This is easily the prettiest ranch in Manitoba, thanks to it’s proximity to Duck Mountain Provincial Park. Scenic rolling hills, lakes, and forests of spruce and poplar are home to an abundance of wildlife.
The ranch runs 440 head of cows, replacements and some horses on 21.5 quarters. 15.5 are deeded, 6 are crown quarters. The grass is lush and plentiful. The crown quarters are mostly timber that is easy to ride through, with open meadows.
The main house, a 30 year old bungalow, (1136 sq. ft.), newly renovated, has a large porch add-on and a developed basement. 6 bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, kitchen, a living room with a great view, a cozy family room, and a cold storage room, makes a house with lots of living space. The master bedroom has a walk-in closet. The ranch size porch has lots of shelving/storage space, and a handy vet room and bathroom. The house is heated by an outdoor wood furnace, backed up with electric baseboard heat.
The second house, a 35 year old bungalow, (936 sq. ft.), has three bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom and a couple of storage closets. The basement is unfinished, through there are laundry hookups. It is also heated with an outdoor wood furnace.
The main shop, 32’ x 28’, has two big doors. There are built-in shelves and counters. Concrete floor. There is a one car garage, and also a simple hothouse and chicken coop.
From the house you can look out over the barn and corrals and even see down onto a third lower level to one of the feeding grounds. On the middle level of the yard there is an older shop, with double doors. The barn is 96’ x 30’, with sliding doors. A tack room is built in one corner. There are swinging gates to make more pens when needed. Much of the corral system is made of steel panels. There are three cattle sheds: 48’ x 24’, 16’ x 32’, 16’ x 16’, and an older barn. Six steel granaries, (three on concrete), and three wooden ones with tin roofs.
There are many different sources of water: Three wells, one for the stock watering bowls, (12’ deep, 32" metal crib), spring fed. One for the houses, (30’ deep, 6" casing), and one for the barn, (8’ deep, 42" metal crib), spring fed. There are a number of springs, one in particular is used to water cows in the winter.
East of the house are two handy fields for horse or bulls. Take a walk to the south down the lovely lane to the River Field (NW 35) where a group of cows are wintered. You’ll find a beautiful open valley, and the Shell River. Luckily, during the winter, the river mostly stays open on the crossing. The owners built a hay corral for the hay that they bale down there. The cows could self-feed on bales and/or silage, with the aid of electric wire.
North of the yard, on the NW 2, SW 11, and crown quarter SE 11, they have 5 pastures, two of which are hayed before they rotate cattle to graze there. (About 1/3 of the cattle herd). They have been wintering cattle there, just across the road from the main yard, in a protected clearing with a hay corral. Water: a pond and two lakes.
A separate pasture, NW 10, is great for summering replacement heifers and their bulls. Two fields contained by a roadway on 2 sides and a narrow causeway on a third side, cattle water out of the lake on the south side. There is a dugout in the north field. Twenty acres of fenced hay land is alongside. They graze it. Scenic rolling grassland with small bluffs of aspen make this quarter a beauty.
Bailey Field
This parcel of land is all in one block, made up of South half of 35, North half of 25, SE of 25, all of section 30. There are four fields, all pasture land. They calve out on 36 and 25, where the soil is sandier, with a south slope, so it dries off quicker and warms up quickest in the spring. The steel panel and wood plank corrals are right there and handy for branding, doctoring or whatever. They are positioned to allow corralling from three different fields. Go to these fields for the best view of the Shell River Valley. Big open grassy meadows adorn the sunny north slop of this valley.
A concrete floored steel granary resides in an old yard-site. A corral is being constructed next to a log barn to help with calving problems. How do we water cattle here? A spring fed creek runs through this yard past the corrals and a small dam and dugout are situated on the creek. A large spring on the SE 30 feeds a creek. NW and SE of 25 have river frontage. NW 25 contains a gravel pit.
The crown quarters here are: NE 30, SE 30 and SE 25. Application to lease crown land must be made to Manitoba Agriculture Crown Lands.
They own only the north half of quarter NW 25. The south half is owned by someone else. The dividing line actually cuts the quarter diagonally, following the Shell River.
Glutyk Field
They trail about 2/3 of our cows from their spring pasture in the Bailey field to their summer home in the Glutyk field, via the secluded Duck Mountain Park Road 3 ½ miles. There are five quarters of deeded pasture here plus one more quarter, (SW 24), which is crown land; and the crown is half forest, half grassland. Application must be made to lease crown land.The picturesque, rolling terrain is always pleasant to ride over. 250 - 300 cows are summered here, by rotating on five fields. Water is supplied by 7 dugouts.
SW 23 has 2 dugouts, but is not presently fenced. They have been haying this quarter, which boasts alfalfa and five different grasses.
When they bring the herd home in the fall, they bring them one and a half miles down the #594 road to graze the regrowth on the hayfields on the NW 2.