Our closest neighbor (since she lives on the same property) is Julie's mother, Ruth Macy. Ruth has operated this
ranch, on her own, for the past 25 years.
Ruth is 83 years young and is still hoisting bales of hay and milking by hand. She separates her own milk. She
uses the cream for daily use and to churn into butter. Ruth makes her own soap and a great hand cream she markets as
"Bud's Buffalo Cream".
Until recently, Ruth bred Holstein dairy cows. Breeding Holsteins is very labor intensive, requiring
artificial insemenation, vaccinating, birthing calves, hand feeding calves, weening the yearlings, breaking fresh heifers
for milking and hauling the milk producing cows to the auction for sale to local dairies. All of this along with the many
daily chores required at any ranch.
"Miss Macy", as she is called and well known in this community, has since converted the herd to Red Angus stockers. She
has one Brangus bull to handle the insemenation process. The stocker cattle are much easier to breed and has cut down
her work load a great deal.
The pastures on the ranch produce enough bales of hay to supply the feeding needs during the dry months. In times of
good rain the pastures will allow for more grazing by the cattle and require less bales to be fed, allowing her to stockpile
for drier seasons.
