Allison Eliason - The Idaho Rancher's Wife

The Ranch Wife’s Job Description

October 20, 2026 by Allison Eliason Leave a Comment

I never received an official job description when I married The Rancher, but apparently I’ve qualified for everything from feeding buddy and security guard to personal assistant and supernatural sorting-gate operator. The responsibilities are many, the notice is usually short, and the benefits are still under review.

There are all sorts of ranch wives. Some work alongside their husbands every day, some have careers away from the ranch, and others are involved in different aspects of the operation. There isn’t one particular way to be a ranch wife, and there certainly isn’t a list of duties that comes with the title.

At least, I’ve never been given one.

In our marriage, I don’t have any assigned ranch responsibilities. I don’t have to feed cows, fix fences or spend my days working cattle. But when I choose to join the crew, I’ve discovered that I apparently qualify for a surprising number of positions, most of which I don’t remember applying for.

The first qualification is availability. Immediate availability, to be precise.

When The Rancher calls and asks if I can come help, he generally means right now. Occasionally, I get enough warning to put on my boots and gloves and finish whatever I happen to be doing. More often, I’m expected to abandon my current project and report for duty before the opportunity to help has passed.

He might think he’s given me plenty of notice. I might disagree.

Then there are the calls that aren’t really invitations at all. “Come block the road to turn the cows RIGHT NOW!”

He’d better hope I’m not in the shower.

Once I’ve successfully reported for duty, the actual assignment can vary considerably. If we’re horseback, The Rancher is usually kind enough to catch and saddle my horse. I appreciate that. Apparently, my portion of the arrangement is unsaddling and putting the horses away afterward.

At the squeeze chute, I’ve somehow become the unofficial supervisor of syringe dosages. Whether I filled the syringes or am even the person administering the shots doesn’t seem to matter. I’m still expected to know what they’re set at and make sure they’re correct.

I also serve as his personal assistant, although I’m not sure that title adequately describes the position. My duties include maintaining a mental record of his ideas, plans and dreams, interpreting them into something resembling an actual plan, and then recalling the details whenever he needs them.

I’m also responsible for locating things within his filing system, which would be considerably easier if I understood the filing system. Naturally, whatever he’s looking for is something he actually needed yesterday.

Scheduling is another responsibility I’ve acquired. I try to keep track of what’s happening on the ranch, but the system works best when The Rancher remembers to tell me what’s happening on the ranch. I’m generally content with a loose description of the day, provided I know when he needs a lunch packed or whether our evening plans are about to become ranch plans.

Speaking of lunch, I’ve developed the habit of watching the clock when he hasn’t come in. My first question is whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing that he’s running late. My second is whether he’s coming home to eat or if lunch needs to be delivered to a tractor somewhere.

A well-fed rancher is generally a happier, more efficient rancher. I’ve found this to be useful information.

When nobody else is available, I also qualify as his feeding buddy. This involves being the designated one out in the cold so I can open gates and cut net wrap or strings off hay bales while he sits in the warm cab of the tractor or pickup. I suppose someone has to do it, and apparently that someone is me.

During calving, I’ve occasionally been assigned the position of security guard. If The Rancher decides to tag a calf, I get to stand between him and an all too overprotective mother cow and make sure she doesn’t interfere.

Personally, I think I’d rather tag the calf.

I’m also happy to help in the shop, although my mechanical qualifications are limited. I can hand him tools, hold things in place and occasionally offer suggestions that are probably best ignored. Nobody should expect me to diagnose an engine problem.

Fence building is another area where I’ve developed a few specialties. I’m particularly good at hiking the fence line and attaching wire clips. And when we’re building fence with wood posts, I call dibs on the staple gun. There are some jobs worth claiming before somebody else does.

I also operate a shuttle service. If The Rancher needs a ride because he’s left a vehicle somewhere, has to move equipment or has managed to get stranded by something that quit running, I’m generally the person he calls.

Trailer backing assistance is included in the package. I stand behind the trailer, directing him toward the loading chute, alley or whatever narrow opening he’s trying to reach without hitting anything. It’s a job that requires clear communication, patience and a shared understanding of hand signals. We don’t always have all three. Actually, we never have all three.

