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Meet the New Guy

And in the Intern Corner, standing 6’6″ with boots and hat on…. BIG Rob Foiles!

Ok, so reading that to myself I imagined the voice of the guy who always announces boxing matches, so I hope you did too!

Hi everyone, I’m Rob. I’m the 2016 intern here at Rock Hills Ranch. I hail from a family farm outside the Metropolis of Raymond, South Dakota-I believe the population has now dropped under 50 residents. I just graduated from South Dakota State University(GO JACKS!) with a degree in Agricultural Sciences and I put special emphasis on beef production and rangelands, so I think my schooling will help me here this summer!

I enjoy anything associated with cowboys-maybe because I am one- including horses, beef cows, wide open prairies, George Strait, Chris LeDoux, John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, cowboy novels fill my bookshelves and I can often be found singing old-time cowboy songs.  I also am an outdoorsman; Sunday afternoons in the summer I can often be found with a fishing pole by the stock ponds, lakes and rivers or in my lazy boy snoring; and in the fall, I enjoy hunting for ducks and South Dakota’s famous ringneck pheasant.

Being from South Dakota, I don’t have any exciting 1,000 mile road trip story, but I’m always down for a good road trip when given the opportunity. My first day here at the ranch was a little over a week ago, and I remember that it was a cold, dreary day, with the clouds sputtering a raindrop here or there. After the shortest, cutest, and craziest welcoming committee I’ve ever had helped me unload my car, Luke and I grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading off on my first afternoon of work. We checked the first calf heifers, put ear tags in a few new baby calves, moved the heifers that will be bred for the first time this summer and headed to check on the yearling steers and the bulls in the sunshine-don’t like the weather in SD? Wait 5 minutes.  Luke and I then saw a black rain cloud banking up to the west and decided to finish moving the bulls to a spot where there was some older grass that needed to be eaten(more on this in future journals) and about the time that we finished herding the boys over there, CRACK! The storm had moved in faster than we predicted. Luke waived for me to follow him, and through 4 different pastures we went in what felt like someone one with a power washer at point-blank range. We got to the yard and got the 4 wheelers inside the shop and Luke said “You’re never going to let me live this down… Drag the intern through a rainstorm on his first day…I guess my prediction of when the storm would hit was a little off… Dry off and come over for supper.” Luke is right, I don’t think I can let you live that one down.

I’m excited for the months that lie ahead of me with the Perman crew; for learning about cattle, rangelands, how to manipulate the two together to get a goal achieved and a few life lessons along the way, and for all the great people I’m going to meet.  To those of you reading this that I will meet this summer, I look forward to it. And those of you that I won’t, the pictures from my smart phone doesn’t do any justice to how the Permans have taken care of this piece of land, and the squeal of the 4 kids saying “Mommy and Daddy! Mr. Rob is here!” is pretty doggone welcoming.

I’ll come up with a catchy phrase to end my journals in the next week or two, but I don’t know what it is yet.. So until next time, stay dry!

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Toothpick Sam

"It's not dying I'm talking about, it's living." – Gus McCrae

Hi readers my name is Sam Newell I come from a little town in Utah named Nephi. I go to school at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. I met my beautiful girlfriend Lauren Wellman in a livestock and carcass evaluation class.  I will be graduating with my Bachelor's in animal science in less than two years. After I graduate, I will be attending vet school and starting my own practice if all goes as planned. First Upload Of Phone 5-10-15 688I will then start my own ranch and get that going so I can retire as an old man, with his dog and his eyes on the skyline. I also plan to have a family, probably should have throw that in there. Who knows where life will take me though! I enjoy anything outdoors. I hunt whatever is in season at the time. I like to fish when ammunition gets too expensive.  I like having bonfires and good times around the campfire. I thoroughly enjoy country music by artists such as Chris Ledoux, Garth Brooks, "The King" George Straight, Brenn Hill, Ian Tyson and the list goes on.  I would choose a night in a bedroll under the stars over a nice hotel any day.                                                                                        

