STEVE MALONE/NEWS-PRESS "We're one of the last of the big ones." Brad Lundber, about the ranch he manages in the North County

With the dust rising over the corral at Cojo Ranch, cowboy Brad Lundberg darts out the way of an angry 800-pound heifer as it shoots out of a pen and jumps through an open gate.

With his big black hat, denim shirt, kerchief and faded Wranglers lightly dusted from a morning of work, Mr. Lundberg and a small crew of cowboys make their way through 180 head of cattle, inoculating them, doctoring up bad eyes or open sores, and spraying each with an insecticide to kill the persistent flies.

Then it's on to a key job for the ranch manager of the 25,000-acre Bixby Land Company - separating out pregnant cows.

The cowboys spend most of the morning doing the slow work. "It's been tough going this year," said Mr. Lundberg. "We don't range-feed, so they're sort of on their own out there. There hasn't been a lot of rain so the feed isn't as great." The wiry 62-year-old horseman, father of two grown sons and two stepsons, lives with his wife, Bobi, at the Bixby Land Company's Jalama Ranch house.

The company's vast acreage is one of the largest working cattle ranches on the Southern California coast, and Mr. Lundberg has worked the range here for more than three decades.

"We're one of the last of the big ones," he said of the ranch, which extends along the coast around Point Conception from the Hollister Ranch property all the way to Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Mr. Lundberg, who was recently named the county's livestock producer of the year, figures the ranching life is completely alien for most people on the urbanized South Coast.

For him, the most important issue has always been land use and the balancing act between government regulation and private property rights.

He wonders how county government officials can make decisions about ranchers, saying they have no concept about what it takes to run a ranch every day.

Splitting the county makes a lot of sense to Mr. Lundberg, who grew up in Lompoc and started his career as a teenager breaking horses at Bixby.

"Over the years, it doesn't seem like we've had much access to the Board of Supervisors," he said of himself and his North County neighbors.

At the same time, Mr. Lundberg, who is a politically active voter and involved in several groups, including the local Cattlemen's Association, sees a lot of common ground between South and North.

He doesn't see environmentalists as the enemy.

"We're very interested in water-quality issues and stopping erosion and protecting oak trees," Mr. Lundberg said. "It's just how you go about doing that where we might disagree."

After spending some time in the Navy, he went to work as a firefighter in Lompoc, but soon returned to work as a cowboy on the ranch in the early 1970s.

"In the '60s I went to town and got really wealthy," he said with a laugh about his firefighter days. "Then I came back. I love it. I love doing this."

Mr. Lundberg sees the ranching life as inextricably tied to the culture of Santa Barbara County. But he's not so sure that South Coast residents make that same association.

For him, living in Santa Barbara means working the range, helping neighbors when they need a hand, going to the Fiesta rodeo every year and making his own rawhide gear, horse bits and ornate silver work.

His wife, a former South County resident, sums up the differences between North and South a little differently.

"Look at that," she said, standing at the gate of the Cojo Ranch and looking out on a 360-degree view of undeveloped range land, coastline and pristine beaches.

"It's beautiful and it's all ranch property. I think people up here resent it a little and get a little defensive when people tell them they don't know how to care for the land. That's what the conflict is all about."

e-mail: shadly@newspress.com