have easily spent another 2 hours with Bo, and his wife Aubrey & their newborn son. But we needed to start heading south as we were due in Kansas the following morning. Slovek’s also deserve a return trip at a future date, as there’s much more to see in their operation. Our next scheduled stop was with Justin & Jade Herl of Diamond H Ranch in Victoria, KS. Most of their 200 pair were pastured elsewhere, and Justin working in town, which made for probably a quicker visit than we were planning, but we made it all the way into Kansas nonetheless. It was impressive to see what this young couple and younger family has done since they started just 14 years ago. As their bio states, it all started with a dream, very little infrastructure, a newlywed budget, a lot of determination and hard work. Leaving Diamond H, we headed back North to Nebraska on the exact route we took to get there. Our second visit to Kuck ranch was something both Derek and I had planned since our first visit here last fall. When we stopped during harvest last year, there was little time to spend with Abe Kuck as he was quite busy with getting the crops out. But his make believe wife Stacy showed us around, and we had enough of a visit with Abe and his father Kallen that we both knew we had to come back. Abe we’ve now nicknamed the Cow Whisperer after seeing him operate around his herd of Angus. We also got to meet grandma Loretta this trip and learn some back story on this incredible family. Loretta loves to tell stories of their past, and we sat and talked for well over 3 hours to nearly midnight. So watch for more about the Kucks in a future issue as well. After driving a short distance and spending the night in Holdrege, we continued on our journey North to Calvo Red Angus in Bassett. Along the way, we stopped in briefly to introduce ourselves to Sherry Andrews at Spring Valley Ranch in Rose, NE. Sherry is Richard Wiese’s daughter, and we almost thought of calling this the Wiese family tree tour.
We spent the first hour at Calvo Angus just chatting with Rick & his son Joe in their living room and enjoying the air conditioning during this hot spell that, considering it was 100+ in the pacific NW at the time, was pretty bearable. They have a female sale scheduled for November this year, so we decided to look at some of their offering. The pasture they wanted to take us to was 23 miles away, so we opted for the closer one, which I think was 22.8 miles away. We left their place which we thought was fairly remote and drove even deeper into the sandhills before we all hopped into their ranger to drive probably another 5-10 miles into their pastures to find their cattle. After some hunting, we finally found some broken fence, and discovered a very mixed herd with some neighbors that, as Joe said, turned into a pretty bad day. So after dropping us back at our vehicle, we left him to sort that mess out. En route to the pasture, I had noticed we drove right by A&B Cattle. So another unscheduled stop and a quick meet and greet with Adam. A short but memorable visit, as it was unscheduled and he was just leaving. But we’re glad we stopped and made the connection. Onward to our final stop of the night, Keyes Angus. Kevin Keyes and his Angus has recently relocated from Springfield to a picturesque location near Brewster. Kevin and his wife Theresa (who happens to be Weise’s cousin) had recently purchased this ranch as their prior location was bought out by what is becoming known as Silicon Prairie. Facebook & Google are both setting up headquarters in land surrounding Springfield and allowed Kevin a rare opportunity to expand his business, in ways before he could only dream of. I’m excited for them to see their operation grow and change in their new location. I’m expecting to be hearing a lot more from Keyes Angus in the future. Dark was rapidly approaching, and we proba-
Charolais out at pasture at Lindskov-Thiel Ranch in Isabel, South Dakota
August 2021
American Beef Producer
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