Allison Eliason - The Idaho Rancher's Wife

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!

Where Gratitude Grows: A Heartfelt Thanksgiving on the Ranch

November 27, 2025 by Allison Eliason

In 1789, President George Washington declared a “Day of Publick Thanksgiving”, continuing the tradition started in 1621 when the early settlers and the Wampanoag tribe held a three day feast to celebrate the year’s fruitful harvest. During the Civil War in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the fourth Thursday as a national holiday simply named Thanksgiving. He hoped the holiday would help bridge the chasm between the north and the south.

The Thanksgiving season is steeped in history and tradition- taking time to account for the blessings brought in through a year of hard work and intentionally giving thanks to overcome the challenges this life brings.

The few weeks of the season are almost forgotten as so many skip on to the joy of Christmas. And while the magic of a winter wonderland and the celebration of Christ’s birth is so deserving of our focus, pausing to count blessings and have an attitude of gratitude is always worth it.

In agriculture, an industry that makes it from one year to next by the grace of a higher power, we feel that gratitude deeply. We see hardships of drought, loss of livestock, dropping market prices, and rising expenses. But somehow we tend to have just enough rain to make it through another season, enough cattle to fill our contracts, and enough funds to keep our operations running for another year.

So I’m going to take this opportunity to point out the things I’m thankful for, especially those things in this industry that bring peace to my soul.

I am thankful for the buddy seat in our big green tractor. It allows me to come and sit with my husband when I need to chat. It gives me a chance to see him on days I might not otherwise. It gives my little boys a place to sit and ride when they want to be like dad. And it gives my big boy a place to learn to work with his dad by teaching by his side.

I am thankful for slow old horses that might seem broken down and even a little worthless until I throw my babies on their backs. Carrying my most precious cargo, their plodding pace seems just right. Their steady gait teaches my young learners to keep going, keep trying, and keep holding on.

I am thankful for weekly water checks that might seem to eat up a day, but provide the perfect excuse for me to go for a quick lunch date with my man. Some trips we conquer the world’s problems and other days we sit in a peaceful silence as we look out over the beautiful vastness of this country. Every once in a while there is actually a water issue to take care, and on those days we are thankful for all the weeks that nothing went wrong.

I am thankful for a western heritage, a way of living that we are able to continue to this day. There may be innovations and advancements in farming and ranching that have progressed the industry that I wholly embrace, but branding on the range like the old timers did feels like a nod to the foundation they gave.

I am thankful to have our work right outside the back door. Somedays it feels like it never quits, but every day I am thankful to look out the window and see our cattle, watch my husband drive around the corner and send the kids off to work. Jumping in to help work is just a quick walk away where everyone is welcome and no one is turned away.

I am thankful to be in an industry that feeds the world and feeds the world something they desperately need. We can debate all day about the health and nutrition facts but no one will convince me that beef at your table isn’t just good for your body, it’s good for the soul. I know that because the same beef I raise for the grocery store sits on my table to feed my own family.

I am thankful for a sometimes dirty, smelly, disorganized shop that not only keeps our equipment up and running, but my own rig too. It’s a place for my kids to take apart their dirt bikes. It’s a place for new ideas and projects. It’s a place to huff up a basketball or a flat tire. It may call for too many late nights working, but it also expands the possibilities for my family.

I’m thankful for bright lights- in the arena, on the tractor, outside the shop, and the flashlight I use to check cows in the night. All too often I complain about having to use them, that the work is going too long and too late. But these lights help finish the work and finish it right.

I’m thankful I get to see the miracle of life and also witness the grief of death. Whether it is a favorite pet or just another cow in the herd, we feel the gift every life is and the loss of every passing. Instead of becoming calloused to either, the beauty, strength, fragility, and hope of every life has become a counted blessing.

I’m thankful to watch the seasons come and pass every year. The hope of a new spring is exciting and invigorating. The eventual growth through the summer makes the hard, long days worth it. Making an accounting of the year’s production with the fall harvest is satisfying. And then resting through the winter as Mother Nature prepares for a new year is peaceful.

I could go on and on finding things to be thankful for. From the little cowboy hats and boots that line my mudroom to the chickens in the coop, there is something that brings joy and peace to my life.

If you haven’t taken time to pause this season to be grateful for the blessings around you, take a little timeout and give thanks. The hustle and bustle of life might have you believing there isn’t a lot to be thankful for. And while Christmas is in a hurry to splash across your front door, don’t let it push a season of gratitude aside.

Doing Scary Things- Ranch Wife Style

February 18, 2025 by Allison Eliason

The comfort zone- a place of ease, perceived control, and little stress. Let’s be honest, we all want to operate inside our comfort zone where we can keep anxiety at bay, feel confident, and know what we are doing. We fear failure so we ensure success by only doing those things we have already done. But experience teaches that the most growth and learning happens when we step outside that comfort zone. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Do something everyday that scares you. These small things that make us uncomfortable help us build courage to do the work we do.”

