Graze Master Group

From Bloomberg article linked below: ‘ … homesteaders gathered the buffalo bones. It was easy work: Children could do it. Carted to town, a ton of bones fetched a few dollars. Sent to rendering plants and furnaces in the big industrial cities, that same ton was worth between $18 and $27. Boiled, charred, crushed or powdered, it was worth as much as $60."

We were along the South Dakota and Minnesota line looking at cattle in the mid-1990s with John Delaney of Lake Benton, Minn. We were looking at Hereford herd bulls that the Delaneys had penned up at this old farmstead. All of them were drinking out of a clawfoot bathtub. We were in the process of remodeling my Great Grandfather H.F. Ficke’s house where my son and his wife along with their family live now.

There’s worn, cracked paint on the Burwell Livestock Market sign in Burwell, Neb. The cattle on the sign are strewn with flecks of white, and the words look aged and antique. Time marches on in the pickup trucks still parked outside the market though. There’s hope in the people showing up and even greater hope in those who could be raising livestock and don’t have a clue where to start.