The Big Horn Ranch, My Dream Fulfilled

By Winston T. Hatch

Everyone has their dreams, they are where we escape to when real life becomes too intolerable to endure. Mine earlier in life was a cruel and self serving father. Later in life it was a baby daughter born with birth defects, and only lived for eight months. I learned when I was very young the art of mind over matter and attitude control.

The stories in this book are all fiction, but are based off of building my dream Ranch. They may or may not be achievable, I do not know. But in my dreams they are, and they are a collection of Problems becoming Opportunities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796079142

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 by Winston T. Hatch.

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-7960-7916-6

             Softcover      978-1-7960-7915-9

             eBook           978-1-7960-7914-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/18/2019

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INTRODUCTION

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This book is about an old man who made his fortune, retired, became bored, decided to pursue his dream Ranch, accomplish it and made another fortune.

I want to advise the reader of my book that they will be reading the actual manuscript I presented to the Publisher for printing. There has been no professional editing, for fear of loosing my common writing style. I elect to do this to maintain the perception, and persona of a person from the humble working class, and not an academic. I joking refer to my communication style as redneck speak. You may encounter some typos, punctuation, and grammar inaccuracies. I fear this is what I must sacrifice to assure the reader experiences the true feeling of us setting down with a couple of cool ones, and me telling them my stories.

CONTENTS

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Introduction

The End of Retirement

The Beginning of a Ranch

The Ranch is Growing

Thank God for Preachers

The Kids Helping Hand

A Vacation in Hawaii

Back to Building a Ranch

Beginning of a Trucking Business

How to Furnish the Shops Equipment

Can’t Win them All

A Honey of a Business

The Trucks are Rolling

Heading Back to Paradise

Meanwhile Back at The Ranch

Back to My Friends in Paradise

Back Home on the Plains

Just Listening to Some Farmers

Sarge’s Army

Back in Paradise

Expanding the Ranch

Expanding Sarge’s Army

The Hay Trading Business

Making Hay on the Highways

Dumping the Highway Hay Business

The Conclusion

THE END OF RETIREMENT

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Once upon a time there was this old man who spent a life time trying to figure how to make money on the stock market. He never had much lick. With all his studying the charts, and taking different courses he never seamed to make much progress. He just managed to keep his head above water, winning a little one time, and loosing it the next time. One day they came up with a new stock. They were called ETFs and were a lot like Mutual funds but were a lot simpler and easy to trade.

You could traded them just like a stock on the stock market. There were ETFs to go long on a stock, and ETF to go short on the same stock. Could trade on the same stock when it was going up, and when it was going down. Unlike the other stocks when you wanted to go short you didn’t have to borrow money or fool with margins you could just buy the short stock. The good part was there were ETFs both long, and short on the Dow, S&P, Nasdaq and unlike regular stocks they’re not going to disappear from some unscrupulous board of directors self serving interests.

This old man was me. I had spent 45 years in the printing trade going into printing companies that were on the edge of bankruptcy, reorganizing them, and making them viable again. Now I didn’t learn this in some fancy college or by getting an MBA out of Harvard. I learned it from the school hard knocks. While standing beside a press watching it on a long run I would study books on cost accounting I had checked out of the public library. Would do time, and motion studies on all our printing operations. My vacations were spent working without pay in different printing shops to learn how to operate larger, and different printing presses. At nights I would work maintaining, and repairing printing presses for different printing shops.

My experiences eventually qualified me to the point where I could walk through a printing plant, and tell where they were losing money. Banks, and Company finance departments loved me. I’ve had large Banks request me to survey their printing shops operations. After 45 years solving others problems I ended up with a small but quite profitable Art Publishing Company that reproduced Artists paintings into limited edition Lithographs for them to market themselves without having to rely on large publishing companies for their sales. Then the Digital Color Copiers came on the market, I could see where these were more cost efficient then my Offset Lithography operation, and decided it was a good time to retire.

I now had lot’s of time to think, and study different thing that I had interests in. I decided to check out these new ETF things that had just come on the market. I never had much luck in the stock market before but these were different. The stock market had now become available to trade over the internet, and with smart phones. You could make instant trades, and be your own stock broker. This worked out pretty well as long as you stuck to the old timers advise buy when no one wants it and sell when the do and don’t try to make a killing by waiting to catch the tops, and bottoms before taking your profits. The old boys in the stock market have a saying for this Bulls make money, and Bears make money, but Hogs get slaughtered. This was working out reacher well and I was beginning to think about some other interest.

