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Albert Sonneman's Black Angus cattle enjoy a lazy summer day in a pasture
south of North Platte.
Above: Every two or three days, Albert Sonneman spends several hours
making sure his cattle have adequate water and a supply of salt and
minerals.
Farming and Ranching is big business
in southern and eastern Nebraska.
With continually improving crop returns, Nebraska has few equals
in total output of farm production. It is a leading producer of
wild hay, beans, grain sorghum, sugar beets, wheat,
soybeans, rye, corn, and alfalfa. Good grazing land can be found
in the north central and northwest parts of the state. America's
largest formation of stabilized sand dunes is located in the Sandhills,
heart of Nebraska's nearly
$5-billion cattle industry. Real cowboy country, the ranches of
the Sandhills have given starts to many professional rodeo stars.
By Denise Poss
Long before the rooster crows, Albert Sonneman of rural North Platte
has been up for hours doing chores and tending the ranch, much like his
father and grandfather did before him. It's a hard life, he'll be the
first to admit, but it's one he loves and he just can't picture himself
doing anything else.
"This is what I really like to do," he says simply. "The
old timers always told me that you gotta just stick with it. You can't
be jumping from one thing to another. It's pretty much the same thing
every year, but I love it."
Like many farmers and ranchers, Sonneman is up and out of the house long
before the break of dawn. It's cooler then, and he can get a lot accomplished.
Of course, this rancher also lives by the motto, "Early to bed, early
to rise," and is usually asleep by 8 p.m.
Sonneman has good reason to be tired. On any given day he will have done
chores, checked and doctored cattle, spent time in the hay field, repaired
equipment, and managed to squeeze in any number of other things that need
done.
During the summer months, Sonneman says taking care of cattle and working
in the hay fields take up most of his time. Every two or three days he
spends several hours checking miles of pasture to make sure his cattle
have adequate water and a supply of salt and minerals. In the spring and
summer, Sonneman checks on his bulls often to make sure they're okay and
haven't strayed from their designated pastures. By July, however, most
of the cows have been bred, so he can worry less about the bulls wanting
to roam.
"They're getting pretty tired right about now," Sonneman says
with a laugh.
Although he has raised several types of cattle through the years, these
days most of his cattle are Angus. He's proud of his stock, and gives
much of the credit to Bill Rishel of Rishel Angus, who sells him about
95 percent of his bulls. The Beef Improvement Federation recently named
Rishel Angus as the 2005 Seedstock Producer of theYear. Sonneman says
he always tries to buy top quality bulls from sires with good names and
lineage.
Sonneman also spends a lot of time
in the summer haying. This year, the wet weather put him a little behind
schedule, so he's been trying to catch up. You won't hear him complaining
about the rain, however. He's lived through too many droughts to even think
about cursing the rain. "Several
years ago, when the drought was real bad, we had to wean our calves in the
first part of July because we didn't have enough grass to carry them and
the cows on through. We usually don't wean the calves until October, so
I was real nervous about that," he says. He went to several seminars
and gathered information on the subject, and made the decision to wean them
early. As it turned out, the decision was a wise one and the calves came
through just fine.
Unlike years past, however, Sonneman says this spring his calving season
was almost a breeze.
"We had an excellent season," he says. "We ended up at not
quite a hundred percent calf crop. We had several sets of twins and it was
a mild winter. It was by far the best calving season we've ever had."
Drought can be a problem, as can hail, but Sonneman says one of the biggest
challenges he faces is something most of us wouldn't even think of.
"Prairie dogs are a never-ending battle," he says. "They
want the grass short so they can see, so wherever prairie dogs are, there
is no grass - just little short stuff. Then, they make it so damn rough
in there that you're scared to ride a horse across there without it breaking
a leg." He said rattlesnakes will often hibernate in the holes during
the winter, adding to the danger.
Winter is not quite as busy as summer at the Sonneman Ranch, but there is
always plenty to do. There are calves to be weaned, hay to haul, a shop
to be cleaned, and equipment to repair and maintain - although Sonneman
admits he's much better at doctoring cattle than repairing trucks and tractors.
"I'm not real mechanically inclined," he laughed. "If it
don't bleed, I can't fix it."
On a very rare occasion, he and his wife Arta manage to get away for a short
vacation. Last year they spent a few days in Estes Park, Colo. They also
took a trip to Las Vegas for their 25th wedding anniversary. For the most
part, though, downtime is rare for the rancher and his family.
Like her husband, Arta Sonneman puts in full days as a manager for Leeper
Kennels and as a bookkeeper for the Turning Point. Sonneman says that in
today's world, most farming and ranching families have members that work
at other jobs to provide extra income and benefits for the family.
Sonneman often talks of his family and is quick to show off pictures of
his four grandchildren. One of their sons, Alan, works with him at the ranch.
Their other son, Alex, works at the Gerald Gentleman Station in Sutherland,
and daughter, Alee, works at First National Bank in North Platte. But when
it comes down to it, Sonneman says the ranch business is truly a family
affair.
"One reason I like doing what I do is because the family's all in on
it and family is pretty important," he says. Friends also play an important
part in the Sonneman's lives.
"In our business, you have to rely on a lot of friends and neighbors,
especially come branding time."
Sonneman says he's not sure if any of his grandchildren will carry on the
family tradition of ranching, but he will understand if they choose to go
in another direction.
"You either love it or you don't, and if
you don't really love it, there's no reason to do it. You'll just end up
miserable."
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