Then there’s the sorting gate. Not just any sorting gate, but the last one in the alley, where the wrong calf absolutely cannot be allowed through.

Other people might accidentally let one slip past. I, however, am apparently expected to possess supernatural gatekeeping abilities.

And, of course, there are the days when I’m the crew cook, trying to feed a collection of hungry people between jobs. I enjoy feeding a crew, but there are times when I wish takeout was considerably closer. The same goes for the laundry. If you’ve ever washed ranch clothes after a particularly dirty day, you understand why I sometimes wish the nearest laundromat weren’t so far away.

One other qualification I’ve developed is the ability to distinguish between being yelled at and being yelled to. The Rancher loves me, and he isn’t yelling at me. He just occasionally communicates certain things to his wife at a volume and in a manner he probably wouldn’t use with anybody else.

It’s an important distinction. At least, that’s what I’m told.

Of all the positions I’ve held, though, I think my favorite is being his partner. His roping partner, to be specific. I’m certainly not the best hand with a rope, and there are plenty of people who could probably do the job better. But The Rancher keeps choosing me anyway. I’m not sure whether that’s a testament to his confidence in me or his willingness to put up with my mistakes. Either way, I appreciate that he wants me there.

The funny thing about all these jobs is that I really do enjoy being part of the ranch. I like being useful, working alongside my husband and knowing that I can contribute in ways that make his day easier. Most of the time, I’m happy to drop what I’m doing and join the crew, even if I could use a little more warning.

But after considering all the positions I’ve held over the years, I think it’s time we revisit my job description.

I’m not necessarily asking for a raise. I’d just like a little advance notice, an occasional lunch break, and perhaps permission to let one calf through the wrong gate without it becoming a federal offense.

More to a Cattle Tag Than Meets the Eye

October 8, 2026 by Allison Eliason Leave a Comment

Numbers, letters, colors, and even a few mysterious markings. Cattle ear tags come in all varieties, but what they mean depends entirely on who’s reading them. Sometimes a simple tag tells a much bigger story than you’d expect.

We see lots of cattle.

Cattle on the range.

Cattle on the ranch.

Cattle at the sale.

Cattle. Cattle. Cattle.

We see lots of tags.

Tags. Tags. Tags.

Blue tags. Red tags.

Tags with numbers.

Tags with letters.

Tags with numbers and letters.

Tags with no letters or numbers.

Tags. Tags. Tags.

We see lots of tags.

It almost reads like a Dr. Seuss book, doesn’t it? A little silly, a little rhyming, a little repetitive. But underneath all the fun, there’s a lot of truth: every tag has a purpose, even if it isn’t obvious at first glance.

We see all types of cattle with all kinds of tags, and with the many cattle, tags, and ranches out there, I’ve learned no two operations use that information the same way. My little observation sparked a small debate in our household about the “best” way to use tags. Somewhere along the way, someone—not me—said, “Why even have tags if you don’t put your name on them?”

That’s when I realized we were coming at it from two completely different angles.

At the core, tags are about information. But who that information is for, and why it’s on there, is what determines what kind of information is there.

Growing up on a seedstock ranch, tracking genetics and bloodlines was an everyday thing. We wanted to know, with just a glance at a tag, the history of that animal. Different colors meant different breeds. Not only did it have the calf’s own identifying numbers, but also its sire, dam, and birth year. That tag carried a lot of information, but only we knew what it meant.

As our cattle are out on the range calving, trying to record all of that same data is pretty impossible. While we brand and tag, we are content to simply identify them as belonging to our operation. That tag merely helps people to see that it is ours, so long as they recognize the tag color. And even if they don’t recognize that, the back of each tag has contact information in the event that our livestock wander through a fence or crosses into another herd. Of course they have to get up close and personal to see it, but it’s there.

Every year our favorite vet comes through to test our herd bulls, putting a new tag in them each time. That tag signifies to us, and anyone else that sees it, that the bull has been tested and cleared for use, But the numbers on his tag mean nothing in our books. The vet, however, keeps a record and the data on that tag is crucial to his files.