Life on the ranch tends to give us all plenty of moments outside our comfort zone that we can either embrace and learn through or shy away from and stay stagnant. I’ll admit that embracing those moments feels especially hard when my failures are out on display for so many others to see. It’s ok for my growing children to learn from failure, but as a grown adult, I too often feel like I should just know, well… everything.

Just last week I took the opportunity to do something new and outside my comfort zone. For some, this might seem like a simple daily chore but for me, it was a whole new experience- feeding cows solo. Now I go out and help feed often, sometimes daily. I know the routine, what to feed, how much, but I’ve always been the crew that opens the gates, cuts the net wrap off and such.

What I haven’t ever done is be the guy in the tractor behind the wheel. If we had to choose between my very capable husband and myself in the seat, we choose him because we want to get the job done and move on. And, really, why should I do it when he is there?

Eventually the day rolled around when all of the usual feeding crew were gone. The roping that was supposed to get done with plenty of time for the ranchers to get home and feed, went long, lending to one of two possibilities. Either they would have to feed late after getting home or I could jump in and try to do it myself. I pulled on my big girl coveralls and jumped in the tractor seat, sure that I could feed three bales of hay without disaster striking.

There were a few things I knew I had on my side as I set out- first I had the basics of tractor mechanics down so that I could drive faster than at a snail pace and move the loader in all the necessary directions. Second, if I had questions, FaceTime put me just one phone call away from help. And third, cows don’t care how pretty the feeding is, they just want the hay out.

Getting to the stackyard I found the right hay, and through a little trial and error, managed to get a bale on the forks and grab one with the three point bale squeeze on the back. It wasn’t as smooth and easy as when the guys do it, but I was doing it. I headed up the hill to the hungry heifers, planning in my mind how I was going to go about feeding. I would set the first bale down, cut the wrap off, tip it over, send it rolling down the hill and that would keep the cows out of the way while I put the other two in bale feeders around the pasture. Easy enough.

Everything started off according to plan until it was time to send that bale rolling down the hill. What seemed like a simple little push with the forks was hardly so and because it was taking longer than usual, the cows were now starting to get in the way. To complicate things even more, it was suddenly dark outside.

I was definitely outside my comfort zone, but also so in the thick of what I was doing that there was no quitting.

Scooping up the bale I had intended to roll down the hill, I put it in the first feeder and opted to try again with the second bale, learning from my earlier mistakes. It took a little trial and error but bale number two was finally rolled out and the cows were content to leave me alone while I fed the last bale.

Heading to the feeder, I saw that it was on a hill and while I might be in a tractor, I had better be smart about how I went about getting there. Between the snow and mud, the hill was slick and in that moment, a distinct memory of a teenage girl failing to turn a tractor up a muddy hill came rushing back to me.

Putting the tractor in the low, snail pace gear, I carefully headed down the hill, making sure I had a clear plan out of there after dropping my load. All seemed well as I made my way to the feeder until I stopped the tractor to pull off the net wrap and noticed the tractor continued to slide. I quickly turned the wheels and that was enough to keep it still. I knew I could dump the bale but I wasn’t sure how I would get out of my predicament once I straightened out again.

Four wheel drive. That was the solution. I really should have thought of that before heading down the slippery hill but at least I was thinking of it now. The only problem was that of the millions of buttons, levers and switches, I had no idea which to toggle. And I was sure that the wrong one would probably make the whole tractor implode.

Mustering the courage to make that phone call that admitted a bit of failure, I called my husband and asked for help. Without laughing at my mistakes or making me feel even more dumb than I already felt, my rancher easily helped me get out of my sticky situation. I dropped the last bale, skirted around the feeder, and headed for home quite proud of what I had finally accomplished that night.

For some, this was a simple chore, something they could probably do with their eyes closed, although I don’t recommend it. They made it seem easy but as I went through the very steps they did, it seemed so complicated and almost dauntin. I hope you chuckle about this little ranch wife willing to help even when the job is outside her comfort zone. But more importantly I hope you learn a few lessons from her.

Learn that you can accomplish far more than you think you can. You just have to try. New things are hard and scary- they are supposed to be! But, trying, jumping in with both feet is the only way to grow. Learn that people are here to help you. Asking for help isn’t admitting failure, even though it feels like it. Learn that the only real confidence in life comes from conquering those moments of fear, big or small. I might not be on the “A team” when it comes to the feeding crew, but if the job needs doing, I know I can do it. Next time, I just might have to start a little earlier and find the four wheel drive a little sooner.