LYNCH CIRCLE RANCH

In the SNOW COVERED Sandhills of Nebraska

Family owned since 1886.

"The cattle have improved. The family is the same."

Email us: mail@lynchranch.com

Meanwhile back at the ranch:

Sold Cattle at Ogallala recently at the December sale. The price is firming up probably due to rising oil prices—cattle tends to track gasoline and is inverse to corn prices.

We got a short note from the county to cut our weeds along the road. Unfortunately they sent the letter in November and by the time we read the message winter weather had already started. It is hard enough to get the crew to cut weeds in the summer time. I doubt if we will get any volunteers to cut them in the snow.

Weeds must be cut once before July 15 and once in August. We routinely comply with the law but this last season we had so much rain that the plants grew luxuriantly; as they say in beef country—the cattle looked greasy.

Cowboy wisdom from Algo Maas:

Algo Maas has been very interested in the Presidential Campaign. We have absolutely no favorites between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, or Mitt Romney—our entire policy is to support any candidate who is good for the cattle industry, period. If any of these guys are vegetarians then we might have a problem.

Algo Maas did have an idea that we should visit the Iowa Caucuses and hold up a sign that says “Italian Cowboys for Giuliani”. He thinks we can corner the entire Italian Cowboy market with this gesture; and he has got a point. After Dean Martin in “Rio Bravo” the list gets pretty short.

As part of the scheme, Algo Maas, thinks we should go around referring to Mayor Giuliani as “Uncle Rudy”. He bases this on the principle that people think all Italians are related to each other. But I pointed out to him that Giuliani himself might take notice and point out that we are not his nephews.

However, Algo Maas had this figured out too: we would say that we were related to the Mayor’s SECOND wife. It is a safe bet that even he doesn’t remember all of her relatives.

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Here is a rider on a hill one day when we had to move cattle across the highway.

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Just a part of the bunch being herded towards the east.

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Lead animals crossing the pavement.

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Mother helped out by watching for traffic along the highway. All vehicles have to be stopped while the cattle crossed.

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Cow and calf during calving. We had snow this year as the calves came, but the crop is very healthy.

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This is the kind of shot that is interesting to ranchers. The littler animals are the calves.

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I attached a camera to a kite and managed to photograph myself from the air. (I include this picture in order to improve the production value of the website. I hope that I will not get any criticism from the powers that be).

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We have many mule deer who pass through the ranch. This animal was in a bale yard and I managed to get a rare close-up shot of it.

Click here for some past articles.

Picture of the town of Hyannis in the year 1910. Not only did they drive the cattle to market through the streets of the town, the stockyards were near the railroad depot. Eventually the buildup of organic matter polluted the town1s water with nitrates.

The old soddy on the south side. They had to cook over a fire of burning cow chips.

Picture of the crew taken 1945. During World War II the government imported workers from Mexico to make up for the loss of manpower on ranches and farms. Regrettably, the names of these two fellows, standing at the far right, have not been recorded. The rest are, from left to right: Ranch Manager Harvey Evans, Dick O'Reilly, Roy Morrel, William Evans, Jim O'Reilly, Stan Evans, Glen Evans, Mildred Morrel.

MS. BOVINE --COW OF THE MONTH.

"Lady Ann"

Turn Ons:

--Big brown eyes

--A bouquet of clover

--Country of Origin Labeling

Turn Offs:

--Bikinis

--Trade Deficits

--Anything leather

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Great-grandfather was born in County Galway, Ireland 1842, one of at least three children in the family. He immigrated to the United States about five minutes after he heard Lee had surrendered at Appomattox. Arriving at Castle Garden in New York City wearing a new suit of clothes, he traveled west, probably by the Erie Canal and then the Ohio River, then sailed down the Mississippi and arrived at Saint Louis, Missouri where he had family. He worked at a castor oil plant for a time, then helped to build the transcontinental railroad across the state of Utah. He continued working for the Union Pacific Railroad until at least 1873 then went into business for himself, selling the Union Pacific railroad ties. Oral tradition holds that he participated in the Black Hills gold rush.

In 1878 near Oberlin, Kansas while driving a hundred head of cattle north from Texas, he was attacked by Cheyenne Indians led by Chief Dull Knife, also known as Morning Star. Barricaded in a "lean-to" dug into a hillside, he fended off the warriors by firing a Sharp's rifle at them until they fled into the brush along the riverbank. This saved his life, that of a seventeen year old cowboy who worked for him, and the lives of the woman and at least one daughter who lived in the cabin. He butchered one of his beeves to feed the rest of the survivors who had gathered around that night.

Great-grandfather homesteaded his first ranch around the American river, and his first two children were born out on the prairie about this time. Later he relocated his family to Omaha and established the present ranch in the Sandhills. He commuted back and forth from the city to the ranch using the newly built railroad line. He was one of the first county commissioners in the Sandhills, and one of the board of directors of a local bank. In 1901 he took his last train trip to Omaha where he died in hospital. He is buried in Holy Sepulcher Cemetery.

Here are Mom and Dad--Anne and S. J.-- in a picture taken about 1995. They are standing in a local monument, called "Carhenge", northwest of the ranch about eighty miles.

Another picture of my late father1s brother Uncle John, retired detective of the NYPD, showing the family affinity for horses.

Looking east out to Home Valley from a window in the ranch house. This is after the hay has been put up, but before the bales have been moved to the stack yards.

Tommy standing, and I at a branding. Tommy is my second cousin, not to be confused with my other cousin Tommy who is a first cousin and lives nearby the ranch.

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Black and white photo of Harvey et al and of the windmill courtesy of Mary Zagozda. Copyright, photos and text Lynch Circle Ranch, Ltd. Partnership, 2007.--121807