Eugene weekly., September 01, 2022, Page 9, Image 9

When the Davies arrived at Roaring Springs, a mover
brought their belongings from a ranch where they worked
in Florida. But the mover refused to unload their things,
telling them they wouldn’t last out there.
“He said, ‘You guys aren’t going to stay here. No one
wants to live this far out, so I’m not going to even unload
it,’” Davies says. The driver said he would not come back
and pick up their things after the Davies gave up.
But the family was ready for the change. They knew
the West and what they were getting into. It was a blank
canvas of unspoiled beautiful landscape, he says, and a
wonderful economic opportunity.
“When Elaine’s mother came to visit, she said that you
drive and drive until you think you are going off the end
of the Earth. Then you turn the corner, and there you
are,” Davies says.
Davies says his strategy is to be the third manager of
a ranch after it is purchased. The first hired manager is
often a family member, lasting about a year. The second
person lasts maybe three years because the owners still
try to micromanage. By the time a ranch owner gets to
hiring the third manager, they realize they need to let the
expert do the work.
“I was in the right place, at the right time, with just the
right preparation,” Davies says of becoming the Sanders’
third manager at Roaring Springs.
Ranching by tradition
Miles away, on the other side of Blitzen, Rock Creek
Ranch has a more modest headquarters, where a friendly
great Pyrenees dog comes to greet visitors, and the build-
ings are simple. Far from having a corporate owner who
hires a manager, the ranch is owned and run by fourth
generation rancher Gary Miller. We visit him at the Rock
Creek headquarters, driving 20 minutes down a gravel
road off of the main highway until we spy several trees
and buildings, the only ones to be seen for miles across
the sagebrush and sand. Here, Miller tells me, there are
no natural springs, so they get their water from a reser-
voir his grandfather built on Rock Creek when the land
was purchased.
Miller points out remnants from his family’s cowboy
past scattered along the property — old rusty vehicles and
wagons, hand-forged branding irons, skulls of animals
long gone. He grew up in this part of the state, his family
woven into the history of early homesteaders.
Rock Creek Ranch was started in 1938 by Miller’s
grandfather, who bought it for $11,000. It was passed on
to Miller’s father and, eventually, to Miller in the 1990s.
He married his wife, Michelle Miller, and worked the ranch
while she raised their three sons, now fully grown with
kids of their own.
The ranch operates on about 350,000 acres, Miller
says, 50,000 owned and the rest permitted grazing. An
affable man with a thick reddish-gray mustache, Miller
sits at his kitchen table in his ranch attire, spinning
stories of his family through the generations. He jumps
from simple facts to complicated tragedies together in
the same sentence using the same casual voice one would
use to explain what they ate for dinner the other night.
Miller’s great-grandfather owned a ranch in the nearby
Double-O valley, he says.
“In 1901, he went to prison for killing Curtis and then
lost the ranch. But that’s another story,” Miller says, taking
a breath before continuing, “Anyway, we ended up back
in the valley there. And in 1972, well that’s when things
changed because Joe and Jerry were having trouble.”
“Which two are Joe and Jerry?” I ask.
“Oh those are Grandpa’s younger brothers,” Miller says.
The inside of Miller’s home is tidy, photos of his family
hanging on the wall above a large table where the ranch
cowboys and the Miller family eat their meals. Miller apolo-
gizes for any lingering odors because he and his wife were
just dealing with some recently butchered beef. But there
is no smell and the kitchen is clean, down to the dishcloths
hanging neatly over the side of the sink.
The Miller family depends on the traditions of the
vaqueros, the Spanish word for cowboys. Vaqueros, for
example, rope cattle with a handwoven loop called a riata
and train horses using a hackamore before teaching a
horse to take a bit. Training horses the vaquero way is a
slower process, more focused on quality over fast results.
“Then you’ve got a horse that responds in the most
magnificent way,” Miller says. He adds that his son braids
the riata and there is a difference in the feel of the rope
and how far it is thrown.
Regenerative farming
It’s still early when we meet Davies the next morning
for a tour of Roaring Springs Ranch. The first destination
he drives us to in his shiny Lincoln Navigator, though, is
not a pasture full of cows. It looks more akin to a field of
weeds. This field is full of turnips, Davies explains.
In 2007, Roaring Springs was one of seven regional
winners in the annual Environmental Stewardship Award
Program, which recognizes “innovative and cost effective
approaches to land stewardship on their working cattle
operations.” Nominated for the award by the Oregon
Cattlemen’s Association, Roaring Springs was commended
for its work removing threats to native fish species and
improving other wildlife habitats.
Today, Davies says they continue to run the ranch to
fit in with nature, not spending a lot of money on fossil
fuel dollars fighting with nature to increase production.
“Anytime you fight nature there are going to be costs,”
Davies says. One of their current projects is 1,700 acres of
regenerative agriculture. Davies says he knew of regen-
erative ag for a while, but his son Eric wanted to apply it.
They are now in their third year — growing corn and 27
varieties of other plants. They will harvest one crop of
hay and leave the other crop, letting the cattle graze in
the late winter. This reduces their use of tractors across
the field from 16 times a year to about six.
“In addition, we won't fertilize anymore, and we don't
expect that we'll have to use any pesticides any longer,”
Davies says.
Replacing herbicides and pesticides with seed costs
‘One of the hardest lessons to learn
is how much your horse can give you.
You know how much an ATV can give
you by the gas gauge.’
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M
GARY MILLER SHOWS ROPES AND RIATAS
IN THE BARN AT ROCK CREEK RANCH
S E P T E M B E R
1 ,
2 0 2 2
9