Feedlots that are constantly buying and selling calves use tags for a whole other purpose- traceability. Being able to quickly pinpoint where a batch of animals came from in the event of sickness or other outbreak is a must. Having their tags marked helps them to spend more time taking care of the problem than sorting through papers for that information.

Sometimes the information on a tag isn’t even a number, letter, or symbol at all. A notch on the inside or a hole punch in the top can tell a rancher what ear it was born in, if it was doctored, or who its sire is. I didn’t say that all ways and methods were what you would consider conventional.

Even after those tags have been pulled or fallen out, they still carry a lot of information. They tell a story. My little boys have a collection of tags they just can’t give up. Some are from the cattle they pulled them from- new cattle we bought or favorites cows that died- or the places they found them at- the auction, the sheep trough on the range, or the loading chute in the desert.

You see, it’s not just what’s on the tag—it’s who’s reading it. To one person, a jumble of letters and numbers; to another, it’s a guide for sorting, breeding, or tracking health history.

That’s what makes tags fascinating—they carry data, but also meaning. The same numbers or colors could mean entirely different things depending on who’s looking. For us, they’re memory. For the vet, medical records. For someone else, random symbols.

At the end of the day, tags are functional, personal, and occasionally mysterious. They don’t tell the full story alone—but read through the right lens, they carry everything a rancher needs. And sometimes, that’s all the story you really need.

The Preg-Checking Report Card

October 2, 2026 by Allison Eliason Leave a Comment

Every fall, preg-checking day gives us a grade on how well the herd performed. Getting straight A’s feels pretty good, but sometimes the cows that don’t make the grade teach us the most.

I thought when I graduated from college I was finally done worrying about report cards, but apparently I was wrong. Every fall, preg-checking day rolls around and I find myself hoping for straight A’s all over again.

The work itself is actually pretty simple and, when things are going well, it can feel easy. Each cow comes through the chute where she is checked either with an ultrasound or palpated to determine if she is pregnant and approximately how far along she is. We run a lot of cattle through the chute, but I still feel the “preg” or “open” of every one. Every cow matters, and even though I’m out of school, I still want a good grade with every one.

Ideally, we want to hear that our cows are three to four months pregnant if we are checking in early fall. Two to two-and-a-half months pregnant is okay, but that is starting to wander into short-bred territory. Those cows stretch our calving season later into branding and turnout, and their calves are younger and usually smaller when it comes time to ship in the fall. Anything shorter bred than that is late enough that we start having serious thoughts about culling her, even though she is pregnant.

When the cows are bred up early and everything is falling into that happy window, preg checking feels pretty easy. A cow that has bred back on time means she was healthy and in good enough condition to begin cycling and conceive again while she was still raising this year’s calf.

It’s when we don’t get the results we want that things start getting complicated.

I like getting straight A’s, so every cow that comes up open feels a little like a mark against our ranching grade. It’s especially disappointing when it’s a young cow that should have the potential to raise a lot more calves, one we recently bought and had high hopes for, or even just one of our favorite cows that we really wanted to keep around.

After the initial disappointment, though, we have to start asking why. Was she healthy? Was there enough feed? Did she struggle to start cycling again after calving or simply fail to catch during the first rounds of breeding? Were the bulls healthy and sound enough to travel, detect cows in heat and cover them?

Sometimes there isn’t much to learn from one open cow, but when we start seeing trends within a group of cattle, we pay attention.

The cows that have raised their first calves and are being bred for their second, for example, are often the group where we expect to find the most late-bred and open cows. They are still growing themselves while also lactating to raise a calf and trying to conceive again. All of those things require energy, and their bodies will prioritize growing and raising that calf over reproduction.

If we see too many of those young cows coming up late or open, we have to wonder whether their nutrition was sufficient. If we’re seeing the same number of late and open cows regardless of age, we might start looking more closely at the bull instead. An injury, poor condition or another problem could have kept him from adequately covering his group of cows.

That’s where our preg-checking report card becomes useful. Getting a grade we don’t like isn’t fun, but figuring out why we got it gives us a chance to make changes in the future.

