The McPherrin family has raised sheep since 1916 in Sutter County. Calvert McPherrin has spent his adult life, nurturing and increasing the family property, where three generations of McPherrins live.
If Gary Cooper had lived to be 86, he might have looked like Calvert McPherrin does today. Bright blue eyes, wink out below his wrinkled brow. A face worn by sun and wind whose features have settled in to stay awhile: broad forehead, straight nose, and high cheekbones, all ending abruptly with a slightly square chin. McPherrin's Scottish heritage may contribute to a mouth that closes down to a stern, narrow line and then broadens into an easy grin.... and with the grin, comes a twinkle and mischief in those cornflower eyes.... Calvert's face is a map of sunshine, hard work and bright open spaces. Top this impression with a hat-a trucker's special-broken in just so, and you have a quick sketch of Calvert McPherrin.
The McPherrin family has raised sheep since 1916 in Sutter County. Calvert McPherrin has spent his adult life, nurturing and increasing the family property, where three generations of McPherrins live: Calvert and Basque wife, Begana McPherrin-Solozabal, Rosie, the younger of their two daughters, her husband Francisco Damboriena, and their three children.
I became interested in the McPherrin-Damboriena Sheep Company because somewhere, in the middle of a world full of change, here is a family, rock solid and salt of the earth, ranching like they did 70 years ago-more or less. This is the type of modern-day miracle that still intrigues me, gives me hope, and ties me back to the earth under my feet in some real way.
Each month I drive by a ranch or farm that has been converted to housing or business. I see peach trees stacked to burn like fallen soldiers; fields I once rode horseback across are now paved and covered with ticky-tack houses. Or worse still, the gem of a rice and horse ranch I knew well has been sold and built into large premium homes whose most distinguishing feature is size. According to David Pimentel of the Diversity Alliance, “Of the 2.3 billion acres of land in the United States, only 460 million acres, or 20%, are considered suitable for agricultural production. California has a fair amount of that fertile land, and ranks first in agricultural production in the U.S..... At present, about 8% of the 100 million acres in California -8 million acres-are devoted to crops [not including other significant ranching operations]. Yet each year about 122,000 acres-1.5%-are lost from production when swallowed by urban and industrial spread.” This striking statistic makes Calvert McPherrin a still rarer bird-he has methodically accumulated land holdings and found ways to keep his operation viable, avoiding the trend to divide or sell portions of ranch and farming operations.
Must have been about 5 years ago that I was chatting with a friend, herself a rancher, when the McPherrin's name came up in conversation. I was spouting off about values passed from family to family, and the strong ranching culture that seems to fade a little with each passing year, the loss of farms and farm life. How my favorite places continue to disappear under the developer's crushing dozers. My friend Julie said simply “You need to talk to the McPherrins.” And so I did, and found a ranching lifestyle still thriving.
Calvert's father, Elwood McPherrin purchased the 2,100-acre core of the McPherrin operation in 1919. Calvert has gradually built on this foundation and today the McPherrin Ranch holds around 5,000 acres in the Sutter Buttes. Calvert is quick to mention how the family business continues under the stewardship of his son-in-law, Francisco Damboriena. “We have leased meadow ground in Graeagle and Mohawk Valley and take most of our cattle there for the summer. Francisco does all the work, and I just stay out of the way.” That may be the case now, but Calvert McPherrin has spent over sixty years working cattle and sheep and tending the family business.
The McPherrin operation is comfortably nestled near the base of the Buttes, with its land crossing this small, rugged mountain range. On this hazy, fall day, you can almost feel winter rounding the bend and coming to stay a good bit. A few colorful leaves cling to the trees, rams stamp the beginnings of mud in the fields, and red-tail hawks watch from their oak-tree perches.
By April, the entire heard of 3,500 Ramboullet, and crossbred Suffolk-Hampshire sheep will be sheared. June breeding is followed by a summer of Sierra grazing before returning to the Sutter Buttes to lamb in late October. It's a cycle that's been mapped out for over eighty-five years.
Calvert McPherrin just finished writing a history of the operation, detailing it's many changes and cycles over the years. When asked what motivated him to write, he answers, “Well, it's just that over the years, I come up with nearly 300 men that have in their own way, contributed to this operation, and I'd like to give them credit by telling the story.” His book The Long Way to Make a Million, lists over 85 individuals who have worked for the Company over the years. The book is part personal chronicle, part ranch-life stories and anecdotes-McPherrin's book includes ranching traditions, colorful competitions and the wily ways of the herdsmen. There are lots of family stories to be told, like how Calvert McPherrin, a bachelor nearing 40, met wife Begana in Marquina, Spain while recruiting herders. Or for that matter, how his ranch manager Francisco Damboriena came to be his son-in-law. Now in his eighties, Calvert McPherrin just may have a tale for every wrinkle-and more than one with sage, range-ready humor.
