Simi rancher killed in fall remembered for his heart
By Darleen Principe darleen@theacorn.com

Donald Harrington and his wife, Paula, used to get on their yellow ATV and watch their cattle graze peacefully on the pastures of the Cerro Viejo Ranch at the top of Tapo Canyon Road.

Together, the pair- who married in 1987- would observe their herd of Texas longhorns and decide which ones they were going to keep and which ones they would sell for "ropers," or cowboys.

For the last 30 years, breeding and raising the longhorns was Harrington's passion. The rare breed of livestock, which Paula said began "very mediocre," is now a "superior" herd, due to her husband's ranching instincts.

"That's what he lived for and that's what he loved," Paula said. "He had this authority about him, to be able to see things and observe things that were happening that nobody else could see."

But when a few of Harrington's livestock succumbed to old age, tragedy struck the 76-year-old rancher as well.

On Feb. 27, while trying to push a few dead cows over a steep canyon within the boundaries of the 1,200acre ranch, Harrington accidentally fell about 150 feet into the same ravine and died.

"It's just a tremendous loss," Paula said. "He was an outstanding human being. He was such a kind and generous person to everybody. He'd give them the shirt off his back and never expect anything in return."

Harrington, who was born in Oswego, N.Y., in March 1931, first came to the ranch just two miles north of Simi Valley in October 1963. He was already living in Southern California at the time, and the owner of the ranch- whom he met through friends- offered him a job as foreman, his wife said. Although Harrington officially retired in July 2002, he stayed on the premises and continued to take care of the ranch and his animals.

"He wouldn't have been happy anywhere else," Paula said. "He'd consider leaving and I'd just tell him, 'You'd be gone a couple days, then you'd just want to come home.'"

For the Harringtons, home was the light yellow house overlooking a small grove of orange, lemon and avocado trees and accessible by a tiny bridge off the main road that leads into the ranch. Harrington's favorite of his five Border collies, Annie, greets visitors when they come by. It's also the same house where Harrington and his first wife, Leita- who died of cancer- raised their adopted son, Shawn.

"My stepson likes to say (his father) was tough on the outside and soft on the inside," Paula said. "We were just really fortunate that he was in our lives. He was just really remarkable."

Paula said that those who knew Harrington were aware of his keen sense of nature. When choosing animals, he always knew which ones were the best, especially when it came to bulls, Peruvian horses and Border collies.

He had specific methods of handling the livestock and the land, she said. Other people would watch him, and they would "plant when they saw him planting, and they'd harvest when they saw him harvesting," Paula said.

One of Harrington's greatest joys on the ranch was seeing the quality of his animals improve with each generation.

Among his herd of longhorns, his favorite calf born this year was one named Freckles, whose mother and grandmother still graze the same pastures and foothills.

Freckles' father, a 6-year-old bull called Daryl, is the only longhorn on the ranch that Harrington didn't breed himself. But he chose that bull specifically and traveled all the way to Wyoming to pick him up.

Harrington's death, while tragic, came as he was caring for his animals as he instinctively thought best. He never buried the cows because he wanted nature to take its course.

"It's a great loss to his friends, to the cattle, to me, to my stepson," Paula said. "He was an extraordinary person. I told him every day how much I loved him, and I was heartfelt about it."