Conservation practices saluted

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January 31, 2015 - 12:00 AM

From ‘no man’s land’ to paradise

Roland and Linda Thompson are never happier than when they get a chance to spend time on their 160-acre spread east of Humboldt.
They refer to their ranch as “the Outback,” and after years of hard work have cleared pastures of a multitude of cedars and brush. They will be honored with a grassland management award at the Soil Conservation District annual meeting at 6:30 Wednesday evening in the Community Building in Riverside Park.
“We called it ‘no man’s land’ before we started to remove all the cedars,” and other invasive brush and trees that served no agricultural purpose, Roland said. He noted son Tim also had a large role in improving the acreage.
The farm is divided into pastures and meadows, with one pasture reserved for heifers, where they are protected by double fencing and a meadow from a contracted bull brought in from Oklahoma each March for the obvious.
The spread has been in the Thompson family since June 6, 1911, when Roland’s grandfather, Frank Thompson, purchased it. His father, Jake, then owned it before Roland and Linda took the reins.
When they arrived fresh from retirement, the pastures were covered with “thousands of cedar,” a species that grows rapidly hereabouts and in short order can take over a pasture. The Thompsons noticed good stands of native grass under the coniferous trees, whose lowest and heavily burdened limbs often are just inches off the ground.
With the thought of making all of the farm a cow-calf operation, clearing pastures was their first dictate, a task that was time-consuming and, as any farmer knows, requires ongoing attention. The Thompsons had the cedars clipped, and to hold down on expenses elected to pile and burn residue themselves. Tractors with hydraulic buckets turned the trick.
Maintenance of clean pastures continues.
“Linda’s the weed person,” said Roland, which entails spraying pastures periodically to suppress unwanted growth. Also, Tim said he hardly ever drove across a pasture without stopping to nip a fledgling cedar.
“It was hard work to clear up the pastures and now we work hard to keep them cleared,” Linda remarked.

THE THOMPSONS got their start in the area. He graduated from Humboldt High School in 1955 and two years later married Linda, a Chanute girl.
After “bumming around for a while,” Roland caught on with Santa Fe Railroad and worked better than 30 years for the company, retiring in 1996 from an office position in Topeka.
As retirement neared, they weren’t certain where the new stage of their lives would take them — until one day in the early 1990s while cutting through east Iola they noticed an appealing rock house at the corner of Lincoln and Kentucky streets.
Built in 1920, they thought it the perfect retirement home. Later, they purchased the house, making the commitment the same day they were given a tour. That was in 1994. They spent the next two years remodeling and sprucing up on weekends to get everything just as they wanted.
A granddaughter, Jennifer Thompson, became their preferred house-sitter those two years, coming to Iola to attend Allen Community College, and dodging her grandparents during their weekend paint parties.
Meanwhile, son Tim, who had been living in Louisiana, found southeast Kansas more to his liking and moved to Iola in 1999. Remaking the old Thompson farm a done deal would have been difficult without his assistance, his parents said.
The 160 acres is divided — with fences on lines clean as a whistle — into 105 acres of pasture and 55 devoted to meadow. Angus cattle, most tame enough to take a range cube from one of the Thompsons’ hands, meander about the landscape.
There is more.
The Thompsons wanted more than a working farm and over a few years have built a compound of storage sheds — a large one holds their tractors and his and her Gators — and a rustic cabin that is a favorite haunt of grandkids, who are fond of small beds and play areas in lofts on either end.
“We don’t have electricity or (running) water, but we do have a propane heater and refrigerator,” Linda said.
A bluebird day is apt to find them at the ranch, sometimes with a gaggle of friends invited to a cookout, and Tim occasionally spends the night to have an early start at deer hunting from a blind he mounted on an old trailer.

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