CATTLEMEN’S COLUMN THE LOVE OF THE GAME RANCHING PASSION COMES FULL CIRCLE by CCA Second Vice President John Austel I’m a native of California born in Southern California who spent summers growing up at my grandfather’s and uncle’s ranch in the Ozarks of Arkansas. That’s where I decided to pursue animal science after graduating high school. I attended Pierce Junior College and transferred to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, to complete my degree. While at Cal Poly, I lived and worked at the horse unit and worked on the farm crew. Additionally, I had a few stocker projects at the newly acquired, from the military, Cal Poly Escuela Ranch near Morro Bay. I remember having to sign waivers that we understood there may be unexploded ammunition on the range we ran the stocker project on. My senior project was on daylight calving, a hot topic back then. During the summers at Cal Poly, I packed in the mountains on the east side of the Sierras and fell in love with that country. Following graduation I packed through the hunting season and came out of the mountains and went to work for John Lacey. I was a green college kid back then and worked hard to learn a multitude of additional practical skills and management over the next few years from Lacey and a few good local men that took me under their wing to make me a hand and cattleman. Mark Lacey was at Cal Poly at the time, but came up to the high-country cow camps during the summers when the cattle were there. Mark already knew the ins and outs of the high country so I would head down to the Owens Valley to make sure the pasture irrigation was going like it was supposed to growing our winter feed. China Lake Navel Air Weapons Station is close by in Ridgecrest and the jets would practice their “Top Gun” maneuvers in the valley and in the mountains at the time. I recall Mark and I were putting some miles on some young horses in the high country from Brown Meadow cow camp to Templeton cow Camp. The Templeton camp was built by John Lacey’s grandfather. A jet flew right over our heads. It seemed like it was just about 500 feet above us. We saw the low flying jet first and then the unbelievably 8 California Cattleman February 2024
loud back wash of the jet engines that hit a few seconds later and “boom,” the ride was on. Our horses tucked their heads and tails and we both went out into the meadow with us saying a few words we can’t print. We rode it out and gathered on the trail after they settled down. Like a couple of young cowboys looking for excitement, we both had the biggest smiles on our faces. We still smile about that story today. After working for John Lacey, I transitioned from the saddle to the desk at the Farm Credit where I worked out of the Bakersfield main office and then over to San Luis Obispo’s Santa Maria office. In the late 80s, I met my wife who was attending San Diego State University. We wanted to start our own ranch but the amount of capital to start a first generation ranch was just too far out of our reach, and we ended up moving to San Diego, starting our family, and building our own insurance brokerage for 32 years. We have three sons who wanted to do 4-H beef projects when they were in their teens. So, we rented a small ranch that was slated to be developed in between two golf courses to raise and keep their 4-H project steers. This got my wife and I back into our love of ranching 30 years later. Ranching in San Diego has not been easy over the last 15 years. The ranching atmosphere was rough when we first got started. Grazing was not highly supported. Many of the Ranchers sold their properties to developers since property values were so high, but for whatever reason, the developer was not able to develop them. The properties were then sold and designated as either conservation or open space properties to owners that were government entities. Most of these properties sat fallow and unused for over ...CONTINUED ON PAGE 10