We also take advantage of having every cow in the chute to do a little extra credit in hopes of making the upcoming calving season go a little smoother. Pregnant cows receive a vaccination to help protect against reproductive diseases that could cause them to lose their calves. We mark them with hair bleach according to how far along they are, making it easier to sort the heavies from the later-calving cows when we need to. We also double-check that their EID and visual tags are still present and intact so, when it matters, we know exactly who we’re dealing with.

None of it can change the grade we got that day, but hopefully it helps us do a little better with what comes next.

By the end of the day, we know which cows are pregnant, which ones aren’t and approximately when we can expect each of them to calve. More importantly, we’ve had a chance to look at how the herd performed and whether there are things we need to do differently next year.

Of course, getting the report card is only part of it. Once we know which cows didn’t quite make the grade, we have to decide what to do with them.

And apparently graduating doesn’t get me out of that homework either

You Can Tell a Lot About a Cowboy by His Outfit

September 27, 2026 by Allison Eliason Leave a Comment

And around here, I’m not talking about his clothes.

A few days ago, I passed what felt like half the cattle outfits in the county on the road.

Stock trailers. Semis. Flatbeds. Pickups loaded with panels, dogs, four-wheelers, fencing supplies and who knows what else. This time of year, everybody seems to be coming or going—bringing cattle home from summer range, sorting, weaning, shipping and hauling.

They say you can tell a lot about a man by his outfit.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Although in cowboy country, his “outfit” might have less to do with the shirt and pants he put on that morning and more to do with the truck and trailer he pulled out of the yard.

I’ve seen a lot of different outfits over the years and gotten to know a good handful of the folks driving them. Knowing their operations, how and where they work, and the like has led me to draw a few conclusions about a cowboy and his outfit.

Of course, there are outliers, exceptions and mavericks who like to go their own way, but by and large, I think you’ll agree—a cowboy’s outfit sure says a lot about him.

In this part of the country, we see a lot of stock trailers rolling around. They are hardy, multipurpose rigs that are all-season and nearly all-terrain. Your average cowboy rancher uses one because he needs a tow wagon as versatile as he is. They’re pulled everywhere from the range to the rodeo, chock-full of cattle, horses, motorbikes and four-wheelers.

This sort of trailer is basically a rancher’s back pocket, hauling whatever he needs to get the job done. It brings home totes of feed and seed, fence posts and rolls of wire, his favorite horse, the green one he’s working on, and the Japanese one (ya know, the motorbike…). He hauls his favorite cow out to pasture, the ornery bull that stops midway through the cattle drive, and the freshly weaned calves at the end of the season.

A cowboy rancher trusts some of his most prized possessions to this trailer, a fact easily proven when you see him muck out the poop—or at least the top layer—and stack all his furniture and belongings in his trusty stock trailer before he ever considers renting a U-Haul.

Similar to the stock trailer is a half-top trailer, but it has a handful of bonus features that make it a range cowboy’s best friend. The iconic driver of a half-top trailer is your Nevada buckaroo, a cowboy who spends all day on the desert range herding cattle. The open back frame makes for great ventilation, lending itself especially well to those hot, dry stretches of country.

The open design keeps livestock cool, but even cooler are the conveniences that make it so handy for loading cattle without a chute. Leading a cow into a regular stock trailer can be tricky when you’re trying to work the rope through the sides. A half-top lets a cowboy flip the rope over the rails and drag the cow in. The open sides also make it a little easier to coax a cow on the end of a rope into the trailer, letting in daylight and keeping it from turning into a dark tunnel. And if that cow is a little feisty, having a slam latch to lock the gate in place before she can turn back out is pretty handy.

On the flip side of your range-riding trailers are the shiny Bloomer trailers that live on the open highway. The bigger the rig, the more dedicated the cowboy is to his horse trade. From rodeo cowboys to horse-racing cowboys, these sorts of trailer towers depend on their rigs not only to get them and their horses to and from in one piece, but to do it with a bit of luxury and style.

These trailers have just about every amenity you can think of, combining everything a cowboy needs from his house, barn and trailer into one convenient wagon—rubber padding, roof ventilation, tack rooms, hay racks, generators, living quarters and even double or triple slideouts for more space.

