95-year-old farmer retires

CRIVITZ - Leonard Orlando can be found in his pasture even more reliably than his 1940s McCormick Farmall H tractor.

"They'll ask, 'How old is your dad?' And I'll go 95," said Orlando's daughter, Joan "Tweet" Netzel. "And they'll say, '95?' They don't think he's that old.”

Orlando and his wife Myra bought their farm just outside of Crivitz in 1949. He has raised and dealt cattle ever since, at times more than 100 head.

"I could tell the cows almost from A to Z," he said. "Just from looking at them."

"He doesn't fish, he doesn't do sports, he doesn't like football," said Netzel. "All he's known his whole life is cattle."

Orlando stopped milking about 20 years ago. But he still hauls bales of hay and feeds his herd everyday.

"It's right in the blood. It's got to be in the blood," said Leonard. "Otherwise, if you want to try it on your own, it just won't work. It's got to be in the blood."

With another winter on its way, Orlando's family has sorrowfully convinced him to sell his cattle.

"He loves them," said Myra Orlando. "So we have to fight with him to get rid of them. But he's kind of giving in."

"It means the world to him and it's going to be hard for him to let go," said Tweet, through tears.

The day his steers were sold at auction in Bonduel, Orlando couldn't bring himself to go.

"It ain’t easy. Not easy. No," he said in the days leading up to the auction.

Orlando will still have a few cows and their calves on the farm for the time being. But with them all up for sale, it marks the beginning of the end of an era.

"If I had to do it over, I'd try it again," he said.