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Real Florida

A love of the land

Two brothers extend a family's tradition of respecting nature that began about 150 years ago when relatives first put down roots in Florida.

By JEFF KLINKENBERG
Published January 21, 2007

LAKE WALES

Cary Lightsey and his brother Layne, who wear cowboy hats and spurs, are always careful to say "Yes, sir" and "No ma'am" because their parents, Doyle and Marnel Lightsey, raised them to be polite. They have a practiced eye for cattle and for horseflesh and appreciate a good pickup truck.

Both have cell phones but no iPods. They do their accounting with pencil and paper, not a computer. They almost never go to movies, but they have met Johnny Depp and say he is a nice, polite boy despite all the celebrity stuff you read about him in the papers.

The Lightseys start work at dawn and try not to think about the Florida most of us live in - the one with too many subdivisions, too much crime but too few eagles.

"My Florida isn't my Florida anymore," Layne says.

The Lightseys and their kin are Florida Crackers with long memories. The first Lightsey to brand a cow in North America was Johannes Jacob Lightsey, who arrived in South Carolina from Germany in 1712. The first Lightsey to set foot in Florida, John Lightsey, fought the Seminoles in 1837, returned home, and told his relatives to load the wagons and head south. Lightseys started cracking whips at Florida cattle in 1858.

The Lightsey Cattle Co. is going strong in the 21st century. Cary, 54, and Layne, 56, operate four ranches near Lake Kissimmee and Lake Placid in Central Florida. They run 5,400 cattle on an area that would just fit within the city limits of St. Petersburg - about 32,000 acres. They grow citrus and watermelon. They hunt hogs, watch bald eagles and respect the presence of rattlesnakes.

They value the land for what's on it now, not for what somebody might put on it later.

"Lot of ranchers we know, old families, are selling out and moving away," Layne says. "They can't take it anymore."

The Lightseys are pretty sure they aren't going anywhere. In fact, they might go out and buy even more open land - land with eagles and snakes on it.

And then maybe they'll do something really radical with it.

Leave it alone.

A natural approach

Imagine a mass of land about the size of Pinellas County - roughly 200,000 acres. That's how much farming land developers buy in Florida every year.

That number is only expected to go up. Florida's population is predicted to double to 36-million people in the next half-century, according to the environmental group 1000 Friends of Florida. Cary and Layne Lightsey will be gone by then, but not the grandchildren who will have to cope with all the people and pavement.

"Everything is about the family," Layne Lightsey says.

The Lightseys are in ranching to make a profit, but that only tells part of their story. They are in ranching because ranching and family are their legacies. They also love the bears, the whooping cranes and the eagles that need the wild lands of their sprawling ranches.

Their 3,000-acre ranch in Lake Kissimmee, Brahma Island, is accessible only by boat. It is home to 28 protected species, including one of the rarest bird varieties on Earth, the snail kite.

"Some ranchers don't want to admit they have endangered species on their land," Cary Lightsey says. "They're afraid the state is going to swoop in and take over. But that doesn't seem to happen. Our rare animals enhance the value of our land. And I'll tell you, when I see an eagle it puts a smile on my face."

Cary documents interesting eagle sightings in a journal. "Eagle grabs rattlesnake," is one entry. A Marlboro man who doesn't smoke, he is 6 feet 4 in cowboy boots, has a mustache, leathery skin and a body battered by years on horseback.

"There's a purty eagle," he says, driving his Jeep through the pristine prairie, ancient oaks, angular pines and rattlesnake-infested palmetto of the island. "She's on her nest. See her up there in the top limbs?" Fourteen pairs of eagles nest on Brahma Island, but sometimes generations of eagles roost in the trees, and feed in the adjacent lake, at the same time. Cary once counted 80 eagles in one place.

The Lightseys hate to lose a single one. A few years ago, when they discovered that eagles were getting hit by cars on the nearest major highway, they sent cowboys to fix the problem. The cowboys removed the road kill raccoons and possums that were luring hungry eagles to the lethal asphalt.