But all those luxuries are there for good reason. A lot of cowboys on the rodeo or race trail spend more nights in their trailer than in their own bed at home. Having everything they need pooled into one trailer just makes life easier.

There is one outfit that is a little trickier when it comes to nailing down what sort of cowboy is towing it: the bumper-pull.

This sort of trailer is usually smaller and lightweight, lending its use to countless possibilities. Making a little less of a dent in the budget, these trailers are often the first rig purchase for a cowboy dipping his toes into the industry. But at the same time, the lower cost makes one a convenient buy for urban farmers who need something to haul around their goats, sheep, chickens or pigs. Then again, a fancy new bumper-pull trailer is often the high prize for a big-time roping or queen contest.

The best way to sort out the type of cowboy towing a bumper-pull might actually have more to do with the truck than the trailer itself.

A shiny new truck hooked onto a shiny new trailer is likely your prize-winning queen or roping king. A truck with some wear to it, pulling a trailer with matching scuffs, is likely your emerging cowboy who is just happy to have his own outfit to tow around. The bumper-pull dragging behind a Suburban is most certainly your urban farmer.

Any man will tell you a truck is an extension of his personality, and cowboys are no different. A cowboy driving around with a flatbed stacked up with shovels, a water wrench, chains, fencing supplies and a few well-used ropes is most certainly your ranch cowboy. It might seem like he just doesn’t clear out the bed after a hard day’s work, but that is actually his usual stash.

Once again, it’s an extension of his back pocket. If it isn’t the exact tool he’ll need, there’s probably enough back there to fashion a passable stand-in.

If the bed of the truck has more dogs than anything else, you’ve found a range-riding buckaroo. Knowing he has thousands of acres to ride, he won’t set foot on the range without his pack of dogs that can save him hours on horseback gathering the herd.

Extended cabs have largely been replaced with crew cabs these days. Now that cowboys are towing extra-long trailers that can cram ten horses in the back, they have to drive a higher-capacity truck that can squish just as many cowboys in the front.

The smartest cowboy of them all is still the one sitting in the middle, avoiding the duty to open gates.

Small, non-commercial semis are the go-to truck for those long-haul Bloomer trailers. Filling the back with hay, water, tack, grain, generators, bedding, furniture and clothes—not to mention the handful of horses—demands a truck that can tow it all.

Stock trailer, bumper-pull, half-top or Bloomer, these rigs make cowboy life possible. In some seasons, there is hardly a day they aren’t pulling their weight to get the job done on the range or at the rodeo. They may be new and shiny, beat up and faded, big or little, but they all play a part in making cowboy magic happen.

It is ironic, though…

There once was a day when horses were used to pull a cowboy around. Now they’ve found a way to finally be towed themselves.

Well played, horses. Well played.

The Fine Line Between High Expectations and Room to Grow

September 16, 2026 by Allison Eliason Leave a Comment

Every year we grow a pivot of corn to turn the cattle into when the snow starts to fly. The tall stalks provide great feed without the cows having to search for it beneath the snow. It also saves days of feeding hay that we’re more than willing to keep stacked in the yard.

Rather than turn the cows out on the entire field, we portion the corn into smaller sections so they’ll clean up the feed before moving to the next. Using an electric fence, it’s a fairly simple process to rotate around the field every week or so—simple enough that even the littlest ranchers come out to help.

We start by mowing down the strip where the fence will go, making sure there isn’t anything that will touch the wire and ground it out. Then we string the wire across the field, getting an idea of where the fence will sit before pounding in the small fiberglass posts.

The one challenge with doing this in the winter is that more often than not, the ground is frozen, making it surprisingly difficult to pound in even those little posts. It’s frustrating for any rancher, but especially for a young one.

Last winter was no exception. After wrestling with another stubborn post, our youngest son stopped, looked up at me, and asked, “Do I have to do it as good as you?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer. And I’ve thought about that simple question many times since.

As far as the job itself goes, the answer is yes. The fence has to work. A post that’s only halfway in won’t keep the wire standing, and a fence that won’t stand won’t keep cattle where they belong. The cows don’t care whether the fence was built by a ranch mom or a seven-year-old. But at the same time, how could I possibly expect someone with only a fraction of my experience to do the job exactly the way I do?

