Tom was born in south central New Mexico. His father was an old time cowboy who worked on some large cattle outfits there. His family came to New Mexico in a covered wagon from Texas in the early 1890's, and homesteaded in the foothills of the Capitan Mountains. Tom grew up on a ranch and learned cowboying from his dad. He served in the United States Army and when he came back he graduated from New Mexico State University with a degree in Range Management. For many years, Tom worked as Manager of large ranches in Southwest Texas and in South Central New Mexico. In 1980 he was introduced to Allan Savory's Holistic Resource Management principles, an intensive grazing system and planning system, which he successfully implemented on these ranches. This grazing system which favors the vegetation, cattle and wildlife alike, is part of our planning for this ranch in Northeastern New Mexico.

Mimi was born in Sweden, grew up horseback, riding every day, while dreaming of being a cowboy and riding the wide open spaces of the West. While living and working abroad in Switzerland, through her job she had opportunities to go on week-long camp-out rides in Arizona's Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly. Right then she knew where her heart had belonged all along. It was just a matter of time. In 1988 the opportunity presented itself to move to the U.S. It was not long before she found herself living on a ranch and learning everything from fixing windmills, fences and pipelines, to caring for and working cattle, while also helping and day-working on other ranches. She attended cattle and ranch related seminars, joined cattle organizations, took classes and went to meetings, but it was the hands-on experience that taught her the most.

We met in 1995, and in 1996 Mimi sold her farm in her homeland Sweden and purchasaed a 14,000 acre / 5,670 hectares) ranch with a mixture of private, federal and state leases in South Eastern New Mexico. Tom was still managing a 64,000 acre ranch an hour and a half away, so Mimi was alone on the new ranch for that first year. She took care of the 350 cows and calves, and bulls she and Tom had bought, moved them, fed them, fixed fences and repaired water pipeline leaks. Tom would come out on weekends when we together would install new pipelines and water troughs for the cattle to meet the water requirement for the one herd grazing concept.

In the fall of '96 we got married, horseback (of course!) on the ranch. The following spring Tom moved to the ranch, and together we operated it until fall of 1998, when we sold it because of the then uncertainty of the future of public land grazing permits, and bought a ranch in the Pine Ridge area in the Panhandle of Nebraska. There, we took in cattle on pasture, and for the first time, guests, during the summer months.

We're back in our beloved New Mexico since spring 2004, we continue our new tradition of sharing our beloved ranch life with you! There is no chile, like New Mexico chile!

"If you can't laugh at yourself, you're missing out on a lot of good jokes!" Mimi's quote

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