Graze Master Group

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.

The “Flat Water” our indigenous neighbors referenced was the great expanse of surface waterways: nearly 80,000 miles of rivers, streams and 430 square miles of lakes, that grace and sustain Nebraska’s landscape. Not included in those miles of waterways noted above is the entire Ogallala Aquifer, one of the most expansive in the world, covering about 175,000 square miles across parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.

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.