I grew up in the depression on a dairy, and wheat farm in Oklahoma. In high school I belonged to the Future Farmers of America (FFA) and had a small flock of Registered Horned Dorset Sheep. This was the only part of farm life that appealed to me. Showed them at many of the local fairs, and livestock shows in the state. Won many awards, and ribbons with them. The rest of farm life to me was nothing but tolerated misery. From the time I was eight years old when World War 2 started, and my brothers went off to the war until I was seventeen, if I wasn’t in school I was either under a cow or on top of a tractor, and education wasn’t a high priority. When I reached seventeen I escaped, and went into the Navy.

All my life I have been a student of mind over matter, and was a real admirer of Dale Carnage. His theories have served my well in maintaining a positive attitude during difficult, and trying times. In my retirement to maintain a sharp, and alert mind I developed this imaginary Horned Dorset Sheep Ranch. I mentally planned, organize, and developed the most efficient operating procedures. Would identify potential problems, and develop there solutions. This proved to be very relaxing, and a escape from the boredom of retirement after a very long, active, and demanding career solving other peoples problems. I began to wonder, could this become a reality. I now had the financial resources. Had spent forty five years of my life identifying other peoples problems, and developing solutions to resolve them. My children were all grown, and had successful careers of there own.

I began to looking around for a farm that looked like it wasn’t doing well, and having a hard time. This followed a rule I had when I was in business, and that was never go into a business that was doing well, there’s no room for improvement. I contacted some Real Estate Business, and explained my requirements. There response was we’ve got all kinds of those kind of farms, hell no body wants the damn things, you can’t give them away. I said good, give me a list, and I’ll check them out. I could see golden opportunities developing here, it wasn’t any different than rebuilding a bankrupt printing plant. I checked out a few of them, and settled on this one that appealed to me. It was a quarter section farm in the southern part Kansas. It was bordered on the west by the Arkansas River, east of the river a delta of about a hundred acres that was cultivated land, then there was a area of about twenty five yards with a rise that was covered by trees.

The rest was pasture land that was overgrown with grass, weeds, small trees, and it overlooked to the west delta to the river. The farm was the south east quarter of the section, bordered on the south by a dirt road clear to the river, on the east by a asphalt paved road, on the north by a old barbed wire fence that divided it from the next farm, and of course on the west by the river. The improvements was an old shotgun shack of a house, and a large old wooden barn that wasn’t in too bad of shape. There was an old windmill so there was water there at one time. I went back to the Real Estate Agents, and asked how long it had been for sale? He said for the last five years ever sense the last time the river flooded, and destroyed the corn crop they had borrowed money from the bank to put in. Said the owner was in bad financial shape. He had already sold off all his equipment, and was about to declare bankruptcy. I asked if he minded if talked to the owner, and I would still pay him his commission if we made a deal. He said sure, he wasn’t going to sell the damn thing anyway.

I called the owner, and invited him and his wife out to dinner. They seemed like a nice young couple who had some bad luck, was under capitalized, and couldn’t ride out the tough times they were in. They didn’t have any children, and she was working as a hair dresser. He was working part time jobs, and was about to declare bankruptcy. I said you don’t want to do that, give me a list of everything you owe. I’ll get you out of this mess, and even give you a job if you want.

THE BEGINNING OF A RANCH

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He asked why you doing this, you don’t know us. I said it’s quite simple, I learned a long time ago the only way you can get what you want in this world is to give the person who has it what he wants. I like your farm, and I hate Banks. He said I’ll get you the list. The next day we meet, and his list consisted of all his debts. I compared it with the appraised value of the land, and it was about half the value. He wasn’t nearly in as bad of shape as he thought but he was inexperienced, under funded, and poorly managed. I offered him a deal where I would assume all of his liabilities, pay him $10,000.00 cash, and offer him a job when I was set up if he wanted it. I asked how that compared to filing for bankruptcy, He couldn’t sign the contract fast enough. This poor guy was in over his head, and he knew it.

I went into his bank, and opened a new $100,000.00 account. I told them I’d like to buy his notes at the principles value, no interest or they could take their chances in his bankruptcy court. They must have been worried about him, didn’t even hesitate in taking my offer. I payed off his back taxes, and was now the proud owner of a farm. Put an add in the paper that I had an old farm barn for sell. I received five calls in response because old barn wood is in high demand. Made a deal with one of them if they would tear down the old house, the windmill, and clean everything up they could have the barn without charge. About a week later they had everything cleared off nice, and clean.