That question follows us through almost every season on the ranch.

This summer our sixteen-year-old has been doing much of the swathing. For the most part, he has done an excellent job. One afternoon, though, my husband and I drove through one of the fields and noticed several narrow strips of hay left standing between the swaths and I was surprised. He had enough experience to know not to miss them. We found ourselves asking, “What was he doing for that to happen?”

The easy response would have been frustration. After all, those missed strips meant the job wasn’t done right. Instead, they became a conversation.

Was he distracted? Was he watching behind him instead of ahead? Was he trying to hurry before the weather changed? Whatever the reason, it became another lesson that couldn’t have been taught nearly as well from the pickup seat as it was from seeing the results in the field.

I’ve come to realize that raising kids on a ranch means constantly walking the line between maintaining high expectations and allowing room for growth. The standard itself can’t change because the work matters. Cattle still need to stay in the pasture. Hay still needs to come off before the storm. Equipment still needs to be cared for.

But the teaching changes.

Sometimes it means explaining the job one more time. Sometimes it means slowing down when we’d rather hurry. Sometimes it means pulling out a crooked fence post and trying again. We don’t lower the standard. We simply recognize that learning is part of meeting it. I’ve always believed people tend to rise to the expectations placed before them. If we expect very little, we often get very little. But if we expect our children to do meaningful work—to contribute, to be responsible, and to solve problems—they will do it.

This fine line between high expectations and allowing room for growth isn’t one you only find on the ranch with budding ranchers. It’s everywhere we find people trying new things, given new responsibilities, or growing into their opportunities. Yes, the child learning to pound fence posts and teenagers learning to swath hay, but also a new employee learning a trade, a first time volunteer trying to find their footing, or even ourselves stepping into something we’ve never done before.

Maybe that’s why I’ve kept coming back to our son’s question. “Do I have to do it as good as you?” I think the answer is both yes and no.

Yes, because the work still matters. A fence still has to hold cows. Hay still has to come off the field. The job still needs to be done right. But no, because becoming capable takes time. Experience isn’t something we’re born with; it’s something we earn one lesson, one mistake, one conversation, and one success at a time.

I’ve come to believe that holding high expectations and extending grace aren’t opposites. In fact, I think they belong together. High expectations give us something to grow toward. Grace gives us room to get there.

Maybe that’s the balance we’re all trying to find—not lowering the standard, but recognizing that today’s learner, if they’re willing to keep trying, can become tomorrow’s expert.

10 Downsides of Rural Ranch Life. But…

September 6, 2026 by Allison Eliason Leave a Comment

The grocery store is far away, DoorDash doesn’t come here, and apparently the cows don’t care about the weather. I still wouldn’t trade it.

I love living on a ranch. I really do. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.

But I’m also not going to pretend that rural life is convenient. There are some definite downsides to living in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes I think people who live in town have no idea how good they have it.

So, in the interest of full disclosure, here are ten of the downsides of rural ranch life.

1. The school bus ride is practically a road trip. My kids don’t hop on the bus and arrive at school ten minutes later. They get on early and make a tour of rural Oneida County before eventually arriving at school. By the time they get home, I sometimes feel like I should have packed them a pillow and a travel journal.

2. The grocery store is not around the corner. We don’t “run to the store.” There is no such thing. If I’m making dinner and discover I’m missing an ingredient, I have two choices: improvise or accept that dinner is going to be different than I planned. The grocery store is far enough away that forgetting a gallon of milk can turn into a full-blown expedition. Take that back, grandma is just across the driveway, so maybe I have a grocery store after all.

3. There isn’t a gas station on every corner. When you live in town, the gas gauge can get pretty low before you start thinking about filling up. Out here, you pay attention or you pay up in the most humiliating call of shame for help. There isn’t always a gas station conveniently located five minutes from wherever you happen to be. Running out of gas isn’t a minor inconvenience. It’s a really bad day.

4. DoorDash doesn’t come here. Neither does Uber Eats. Neither does pizza delivery.
Neither does grocery delivery. If we want something, we generally have to go get it ourselves. Apparently, “leave it on the porch” isn’t a universally available service.

