The Iowan

In the July/August 2009 issue of The Iowan

Cover Story
Cowboys Ride on Big Dreams
The Wild West lives on in southern Iowa.

[ Story by Deborah Jansen | Photography by David Peterson ]

A red-hot B — for Bar B Ranch — sizzles through the hide of a calf,
and we’re off to a morning of cowboys and horses, ropes and iron,
working the cattle on a 2,800-acre ranch east of Albia.

Heavy clouds spill rain, soak calves, and send cowboys digging for
raincoats. Branding stops. Calves are too wet. But roping, mud wrestling,
castrating, and vaccinating continue. Branding is postponed. Calves will
again be rounded up in a few weeks, branded, weaned, and sold.

Sensibility and Wide, Open Spaces Wildness and independence still thrive on this Western-style ranch in southern Iowa. Cowboys mount horses three times a week to check the cattle or drive them to new grazing land. Living is definitely not easy, but riding a horse in the open air gives breathing room for humans and animals alike.
During spring and fall roundup, a dozen part-time cowboys leave their day jobs — some are farmers, some are truckers, some serve in county government — and come to Bar B Ranch to help with the cattle. “These guys are used to competing in amateur rodeos, but our roundup gives them and their horses a chance to do it in real life,” says Catherine Bay, managing partner of the ranch. Bay’s father, Stanley Bay, who died in 2000, was both a practical and progressive man who expanded his dream on the heels of the Great Depression. At a time when many families were barely squeaking by on 60 acres, he and his father expanded their farm to 520 acres in the 1940s. “Daddy was aggressive, but he didn’t walk over old people or children,” says Bay with a grin. “Whenever adjacent ground came up for sale, he tried to buy it. But he never spent money unless he knew where it was coming from.” Bay’s father and grandfather attended short courses offered by Iowa State University. Stanley Bay later attended Iowa State to study livestock breeding and management, working under George Edwards, ISU’s herdsman and expert cattle breeder. Father and son operated a large, diverse operation — dairy cattle and chickens covered household expenses; hogs funded operating expenses; beef cattle provided the profit.
Catherine Bay continues her father’s commitment to diversity and stewardship, maintaining an operation that includes both hogs and beef cattle, along with grazing land and few row crops. At the Bar B Ranch, land management — growing and maintaining healthy grasses while also monitoring grazing periods — produces high-quality forage and easily supports an operation of up to 900 cows at calving time. By maximizing grazing, Bay is able to minimize time in the feedlot — where cattle are fed corn, silage, or gluten before going to market — and in turn reduce petroleum-based resources required to fertilize fields and fuel machinery.
A healthy grassland provides an added ecological benefit, explains Jerry De Witt, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. “Soils with high organic matter, such as pastures, can absorb more water than fields with less organic matter,” he explains. “Water infiltrates more effectively, and runoff is generally reduced. Plants cushion the impact of raindrops, and less soil erodes during rainfall.” The strategy is simply commonsense economics for Bay. “Our ground is fertile enough to grow row crops just like any other farm around us,” she says. “But we’ve always succeeded with grazing cattle, so why change?”
Making a Life Versus Making a Living A temporary pen is set in the field and cattle are driven into it. Once inside, calves are separated from the mother cows. Skilled roping teams lasso heads and heels of calves, much as cowboys used to do when Iowa was the Wild West in the 1800s. Guts and know-how combine as one mud-wrestles a calf to the ground. Doug Stark, ranch foreman, castrates the calf with the precision of a surgeon. No hand-holding. Think on your feet. Get ’er done.
Stark left Iowa more than 20 years ago and learned on the job at a large cattle operation in Kansas. He planned to return to his family’s farm, but his experiences took him elsewhere. Western-style ranching shaped a new dream of life on the land, a dream realized through the cowboy network. “Doug Stark’s father is a good man,” says Irvin Williams, who maintains a family rodeo arena on his Moravia farm but is today a cowboy in the Bar B Ranch roundup ring. “He came to me in the 1980s when a lot of us couldn’t afford to expand our farms to support our kids. My boys [Denny and Larry] had already left Iowa to run a big cattle operation in Kansas, so he asked me if my sons could give Doug a job.” Williams serves in the quiet hub of the cowboy network in southern Iowa. He once owned a touring rodeo company and continues to value the experience on the family farm. “There’s something about competing in rodeos that brings families together,” says Williams, who sees the importance of setting a goal, learning responsibility, caring for horses, and enjoying wide, open spaces.
