Finding Goats in the Heart of Cattle CountryA Callaway couple and their dogs carve a new way of life. Story and Photography by Bobbi and Steve Olson |
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AN OIL ROAD WOUND WEST out of Broken
Bow through grass-covered hills and steep canyons of deciduous and cedar trees.
A half-dozen mule deer stared down from a hilltop. Cattle and horses grazed
peacefully. Through our open car windows we heard turkeys gobbling just off
the roadside.
A surprise awaited us on our way to
Callaway. In a green valley with a still pond reflecting blue sky and billowy
white clouds, we saw a herd of goats – hundreds of them.
Goats? In cattle country?
Almost on cue, John Wiese pulled behind
in his pickup. He wanted to make sure we weren’t having car problems…
or rustling goats. With a broad smile, he invited us to the house to meet JoEllen,
his wife. Though a dozen hungry “kids” waited for breakfast, the
Wieses told of their adventures in breaking with cattle tradition to co-found
Griffith Goats. It’s a story well worth sharing.
The story begins with a dog – a border collie, to be specific. JoEllen
became hooked on border collies after meeting her niece’s in 1996. To
help train her first dog, she bought five sheep. She acquired more dogs and
more sheep over the years. Her herd grew to 200 sheep when a local rancher agreed
to trade pasture for an interest in the stock.
Word got around and another man named
Bob Griffith came knocking at her door in 2005. JoEllen recognized his name.
Brothers Bob and Perry Griffith live in California but own Custer County rangeland
– more than 6,000 acres – some of which their great-grandparents
homesteaded more than a century ago. Though they’ve been gone for many
years, they return frequently and consider themselves to be Nebraskans.
“I have a proposition for you,”
JoEllen recalled Bob Griffith saying.
Griffith wanted to try a new method
of pasture management by bringing more than a thousand pair of breeding goats
to his land. The goats eat moisture depleting weeds and trees like musk thistle,
leafy spurge, yucca and cedars; and they leave the grass for the cattle. They’re
also in demand for their meat, a favorite of some ethnic groups. Because of
JoEllen’s reputation with sheep and border collies, he hoped she’d
join his new endeavor.
JoEllen wasn’t interested.
That night, after sleeping on it,
she had second thoughts. JoEllen phoned him the next morning to accept. John
and JoEllen became co-owners of Griffith Goats. Soon, JoEllen was taking delivery
of 1,200 commercial does on pastureland fenced only with barbed wire. She and
her border collies began a crash course in wild goat behavior and psychology.
Replacing fences with hog wire became a top priority, and the dogs learned to
stay outside the goats’ comfort circle.
The couple lived in a ranch house near Callaway when the goats began arriving
but they needed to be closer to the Griffith ranch which had no house or buildings.
Their Custer County pioneer spirit kicked in: In a canyon a mile off the road,
they pitched a cabin tent and moved in. JoEllen laughed as she recalled the
reaction of their three grown children:
“They thought we were crazy,
but there were probably only three nights in the year and a half we lived there
that at least one of them didn’t visit us.”
A bed, a couch and a rocking chair
took most of the carpeted floor space, according to a photo she showed us. The
wooded canyon protected them from the winter snow and wind. A cast iron stove
kept them cozy warm.
“We suffered in the summer heat,
though,” she said. But the advantages far outweighed the negatives. “I
loved that I could just walk out the door and I was at work.”
The next year, the Wieses moved a
small house onto the property. They spent their second winter on the ranch enjoying
modern indoor facilities. Yet even today, they both have fond memories of tent
life and moments of missing, in particular the quiet of the canyon and the view
from its rim.
“I’d do it all over again,”
JoEllen said.