Good Years for the Buzzards

by John Duncklee

Book Overview

The mid-1950s were good years for the buzzards in Arizona, when the Southwest saw its worst drought in centuries. It was not a good time for an upstart cowboy to try to make a go of ranching, but John... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816514542
• ISBN13: 9780816514540
• Release Date: July 1994
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Length: 165 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Well written, informative, entertaining . . .

Ranchers are not the mythic figures that cowboys became as the cattle industry spread across the American West 100 years ago, and the stories of ranchers make up a smaller part of Western literature. But for readers interested in the business end of raising cattle, there are several good books to entertain their curiosity. This is one of them. Duncklee, while a young man in his twenties, leased a small ranch south of Tucson for three years during the long drought of the 1950s. This well-written account of that experience, building a herd and keeping it fed and watered, provides a fascinating look into the heart and mind of a rancher, whose intelligence is pitted against a number of challenges: unpredictable weather, less than scrupulous stock buyers, the fluctuating markets for both cattle and feed, the vagaries of government programs, untrustworthy neighbors, and the risk of loss as disease and mischance threaten to make any of his cows a meal for buzzards. Ths story is told with good humor, intelligence, and some sentiment, and the men whose work lives engage with the author's come to life on the page, especially the 80-year-old vaquero, Chico, who works with him and becomes a dearly loved friend. Also recommended: John Erickson's "Panhandle Cowboy," David McCumber's "The Cowboy Way," and Linda Hasselstrom's "Windbreak: A Woman Rancher on the Northern Plains." Also, for a good history of the cattle industry, read David Dary's "Cowboy Culture: A Saga of Five Centuries."

A RANCHER WHO WAS PUT TO THE TEST

According to Duncklee, the drought of the fifties that affected the entire Southern tier of states and Northern Mexico was good for the buzzards and not much else. Describing one of the greatest challenges a cattleman can face in that manner tells you a lot about the author. Raised in the East and rocked in the cradle of Ivy League tradition, Duncklee had wanted to be a cowboy since the day his father took him to a rodeo at Madison Square Garden. At the age of 12 he was sent to a private ranch school in Arizona, where he studiously applied himself to helping the neighboring ranchers. Later, he turned his back on Dartmouth, worked his way through college as a horse wrangler, then leased an Arizona ranch in the middle of the Southwest's greatest drought in 400 years. "Good Years for the Buzzards" is a chronicle of how he maintained his herd during the drought, learned much about the forces of nature, and a great deal about the importance of neighbors. The author lived his dream of becoming a cowboy and rancher and, evidently, became a fiercely independent individual along the way. He later earned his living by writing and making furniture. - Gail Cooke

an engaging ranch memoir by a real cowboy, john dunklee

I actually got more out of my second time through Good Years for the Buzzards because I kept referring to the sketched map of John Dunklee's O Bar J Ranch opposite the preface as I was reading. This is helpful because Dunklee's chief concern in this engaging ranch memoir is the practical problem of managing the O Bar J cattle ranch through the drought of the late 1950's-- the worst period of drought, we learn, in the Southwestern United States in 400 years. Little rain meant scarce feed for Dunklee's cattle. This confronted Dunklee with the problem of optimizing the forage and water of the harsh desert range to keep his cattle fed and his cowboy dream alive. The trick was keeping his cows on the move to where the forage was, and keeping the precious water flowing from the ranch's two deep wells, the mellifluously named Pozo Hondo and Pacheco wells. Navigating the map gives one a feel for the logistical difficulty of Dunklee's problem. After studying agriculture in college and adventures serving in the Navy during the Korean War and cowboying for wages in Alberta and Wyoming, Dunklee learned that the O Bar J ranch, two large desert pastures on the slope of the Sierrita Mountain range southwest of Tucson, was up for lease. Dunklee signed a lease in the spring of 1956 and bought the owner's cattle, thus beginning a four year battle with drought, cunning order buyers, thieving neighbors, drunken cowboys, careless hunters and miners, wild heifers, government drought relief scams, and various other crafty characters of all types. Apart from being an entertaining portrait of the cattle industry in the Arizona border country in the late 50's, the text is a minor classic of applied, or practical operations, versus academic theory. As such the book would be useful as a narrative companion to theoretical texts in university level business, economics, agricultural economics, or business law courses. After a particularly contentious sale of O Bar J calves pursuant to a contract calling for "weighing the calves at the Southern Pacific yards off the trucks" during which the buyer-because of currently falling prices-tried every trick in the book to shrink the calves before weighing (calves lose weight while being shipped on trucks or standing in corrals with no food or water, costing the seller money), including showing up a half hour late claiming a flat tire and telling the truck drivers to take extra time driving to the stockyard, Dunklee reflects: "While attending the university I had enrolled in a course called Livestock Marketing taught by the chairman of the department. I remembered how his lectures were straight from the text. Neither professor nor textbook mentioned such things as pencil shrink, finagling order buyers, or Twinkie-eating rodeo-hand truck drivers-probably because the professor had never marketed any cattle." Dunklee won that battle, however, as the stockyard boss put the cattle in a corral with a trough of water, letting the cattle

An excellent account of the arizona "wild days"

I have read this book and enjoyed it immensely. John Duncklee tells a simple tale, woven in his own unique manner, speaking eloquently of the early days in Arizona/Sonora territory. Thank you for such a vivid and realisitic approach: Even kids from New York can become the kindest of Cowboys.