5. Every errand requires planning. You can’t just decide you’re going to town for one thing. Because if you’re driving that far, you might as well get the other thing you need. And while you’re there, you should probably stop at the other store. And if you’re already there, you might as well pick up the kids’ stuff for tomorrow. A five-minute errand can turn into half a day.

6. Your kids can’t just walk to practice. The fist fight for practice times on the court or field leave your little league player with practices at the most inconvenient times. Oh, its no ones fault, it just stinks. And while you should be cooking dinner, hitting that meeting, or just getting the other babies taken care of, you are driving the long ride that you only wish you could make them walk. You just wouldn’t see them until tomorrow.

7. Half of date night is just spent driving to the date. He finally wants to take you out on the town, you get all dressed up and then sit in the truck for hours to get to that hot date. In the meantime, the romance has lost its sizzle as you rehashed the weekend schedule, argued about the kids, and had a heated discussion over who let the breachy cow through sorting earlier in the day. Good thing a hearty dinner and sweet dessert are just to fix the night, until the drive home, that is.

8. Winter makes everything harder. Winter living isn’t for the faint of heart. A trip to town that is already inconvenient can become a real adventure when the roads are covered in snow and ice. And unlike people who can simply decide not to leave the house because the weather is bad, ranchers still have livestock that need to be fed. The cows don’t care what the weather forecast says.

9. You have to, sorry, GET to fix things yourself. When you’re far away from town, you can’t always call someone and expect them to show up in twenty minutes. Or even the same day. You may have to wait a month for the appliance store to finally tell you that instead of sending a repairman to fix your washer, they will just reimburse you for a new one. It’s just not convenient. With a rancher that fixes pipe and electrical issues on the ranch, there’s no need to call an experienced, blue collar fix it man that can guarantee a repair. But you might have to wait to get on his schedule after the cows are taken care of. Which is never. But hey, you saved on the bill, so it all works out in the end.

10. The wildlife isn’t always as charming as it sounds. People love the idea of seeing wildlife when they live in the country. And I’ll admit, there is something pretty cool about looking out the window and seeing a deer in the field or watching a bald eagle circle overhead.

But rural wildlife isn’t always a Hallmark movie. The deer you thought were beautiful five minutes ago can eat your garden. Mice are considerably less adorable when they move into your house. Skunks have no respect for personal property. Snakes have a remarkable ability to appear exactly where you don’t want them. Then there are the coyotes, who seem to have a personal vendetta against anything you might want to keep alive.

Living in the country means you get the beautiful wildlife and the wildlife that makes you grab a broom and start yelling.

But here’s the thing. For nearly every one of these inconveniences, there is something on the other side that makes me wonder why I would ever want to trade it. Yes, the grocery store is far away. But so are the crowds. Yes, my kids spend a long time on the school bus.

But they also spend their afternoons outside, with room to roam and a ranch full of things to learn.
Yes, we have to drive for almost everything. But when we drive home, we’re coming home to a place where our kids can work, play, ride horses, chase calves, build forts, and learn what it means to be responsible for something other than themselves.

I may wish for DoorDash but I’ll take freezer full of beef. Rural life comes with a list of inconveniences. A pretty long list, actually. But for nearly every hard thing about living here, there is something even better on the other side.

And for us, not a single one of those inconveniences is worth giving up what we have.

Direct-to-Consumer Beef Is a Lane, Not the Highway

August 26, 2026 by Allison Eliason Leave a Comment

Every time the beef industry finds itself in another conversation about cattle prices, meatpackers and the future of the American rancher, one solution seems to come up again and again: Why don’t consumers just buy their beef directly from ranchers?

On the surface, it makes sense and a win for both sides. Consumers get what they want straight from the producer, giving them confidence in what they are buying. On the producer side, bypassing middle man from the feedlots to the meatpackers, ranchers could keep more of the money and have more control over where their cattle go.

Direct-to-consumer beef is a great option, and for some producers it is a successful business model. But as someone who lives in the middle of the beef industry, I know firsthand it isn’t the simple solution it is sometimes made out to be.

