Ranchers Have Proud Tradition in the Texas Midwest
Published Mar 18, 2008
Rancher Rick Hanson
Rick Hanson and Billy Green belong to what the former calls “a small, tight-knit club.”
“The ranching community is small,” says Hanson, whose H&M Cattle Co. Ltd. LLC operates the Merrick Davis Ranch in Shackelford County, the Tecumseh Ranch in Throckmorton County and the Taylor County Ranch.
“Ranchers share the same ups and downs,” he says.
Those peaks and valleys make ranching harder in some ways to make a living for Green than it was for his grandfather, who began W.H. Green Cattle Co. 120 years ago in Shackelford County.
But those ups and downs have spurred modern cowboys like Hanson to reach back to the roots of ranching to keep their operations going.
In 2007, Hanson earned Texas’ prestigious Lone Star Land Steward Award in recognition of stewardship that enhances the wildlife habitat.
“We show that cattle and wildlife can exist harmoniously in the same environment,” Hanson says. “We returned the land to the way it was 100 years ago. We have all native grasses” that can deal with the extremes of drought, floods, freeze and heat.
In this stewardship effort, Hanson isolates one 1,000-acre pasture each year for a controlled burn to remove unwanted vegetation. They treat the barren soil chemically to get rid of the invasive prickly pear cactus.
“Grubbing” – mechanical removal – eliminates mesquite.
“We also do rotational grazing. That’s where we move the cattle as a herd from one pasture to another for a short duration of high-intensity grazing.”
In its short stay in a pasture, the herd “creates a lot of hoof action, with all of that manure and urine going into the ground and when the rain comes, it totally enhances the ground.”
Leaving brush on hillsides and in creek beds and restoring the land to its natural state pays off when hunters of whitetail deer, bob-white quail or Rio Grande turkey lease his land. It’s H&M Cattle’s second best source of income.
“It is especially gratifying to me the idea that I’m leaving the land in a better condition for the next generation,” Hanson says. “It’s also especially fulfilling to watch those baby calves hit the ground and grow so we can produce a healthy food supply for our society.”
Green, a board member of the Texas Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, says the main benefit of ranching is “the way of life. I love cattle and I love horses and I guess being a part of nature highlights it.”
Hanson notes that kinship with nature has its challenges in “dealing with the harsh realities of our weather swings.”
“We go through years of drought, and then have a flood, and then enter our next drought,” he says.
Fellow ranchers like Billy Green say that ranching can be challenging.
But the most important thing to him is living and working outdoors in the Big Country.
“Can you hear the wind?” he asks during the cell-phone interview. “I’m riding on my quarter horse, Snorty.”
Story by Tim Ghianni
Photo by staff
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