Florida Family Ranch - Ranching Round-Up: America's Heartland

spend any time with a rancher and you quickly discover it's a lifestyle that they love and that includes protecting the environment for Bud Adams that means keeping his florida ranch in pristine condition for future generations it's sunup and saddle up on this early spring morning the Cowboys of Adams ranch are ready for another round up all right these are Florida Cowboys no vast open plains of the American West here this range is dotted with palm trees swampy ponds and thickets of grasses and trees and here at Adams ranch near Fort Pierce the wildlife and the 50,000 acres of preserved landscape make for a picture-perfect scene the scene not lost on the ranch's owner Bud Adams visit the ranch and you'll likely find him with a camera in his hand I'm out here checking on the cattle and to see that they have water grass and mineral and invariably you see a lot of interesting things you know I was given an Argus 35 millimeter camera in nineteen thirty six seven years ago that's a long time over the decades buds captured hundreds of images of life on the ranch well I started working here ten years old so this is the 72nd year I've worked here back in those days we had cross state cattle drives and we would have a bed roll and sleep on the ground and a hard life but is a good life his father bought this land in 1937 ten years later they had sixteen hundred head of cattle now it's ten thousand and throughout the years but Adams has been there to create a visual record first on film and now with his digital camera Budds photos have ended up in books and various publications although you're a photographer you're pretty good at it you see yourself as a cattle rancher right that's your actual ooh-ahh I raise cattle I'm gonna come in that's your passion oh yeah that passion carries on to the next generation of the Adams family bud sons manage various areas of the ranching operation and these boys they start when they're 10 or 11 years old and now they're in their mid-20s why there's good as anybody I said you said these boys I think I I think I might have seen a girl out there too this morning yes yes we are Equal Opportunity bud points out that the beautiful ecology here is no accident it's a balance of nature that has been managed by his family for decades she had developers knocking on your door here for some to put some homes here that is a tremendous problem with higher land fathers and a growing population it will be very difficult to pass this on to the next generation what bud captures here through his lens are more than pretty pictures he's documenting a way of life and a heritage that has roots deeper than the palm trees that grow on the sandy soil we understand that this is a holistic enterprise in that we have to consider the grass the trees the county the wildlife the water and in our climate the important part of your animal agriculture provides a sustainable program

Channel: America's Heartland

Views: 1,107,559

Rating: 4.657259 out of 5

Keywords: America's Heartland, ranch, rancher, farm, farmer, harvest, livestock, round up, cattle, family, sustainable agriculture, ag, pbs, rfd-tv, kvie, heartland, agriculture

Id: GLETAdwgQn4

Length: 4min 33sec (273 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 29 2011