For some reason, the world has become interested in how to become a rancher. A ranch is more than a dressing, it’s a way of life. Ranchers typically raise herd of grazing animals, hoping that they will grow big enough to be butchered and consumed as meat and a myriad of other by-products, or to be sheared for their wool, or cut a little deeper for their leather.
In Texas, your home has to be over 10 acres to be considered eligible to be sold as a ranch by a real estate agent. This is a sizable plot, though in conversations with the organic grass fed wild bison chap at the Triangle Farmer’s Market on a Wednesday evening, it seems you need 20 times this amount to consider grazing a herd of bison. And you can stop picturing cowboys riding horses and eating beans. It’s more ATVs (little 4WD machines most famous for turning upside down and breaking people’s spines – why not use a Subaru Brat instead?), and harvesting animals with helicopters.
Yes, to kill a certified USDA organic grass fed bison and sell it as such, you have to have a dude with a clipboard sit next to you in your helicopter while you shoot your wild bison. Now, I’m not big into slaughtering animals or killing anything bigger than a possum (and that wasn’t my choice – the dog mauled it and it needed to be clubbed out of it’s misery. Or shoveled as the case in fact was.) but flying around the countryside, over acres of ranch land in a freaking helicopter? That’s my bag.