Nobody who knew the Lightseys was surprised.

"They have struck a balance between the need to make a living and protecting the environment," says Hilary Swain, director of Archbold Biological Station near Lake Placid. The 5,200-acre science preserve is adjacent to the Lightseys' XL Ranch. Recently, Swain asked the Lightseys to manage a piece of Archbold's land. "We couldn't ask for better neighbors," she says.

The Lightseys practice rotational grazing, resting pastures between seasons and protecting grass from erosion. They recycle water in their orange groves. They harvest non-native vegetation, and animals, from their ranches three times a year. Every two years, they burn parts of their ranch, renourishing plants and enhancing native wildlife habitat.

They work with state and environmental groups to establish legally binding conservation easements on their ranches. They own the land and retain the right to use it as they always have; the state, in turn, agrees to never allow the land to be developed. Seventy percent of Lightsey land is protected by conservation easements. They try to maintain at least 40 percent of their land as it might have been in the 17th century. They like to show visitors oak trees nearly four centuries old.

In 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded the Lightseys its annual Environmental Stewardship Award. It was only the second time a rancher east of the Mississippi was so honored. Last year the state presented the Lightseys with a similar award.

"They've made Florida a better place," state Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson says.

Two years ago, the Lightseys, and ranches owned by the Smoak and Hendrie families, opened their land to scientists from the University of Kentucky for a black bear study in rapidly developing - and environmentally sensitive - Highlands County.

"Ranchers like the Lightseys are both refreshing and somewhat unusual," says Dave Maehr, who leads the Kentucky study. Years ago, when Maehr studied bears and panthers for the state of Florida, he sometimes was denied access to ranches where bears and panthers roamed. Study animals occasionally vanished while on those "no trespassing" ranches. "I suspected they were illegally hunted," Maehr says. "But I had no way of finding out."

Cary Lightsey carries a prized possession in his Ford pickup: a photograph of a black bear scientists caught on his land and fitted with an electronic tracking collar.

"He's a good 500 pounds," Lightsey says. "He's a beautiful animal."

Making ends meet

In the 19th century, Linton Lee Lightsey, great-grandfather of Layne and Cary, operated a dry goods store on what is now E Broadway in Tampa. Linton's son, Eustis, focused on livestock. He had cattle and a dairy operation in what is now traffic-congested Brandon. Eustis' son, Doyle - Layne and Cary's daddy - inherited the spread.

"Cary and I would shoot squirrels where the hospital is now," Layne says. "There were no fences, and cattle would wander. Sometimes our cattle would block the roads."

Doyle Lightsey was ambitious, always buying land, always increasing the size of his herd. Hard-driving, a heavy smoker, he suffered a stroke while visiting the barn in 1973. He died a week later at age 57.

Layne was 23 and Cary was 21. The family was deep in debt. Their accountant told them they owed $1.23-million in back taxes. It took them a decade to turn things around. They sold the dairy in Brandon, bought land in Central Florida and looked for new ways to increase income. They planted citrus, watermelon and sod. They opened Brahma Island to hunters with big bank accounts.

Hunting clients included professional athletes, bankers, lawyers, doctors and builders.

"Hey, you got the same name as that Hollywood actor," Layne mentioned to a hunter from South Florida, John Depp, a few years ago.

Next time John Depp went hog hunting, he brought his boy. Johnny wore camouflage, chewed tobacco, said "please" and "thank you," ate home-cooked Southern cuisine and shared the ramshackle bunkhouse - one bedroom and one bathroom - with fellow hunters.

"Nice, ordinary fellow," Layne says. "Kind of small and kind of quiet. You'd never think he was a big movie star."

It's all relative

The actor who plays Capt. Jack Sparrow in the movies has a stunt man. Layne Lightsey, white-haired, plain-talking, tough as a rattlesnake hide, has to perform his own. In September, as he tried to secure a half-ton bull, he was tossed over a 6-foot fence into a 6-foot ditch. Now he needs surgery on his neck.

