A Cowboy’s 1st Century : Ranching: Herman Wiegand has spent his entire 100 years farming and raising cattle in North County. And this pioneer still cares for a quarter-acre garden.

Land went for about $1 an acre when Herman Wiegand first started his lima bean farm and cattle ranch in what is now Encinitas at the beginning of the century. Now, an acre of that same land can run as high as $100,000.

Things have changed over the years, and Wiegand knows it. Wiegand, affectionately called “Pop” by most friends and family, recently turned 100. That might not make him the oldest man in North County, but certainly qualifies him as one of its senior residents--he has lived every one of those years in the Encinitas area.

“You know, when I was young I only hoped to one day ride a car,” Wiegand said, recalling the day as a schoolboy when he saw his first “wagon without a horse.” He said his grandson, a space engineer in Arizona, hopes to travel to space one day.

“Boy, things have changed during my lifetime,” he said.

Wiegand, one of the last of North County’s pioneers, said he’s at that age where he “gets tired doing nothing.” But his mind remains active and memory sharp.

Born in 1890 on an Olivenhain homestead settlement not far from his present home on Manchester Avenue, Wiegand devoted his life to the land, slowly buying one acre after another to build up his ranch, which at one time sprawled over 500 acres in Rancho Santa Fe.

“We never made a lot of money, but we always paid our bills,” Wiegand said, quoting one of his favorite lines.

A die-hard cowboy who still favors cowboy hat and boots, Wiegand sold off most of his land in the 1960s, when property taxes got too expensive and he decided to semi-retire. He is now content to garden a quarter acre of land on his remaining 25 acres.

“That garden, I still call it my farm,” Wiegand said. His daughter Mary Ann Wiegand Wood, who lives next door to him, said he still spends about an hour a day tending his garden of onions, potatoes, corn, cabbage, green beans and other crops. He also makes sauerkraut every winter.

A lima bean farmer and a cowboy cattleman for more than 60 years, Wiegand said he first tried his hand at cattle ranching at age 12 when he bought his first cow.

“I bought her for $25 that I borrowed from a neighbor,” Wiegand said. “I brought her home and that night she died.” It’s one of his favorite stories, and he tells it with the good humor of a cowboy who’s been through the ups and downs of life on the range.

Although his family farmed hay, grain and beans, as well as ranched, Wiegand said his passion had always been cattle ranching. Wiegand rode his horse, Pekla, until he was well into his 80s, and the last time he took to the saddle was four years ago, at age 96.

“Cattle was Herman’s main business. My dad, Herman’s brother, was more into farming,” his nephew John Wiegand said. He said his family lived in what they called Green Valley, which is about 4 miles away from Wiegand’s ranch.

Wiegand still shows off what he calls, “the trait of a good cowboy,” or a right thumb that’s a joint shorter than the left thumb.

He said when cowboys roped steers, to stop the animal they would wrap the lasso around their saddle horn. Sometimes the right thumb would get caught in the rope, and if the steer bolted the thumb would get severed.

“When I would go to rodeos, other cowboys would look at my hand and say ‘I know how that happened,’ ” he said.

Wiegand operated a mother-cow outfit during most of his ranching career.

“We kept the mother cows out on the hills, they had their calves, and we sold those calves at about a year old,” he said. He said he still remembers bringing his cattle to market in San Diego and Los Angeles, when the streets were nothing more than dirt roads.

At times, Wiegand had more than 1,000 heads on his ranch. Not bad for a guy whose formal schooling ended in the eighth grade.

Wiegand fondly recalls the good old days of his ranch operation, as well as the not-so-good days of the Great Depression and the world wars. He said he remembers not being able to pay ranch hands more than $7.50 a month during the early years of the Depression.

“During World War I, my dad kept me on the farm. He always said the American farmer fed the world,” said Wiegand, who was exempted from the draft to farm. “The president (Theodore Roosevelt) said the farmer’s uniform was overalls.”

Wiegand’s parents, who moved to North County with a group of German settlers wanting to begin a cooperative colony, settled in 1884 on their homestead on Aliso Canyon Road, which is now a part of Rancho Santa Fe.

Wiegand, the third of five children of Adam and Christiana Wiegand, lived there until his father moved the family in 1914 to the ranch property Wiegand still owns.

Although soft-spoken Wiegand, who’s just a bit hard of hearing, can’t get around much any more without his cane, his spirit remains strong.

Wood said her father gets up every morning at 6. “He reads the morning paper and keeps up with current events. He likes to keep track of the stock market since he owns some,” she said.

Wiegand also enjoys keeping in touch with friends through letters. “I was at his house a couple of days ago, and he was writing a letter to an old girlfriend,” Wiegand’s nephew, John, said. “His penmanship is still very legible.”

Wiegand lives in a home on his original ranch property, just behind Wood’s house, with another daughter Mildred Wiegand and a housekeeper.

One of Wiegand’s prized possessions is a ledger he has kept, which dates back to 1922, of everything from business transactions to weather conditions. The ledger book also doubled as a diary, Wiegand said, since he recorded deaths, births, marriages, even family vacations in the book.

A Dec. 25, 1931, entry talks of the Great Depression and reads, “We had a plain and very nice Christmas. Everyone was in good health, and that is a great blessing when we consider the times in general.”

Among the entries are ones depicting cattle being sold in 1922 for four cents per pound, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential victory in 1932, his son swallowing a quarter in 1933 and the death of his wife in 1969.

He married his wife, Mary, in 1914 and the couple had three children, including a son Bill, who now lives in Arizona. Wiegand now has six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

One of his favorite entries describes his first family vacation. “I took my family to the Yosemite Valley in 1922,” he said with pride.

The last entry in his diary is dated March 8, 1979, a note about riding the range and seeing flowers that reminded him of his mother. But, Wiegand said he tries to stay busy. Lately, Wiegand has helped in the crusade to establish the San Dieguito Heritage Museum. He is an honorary charter member of the group.

Wiegand contributed his old saddle to the museum’s collection of North County memorabilia, although the group is still trying to find a building.

After living a century, Wiegand said he doesn’t have any particular philosophy on life, except to enjoy it.

“If you like what you’re doing, that’s life. If you don’t like it, then life becomes a burden,” he said.

“It’s been an interesting life. I like what I’ve been doing and that’s what living is.”