After a thousand mile journey in my little car " White Lightning" I made it to Rock Hills Ranch. I was recieved the nickel tour and then went to check cows with Luke. There are two internships here on the Rock Hills Ranch; the ranch living internship and the ranch and range management internship.  I fulfill the ranch and range management internship and Miranda fulfills the ranch living internship. My duties include checking cows and calves twice a day as well as tagging, checking and fixing fence, range monitoring , bee counting later in the summer and any other jobs Luke or Lyle need accomplished.  I have been here on the ranch for just about three weeks now and have enjoyed every minute. I am learning so many new things and am  soaking up as much information out of Luke and Lyle as I can.What I really enjoy about this internship is that it is not just learning how to milk a cow or catch a calf it is how to think in a management fashion, how to problem solve and think of things through a hollistic management process (the main way of thinking here on the ranch).  They are great teachers and know what they are doing. It is an honor to have this internship.       

Till next post “Watch Your Topknot” Readers, 

Sam Newell 

 

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Not the Same: Intern Conclusions

The following entry will be the last from Garth Gatson, our summer intern.  I hope you've enjoyed the perspective he's shared here, at least as much as we've enjoyed having him with us.  Hopefully he benefited as much from his time with us as we did from having him here.  Keep his name in the back of your mind, you just might hear it again someday.  Garth has a bright future ahead of him.  

–Luke

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Incredibly enough, summer has come and gone and I find myself back in class at the University of Missouri. After spending three months at RHR, I have been back in my own backyard for over a week now. I have a week of classes behind me, I’ve looked over all the cattle here at home, and things are back in the groove as if I had never even left.

Well, almost.

 When I was researching the philosophers for my last entry I ran across a quote that fits pretty well here.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”-Heraclitus

I don’t know if this is true for rivers, but I can tell you for certain that it is true of farms and ranches. In many ways both quantifiable and abstract, I did not return to the same farm that I had left in May. The rains came early and often in Missouri this summer, and as a result our crops look better than ever. Our corn has a chance to average 200 bushels per acre, and our beans look fantastic as well. The calves that were quite small when I left gained a couple hundred pounds over the summer and now look quite different. What was an empty space of lot behind my house when I left for South Dakota has been covered with gravel, and piers have been poured for a big new shop that is about to be built. 

The people have changed too. My sister lived off the farm during the summer for the first time and worked at a bank in Columbia. My cousin was married over the summer and moved from the farm to Kansas City. This was the first summer that I hadn’t spent on the farm, so Dad did several things differently without me around to work. It also gave him a chance to look at the farm and its future a little differently.

The biggest change, however, is in me. The things that I learned and experienced this summer affected me permanently.  I’ve learned that there are different ways to do almost everything. From working cattle to cutting hay to establishing long term goals for a business, everything can be done a little differently. I have learned to do things differently, but also to think about things differently as well. Luke often talks about paradigm shifts and cultivating the ability to see opportunities in what once looked like challenges.

I’ve learned that you don’t really have to know how to do something to give it a try. Several times this summer while working on a project I would ask Luke how he wanted me to do something. He would often reply with something like, “I don’t know; I’ve never done this before. What do you think?”. It wasn’t that Luke had no idea what he was doing; it was simply that he was trying something for the first time and ironing out the process as he went. I learned that if you only do what you already know how to do really well, you end up limiting yourself. At some point planning and research can only take you so far, and it is time to try new things out for yourself.

And most importantly, I’ve learned that it is people that really make the difference. I am someone who can get along just fine spending all day by myself baling hay or fixing fence. While I certainly enjoy being with my family very much, I can also learn to spend my summer 800 miles away from home. But being with people you enjoy certainly makes a difference. While I rarely left the ranch this summer, plenty of visitors made their way through RHR. Garnet tells me that the number for the summer is approaching 500, and I have had the opportunity to visit and spend time with many of them. I appreciate the knowledge and entertainment that each of them brought to the ranch. What I enjoyed the most, however, was simply being able to live and work with the Perman family. Lyle, Garnet, Luke, Naomi, Isaac, Ella, and Grandma Vivian all played a special part in making my summer enjoyable. For trips to Akaska, lunch in the tractor, warm kouchen, pictures from the summer, a portrait from Ella to “Mr. Garth”, and a thousand other things large and small, I owe the Perman family a very big thank-you. Most of all, I am thankful simply to call them my friends.

I am happy to be back on my own farm again, but it is not the same farm. And I am not the same man.