He also knows the value of connecting people who have big dreams. It was Williams who later connected Stark with Bay. “Before my daddy died in 2000, he made me promise to find somebody to do the physical work,” remembers Bay. “He trusted me to operate the place, but he told me he didn’t want one of his girls exposed to the sun every day getting hard and leathery.”
Why approach 21st-century cattle business with historic cowboy flair? Is it more profitable than the modern-day system using ATVs and chutes and pens to separate cows and calves before selling them? “I’ve never put numbers to it,” admits Bay, one of three sisters who own the ranch. “The cattle roundup gets the job done, and everyone has a good time.” Cows bawl and nearly drown out conversation. Though Bay used to ride horseback with her father to work the cattle, today she oversees the roundup from the front seat of her truck. She nods toward Stark. “Doug is a good stockman, and I need him. He agreed to come to work for me if he could manage the operation as a Western-style livestock ranch. He treats this place like it was his own.”
Western-style ranching means cowboys on horseback move cattle to new grazing land as often as needed. Responsible ranchers make a profit and balance needs of the livestock, management of the pasture, and conservation of the land. Stark is the first to admit he’s not going to get rich managing a ranch. “I really like what I do. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here,” he says. “I make enough to support my family, and I get to ride my horse as much as I want to.” He grins.
Stark understands and accepts repetitive tasks when caring for 900 cows. But he also likes a challenge and meets it with a clear head. On roundup day, he never chides a cowboy in front of others. He simply moves to the center, shows how to do the job right, and lets the young guys learn.
Keeping Dreams Big Bay is equally devoted to the next generation. “It’s important to keep the young ones coming to help,” she says and climbs out of the truck. “I’m real proud of you,” she says to a middle-school cowboy who cut his hand while vaccinating. She pours water to rinse his hand. “Let’s let it bleed as much as we can — that’s nature’s way of cleaning it.” He nods and saunters off good as new.
Although Bay works at the People’s Bank in Albia and serves on the bank board, she jumps at the chance to help out at the ranch. “When I was a kid, I hated being inside. Sometimes I acted up, just so Mom would send me outside with Daddy,” she recalls. “My daddy loved everything about farming, and so do I.” The other Bay sisters, Susan and Marilyn, let their sibling operate as tough, hands-on manager of the ranch. All of them are single. “My sisters aren’t exactly silent partners,” she says, cracking a wry smile. “But I tell them, ‘We’ll get along fine as long as you do what I say.’ ” The three sisters meet quarterly to discuss ranch business.
She admits it’s tough operating in the ranching world, which is typically dominated by men. According to USDA statistics, over 84,000 men are principal operators of farms or ranches in Iowa, while only 8,400 women serve in the same role. “I’ve grown up in this business, so everything comes as second nature to me,” says Bay. “Some men—definitely not all of them—don’t think I know what I’m talking about and try to pull something over on me. Others aren’t used to dealing with a woman in general. I have to read all that and know when it’s time to lead and when it works best to let Doug step in.”
Bay points to cowboy Williams. “Sometimes Irvin’s wife, Mary Kay, comes with him for the roundup. She ropes with the best of the guys, but I don’t tell them that.” She laughs and cranks her truck window down to swap stories with a cowboy who’s taking a break, comparing notes on best buys for feed, fuel, and supplies.
When the roundup is over, the crew heads back to the bunk-house. Cowboys load their plates with hamburgers, baked beans, and coleslaw. Bay sits off to one side and jokes with a father-son roping team. It’s clear she knows how to hold her own, have a good time, and conduct the business that keeps her ranch successful and beautiful. She wonders about her ranch’s future. Although she and her sisters don’t have any firm plans, they want to keep the ranch intact. “It would be a shame to break it up,” Bay insists, “after my daddy went through all the work of creating it,” she says.
“Some folks in the community criticize me for owning so much land,” she says of her expansive ranch. “They say I’m preventing young people from getting into farming. But, I say, ‘What about me and my guys? I’m supporting three households, and I’m keeping Iowa beautiful. What’s wrong with that?’ ” To underscore her point, she sweeps an arm toward the long stretch of white fence hemming her gently rolling hills. “We hear a lot about making Iowa beautiful. Look out over this ground. Tell me that isn’t beautiful!”