Contacted a contractor to build me a new road through the pasture, and over the hill near the wooded area that I was going to have a large barn, and a house built. They asked if they could get in on building the barn, and house. I told them if they would make me a lump sum deal on the road, barn, house, and two deep water wells I’d sure consider it.

The next day their architects, and estimates were meeting me for breakfast. Told them what my plans were. I wanted the barn built first, it would be a large one that would accommodate all the farm equipment in the front, with space in the back for a flock of about seventy five sheep. Along one side would be an office with a bathroom, and a shower. There would be a large kitchen, dinning room with a lounge area, showers, toilets, sleeping room, laundry, machine shops, and storage rooms. I wanted this all in one big barn, didn’t want a bunch of different barnes around the area.

The house I was still undecided on, but was considering a log cabin type structure but was open to suggestions. I wanted two deep water wells, one for the barn, and house. Another one down in the cultivated delta area for a irrigation system in that hundred acres. They asked if they could handle the irrigation system too, said they had some experience with those, and lumping this all together would save some money. Said that the log cabins were nice but found the maintenance, and upkeep were a very expensive pain in the ass. I told them to figure on a five bedroom, large kitchen, dinning room, with a large open beam ceiling sunken living room with a fireplace. Make it a all brick house and forget the log cabin. Also give me a separate estimate on a wind generator big enough to handle the house, and barn. Figure this as a cash deal with progressive payments as the work is completed. They left, and said they’d get back to me in a week.

I decided I’ll call this the Big Horn Ranch after the Horned Dorset Sheep I’d be getting when the barn was completed, and I’ll try to acquire any of the surrounding farms if they became available. This sounds like a very ambitious undertaking but I have been very successful with my business dealings, and trading the new ETF stocks was going well.

I thought it was about time to meet the neighbors, there was a nice house, and barn on the farm bordering me on the north. The farms south, and east of me was bare cultivated fields. The river bordered me on the west. The next morning I call on my north neighbors. Rang the door bell, and this nice lady in about her sixties answered. Introduced myself, and explained who I was. She said we were wondering what was going on over there. I said I’d like to invited her, and her husband out to dinner tonight so we could get to know each other. She said they would enjoy that, and to come by about five o’clock.

Stopped by at five and picked them up. Her name was Judy and his was Tom. We found a nice steak house in the near by town of Winfield. We ordered then I began to tell them about my background, and my plans for the farm. Explained that I was a little out of date about farming since I had left the farm over sixty years ago when I was seventeen. At that time you could make a living on a quarter section, but now I understand it’s more difficult, and everything had changed. Said I’d have a lot of catching up to do.

Tom said that’s a lot like him, the farm they were on was his folks old homestead. He went in the Air Force, when he got out he went to college, and became football coach in high schools. He’d met Judy at one of those schools, and she’d was the home economics teacher there.

When he was sixty five his parents passed away so he decided to retire, and move back on the old homestead. That was five years ago, a lot of thing had chanced, and it may not have been the best decision. His parents equipment was old, out of date, and like I had said it was now tough to make a living on just a quarter section. Judy said she had grown up in Wichita, it was just her, and her mother. Her mother had always worked in food services, and ended up owning a cafeteria, so she more or less she grew up in the business. I told them I had been very fortunate in business, and was still doing well generating revenue independent of what I anticipated from the farm. So I wouldn’t have to depend on the farms revenue.

Said the owner of the farm had been in bad shape financially, he had borrowed heavily on the corn crop, then lost it in the flood, and that’s was what did him in. I had picked it up for about half it’s value. He could have come out better if he declared bankruptcy, but he didn’t want go through that mess. I just bought all his notes at a discount, paid the back taxes, and gave him $10,000 spending money.

Tom said it looks like you may have been down this road before. I said Tom I spent forty five years of my life going into printing business that were on the edge of bankruptcy, clearing up their mistakes, and making them viable again. I’ve spent my life making money off others mistakes. Ask Tom if he had any idea how often that river floods? He said yes he’d done a bit of research on that. Over the last hundred years it has flooded ten times, but it is getting progressively longer, it took fifteen years on this last one. Said I’m going to install a irrigation system, and I think the increased production will over come a 10% loss over ten years.

Told Tom, and Judy it they are interested I’d like to buy their farm. It won’t be at half price like the one I have. You can live where you’re at as long as you like. I’ll take care of any repairs, and remodeling you like. Asked Jude how long has it been since you had a vacation? She said it’s been five years. I asked is there’s any place you’d like to go? She said I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii, but never been able to afford it.

Told them I’d spent eight months there when I was in the Navy, and it’s a beautiful Island. You