Our operation, like thousands of others across the country, is a cow-calf operation. We raise calves, manage genetics, care for our rangeland and work to produce healthy cattle before weaning them and starting the cycle over again. That’s where our experience, infrastructure, labor and capital are invested.

What we aren’t set up to do is retain ownership of those calves for another year or more, background them, manage finishing rations, absorb the additional feed and weather risk, arrange slaughter dates, ensure USDA-inspected processing, handle cold storage and distribute beef to consumers.

Instead we specialize in our part of the chain and send our beef on. That’s why feedlots exist. That’s why processors exist. The different parts of the beef industry were developed around different areas of expertise, and there is efficiency in that specialization.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Direct-to-consumer beef absolutely has a place. It can work well for smaller or diversified operations, producers who want to vertically integrate, and niche markets such as freezer beef or grass-fed programs. For the right operation, it can be a profitable and meaningful way to connect directly with consumers.

But it isn’t a realistic alternative for the majority of cow-calf producers, and it isn’t capable of replacing the broader beef supply chain. The average American family isn’t buying a whole beef at a time. Grocery stores and restaurants need a consistent supply of individual cuts of beef, and moving that much beef from ranches to consumers requires a much larger system. Asking every cow-calf producer to become a feedlot, processor, cold-storage facility and distributor doesn’t solve the problem. It simply moves an enormous and unnecessary amount of financial and logistical risk onto the rancher.

That doesn’t mean the current system doesn’t have problems.

The beef industry operates under a packing sector dominated by a few large companies, and decisions made by those companies have a direct effect on cattle producers. Plant closures, changes in slaughter schedules and reduced competition all have the potential to change the market a rancher is selling into.

That’s where I think the conversation needs to be.

Rather than suggesting that every rancher find a way to sell directly to consumers, we should be looking at how to create more competition within the existing system—through regional processing capacity, better price transparency, meaningful price discovery and antitrust enforcement that actually protects competition.

I don’t want to discount direct-to-consumer beef. I like knowing where my food comes from, and I understand why consumers want that connection with the people raising it. But we also have to recognize that the beef industry is made up of a lot of different operations, each filling a different role.

Direct-to-consumer beef is a lane. It just isn’t the highway.

If we want a strong American beef industry for the future, we need solutions that work not just for the rancher selling a few beef directly to families, but for the thousands of cattle producers whose job is to raise the cattle that eventually become the beef on all of our tables.

Final Range Branding: Deep Creek Cleanup

May 4, 2026 by Allison Eliason

The last range branding day of the stretch was a slower cleanup kind of day, with fewer calves left to gather and brand. After the wind the day before, the weather turned just about perfect, making for a pretty enjoyable day to be horseback.

I spent more time roping than taking pictures, so this set looks a little different than some of the others. Fewer action shots and more of the small details that make up a branding day—the hands, the gear, the dust, and the moments in between.

Not every day is fast-paced or packed full, but there’s something good about the quieter ones too.

BLM Branding Day: New Ground, Same Work

April 21, 2026 by Allison Eliason

Every Saturday of April is scheduled for our BLM association branding… for the rest of our lives. Haha! It takes that many goes to get all the calves on the ground, mothered up, and drug in to get the herd branded with the right outfit.

This year had a little different look to it, though. Because of the poorer range feed this year, we split the herd differently across the winter/spring ranges. It gives a little different look this year with new places to gather and circle up to get the job done.

The day brought a little rain, a little wind, and a lot of roping. The scenery may have been a little different, but the work is still the same.

Back at the Ranch: Lookout Livestock Branding Day

April 20, 2026 by Allison Eliason

Most branding days we’re up early and headed out for a long drive to wherever the cows are running on the desert range. But once a year, we get to stay a little closer to home—saddling up and heading straight out the gate for Lookout Livestock branding day.

This herd is relatively new to us. About seven years ago, a neighbor approached us about buying him out, and knowing opportunities like that don’t come around often, we jumped at the chance to expand right here close to home. We decided to keep things separate from our other herd, forming a new operation with its own name and brand.

Even though we’ve only been running these cows a few short years, it didn’t take long for things to fall into place, including the annual branding. We have great help, great food, which lends to a great time!