Family ranching legacy comes to an end after man outbid for land

Time moves slowly on the gentle slopes of land in this ranching community 75 miles south of Farmington. It's a place where rumors of rain spread like wildfire among ranchers and where bulging, promising thunderclouds too often don't deliver. Ranchers battle harsh conditions, unforgiving landscapes and natural foes like lightning and coyotes to produce calves that sell for a meager $1 per pound, according to estimates quote from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Five generations of ranchers have tended their herds and cared for the land, and the hard work is more a part of life than a means of profit, rancher Justin Yazzie said. "The reason we do this, it's in our blood," he said Wednesday as he stood on the 4,800-acre ranch he leases from the Navajo Nation. Yazzie, 55, knows the land like an old friend. He measures time by seasons, keeping track of the moisture and height of the grass. "Thirty-two years ago, the grass was up to my knees," he said. "That was 1978, the year I had to take time off work to help my dad with the branding." The experience is one Yazzie, who lives in Farmington, had hoped to pass on to his 16-year-old son, but the ranching tradition is being threatened by a new competitive bid process introduced by the Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture...more