damage the bomb had caused.


Some time later I was down in the bottom of a portable self feeder working on some mold and Jack as he was driving by sneaked out of his truck grabbed a 2x4 and hit the side of the feeder as hard as he could. Needless to say I came up out of that feeder like a prairie dog out of his hole or Jack in the box. Jack and I just had the greatest of times together working and hunting elk.
 
That would have been something to see Jack and Uncle Stan lock horns back then. They were both tougher than nails.

I heard a good one about Jack elk hunting one time. I can't guarantee it to be true but I heard Jack and Bud got into some elk and Jack got so excited he racked all his shells out of his rifle without firing a shot. Then he turned to Bud and said "I think I hit him". Bud said "I don't think so" and pointed to all the shells on the ground. :D
 
One time Jack and several others from the valley including Harvey R and I were hunting over near the highway that goes between Saguache and Gunnison. There had been a heavy earky snow and the elk were really bunched up. This was on the old Agency Ranch which was managed at that time by a Johnny H who was a brother-in- law to Bud.

A large herd of elk had congregated there on a high mesa. There were about 200 in the bunch. The snow was about 3 feet deep in the timber and about a foot on the open mesa. Johnny H. asked us to line up on our horses at edge of the timber and when he gave the yell ride out yelling and panic and surround the elk. We did as told but early in the charge toward the elk Jack got so exicted that he jumped off of his horse, hit the ground running and then hopped back on without the horse ever having to break stride. There were 11 of us in the charge and we ended up killing 11 bulls.
 
Just so you don't start getting home sick, here's a picture from this morning. I'd say we've got 6-8 in. so far. hard to tell with all the wind.
IMG_2399.jpg
 

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