09/03/2026
Every ranch needs a superhero. I’ve named ours Pablo. He doesn’t have social media, so luckily, he won’t see this because he’d likely fire me!
Most of y’all who come into the Cottonwood Ranch Farm Store know Paul as the rancher. But what you may not see is that he is truly the brains and the operation behind Cottonwood Ranch.
While we’re holding down the Farm Store, Paul is usually somewhere on the road.He runs our booming online beef business, coordinating ¼, ½ and whole beef ordersand personally delivering them for free. He delivers beef to restaurants. He fulfills online orders. He’s constantly running between the ranch, the butcher, processors, restaurants, the Farm Store and customers.
Yes, he frequently comes into the Farm Store and steals things out of our freezers to fulfill his online orders. I suppose you can’t technically steal from your own business, but those of us trying to keep the store stocked may disagree….I’ve tried to convince him that he needs a delivery driver.
He refuses.
Because that’s Paul…the good ‘ole Idaho boy!
He wants to deliver the beef himself, and he wants to shake the hand of the person buying it. He wants to know his customers and wants the people entrusting him with their food to know rancher who raised the beef feeding their families. That personal connection has always mattered to him, and no matter how much Cottonwood Ranch grows, he doesn’t want to lose it.I’ve known Paul since college, and somewhere along the way many years ago, I started calling him Pablo. So naturally, I had to create this image because, quite frankly, it embodies the man perfectly.
Cape on. Beef in hand. Black Angus behind him….and probably late for his next delivery because he spent too much time talking to the last one. Behind this humor, however, is a man I have an incredible amount of respect for.
He’s a rancher. A businessman. A husband. A father. A brother-in-law (etc), and one of the most loyal, trustworthy, hardest-working men I know. He has built something pretty incredible; not just a business, but a connection between the ranch, the food we raise, and the families who trust us to feed theirs.
So if you see a truck loaded with Cottonwood Ranch beef headed down the road, Pablo himself is behind the wheel….