Cary's horse, Orphan, stepped into a gopher tortoise hole three years ago and fell on him. Cary broke an arm and has 23 screws holding his right leg together. These days he gestures at eagles with the middle finger of his right hand because he lost the pointer finger in a trailer hitch mishap decades ago. "That's ranching," he says. The eagles aren't offended by that middle finger.

Cary loves bacon, eggs and grits for breakfast. He just doesn't eat them. Like his brother, he inherited his daddy's heart disease. "My doctor found out my cholesterol was 300," Cary says. "He told me, 'Now I promised your momma before she died I wouldn't let you die of heart disease. I want you to go home and start a new diet. Don't eat anything white.' "

No grits. No potatoes. No ice cream. He eats beef, but mostly collards, mustard greens, fruit. For breakfast he eats Special K. He has shed 20 pounds and 150 points of cholesterol. He plans on watching his grandkids grow up.

The Lightseys were working at the ranch recently.

Layne's son, Cliff, and Cary's son, Clint, were on horseback, driving the cattle toward the barn. Cary's wife, Marcia, and Layne's wife, Charlotte, counted passing cows. Cary's daughter-in-law, Jessica, encouraged nervous cattle to run through the gate with one hand while holding her 17-month-old, Hattie May, in her other arm. At her side were the 3-year-old twins, Morgan and Bailey, named after horse breeds. Inside Jessica's belly, waiting to be born, was Hanna Kay.

"It doesn't get better than that for me," says Cary, who loves working with his family.

The world is changing

The Lightseys spend as little time in cities as possible.

To them, "going to town" means Lake Wales, about 20 miles west of their Brahma Island Ranch.

Once a sleepy place known for Bok Historic Sanctuary, Lake Wales is growing fast. It has the usual strip-shopping centers, the big box stores, even a modest mall, Eagle Ridge. The eagles left when the mall was built.

What they dislike about modern Florida creeps closer every year.

On a Sunday in 2004, Layne's wife, Charlotte, was driving on Sam Keene Road heading for church. She stopped in amazement as a poacher climbed through a Lightsey fence with a bow and arrow, aiming to kill a wild turkey in the pasture. The poacher fled when Charlotte made a show of picking up her cell phone.

"The world is different now," she says.

Last year, a Lightsey cowboy discovered a dead cow in a pasture next to Tiger Lake. Neither a bear nor a panther was the killer. Someone had removed the cow's tongue and left the rest.

"Who would kill a cow for its tongue?" Charlotte asked.

"Must have been a religious cult," Layne told her.

Georgia on the mind

The Lightseys now own 3,500 acres in rural southwest Georgia. They haul cattle from Florida to fatten up on the rich rye and wheat.

"It sure is nice up there," Cary's wife, Marcia, says. "It's real country."

At Worthy's Hardware near their new ranch, Layne tried to use a credit card to buy a knife case with velvet lining. Terry Worthy told him, "Oh, I'll send you a bill," and wrote something in pencil in a little notebook.

Then the Lightseys went for a bite to eat at the Country Rooster. Lunch was pork chops, a green salad, collards, apple cobbler and sweet tea for $5. The waitresses called everybody at the table "honey."

"Florida is in our veins," declares Layne Lightsey as sand hill cranes trumpet in the nearest pasture. "But up there in Georgia, it's real nice. It reminds me of the way Florida used to be."

Fast Facts:

Outdoor art

Photographs of the Lightsey Cattle Co. are included in the 2007 calendar, The Heart of Florida, compiled by photographer Carlton Ward Jr. Order the calendar for $15 plus shipping from the University Press of Florida at (352) 392-1351 or www.upf.com. Learn more at www.floridaheartland.com.

To learn more

Lightsey Cattle Co.: For additional information, call (863) 696-2257 or (863) 692-1013.

[Last modified February 9, 2007, 13:19:01]