The Idaho Rancher's Wife

The Ranch From the Wife's Perspective

Come on Home, Little Doggie

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Ah, spring turn out time. One of the most wonderful and stressful times of the year.  Wonderful because it means that the cows are out, the calves have been branded, and they only need a little maintenance for the summer. Ok, we move them like every week, check water, and doctor as needed… its still a lot of work but it doesn’t seem like its so hard. 

We probably are happy for it to be over because that means the stress of the spring turn out it gone too.  Right now we are separating our cows into 3 different groups- some to be run on the BLM ground, some to be on the Forest ground (it really shouldn’t be considered Forest though, there are NO forests out here!) and some to other Forest ground.  The stressful part about all of this is that when you start separating the herd, you have to make sure that you get all of the babies with the right mommas.  Or that none of the momma’s forget that they have a calf (oh ya, it happens…).

The worst thing that can happen is the pairs not pairing up once they get to the new pasture.  A baby without a momma isn’t going to survive.  Sure they can steal milk every once in a while (funny thing about cows, they will only nurse their babies… but I roll like that too), but they aren’t going to get enough nutrition to grow.  So we do ALL that we can to make sure this doesn’t happen. 

But every year it seems that we have a few doggie calves.  Do you want to know the best way to pick them out?  They have poop on their head.  All of the time.  The best way to steal a bit of milk is to come from behind.  The hazards of that are getting pooped on… poor huggers…. 

But back to our doggie calves.  We just bring them home.  Leaving them to die is like throwing money away.  And its just not very nice.   So we do what we can to make it work.  Like have a milk cow or two around to nurse them.  These cows are kinda funny, because they love to mother these babies!  They stand by the barn waiting for feeding time.  They sit by the gate and talk to them during the day (well, I don’t know if they really talk to them… I just think that sounds like what a momma would do).  And no matter how many calves, they mother them all.

Its rough being a doggie-ed calf, but come on home. We’ve got a momma that will love on ya!

 

Happy Mudders Day from The Rancher’s Wife

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There are too many good mothers (and mothering women) out there to not say Happy Mother’s Day to!

You are amazing, you know!  There are so many things that you do- manage your home, chase your kids, help your husband, work in the community, serve your friends and neighbors and somehow you manage to still be you. 

AMAZING!

So here is a little note from The Rancher’s Wife.

Delicious, Home-Cooked Steak Dinner

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Sunday is Mother’s Day, and I hope you have big plans for pampering the mother’s in your lives.  Maybe you’ll do a little breakfast in bed, beautiful spring flowers, some chocolates maybe or how about a nice dinner to say thank you.

Growing up it was my mom that pulled together those nice holiday meals that added just the right touch to the day.  Not to say that dad couldn’t, but it was mom’s forte.  That usually meant that when it came to Mother’s Day we were already starting without our MVP.  I don’t want you to fall short this Mother’s Day, so here is a SUPER easy, delicuious and easy meal to show the mom’s in your life just how much you care!

At our house you can never go wrong with a nice steak dinner.  And when you cook them on the grill, its minimal mess which means minimal clean up (for you… because momma isn’t doing dishes on Mother’s Day, remember?).

The most important step in making this isn’t going to be at home- its at the grocery store.  A good steak isn’t made with the rubs, seasonings, or marinades (although they do make for some awesome added flavor!).  Its how that calf was grown (ok, so really its starts on the ranch, but you don’t have much control over that!).  At the meat counter, take the time to choose a steak with good color and good marbling- the little flecks of fat that are in the meat.  This is where you get your flavor and what makes a steak tender.  Factor in the cut, or the type of steak, that you are getting.  Choose one that is from the rib area.  Steaks that come from places like the shoulder tend to be a less tender.  Personally, my favorite is a T-bone… yep… I love T-bone steak.

Once you get your steak home the stage is set for some incredible eating with only a little bit of work.  Get the grill hot and ready to go and when its hot, its time to get cooking.

After putting the steaks on the grill, add a little salt.  Partially for flavor, but also because that helps to keep the juicy flavor in the steak.  A LONG time ago you learned about how water follows salt in some science class, right?  This is when you are finally gonna use what you learned!

Let it cook for a good 1-2 minutes and then turn in 45 degrees to give it that criss-cross look.  Besides looking so professional (which is what we’re going for, right?!), those lines are seared, which sort of caramelizes the surface and locks in more of that delicious flavor!

Once you rotate your steak, let it grill for another 2-3 minutes and then flip and repeat.  A little more salt for flavor AND to keep your steak moist.  This time we like to add a little more seasonings- just some pepper and good ol’ seasoning salt (at this house, sometimes less is more!).  After its cooked for a minute or two, rotate.  Give it another good couple of minutes and then you’re done!

Unless you’re going for a well-done cooked steak.  Then you’re not done.  Keep cooking…

Timing is important to cooking steaks.  You don’t want to under cook your meat, pull it off and then have to start over.  Ideally, you only want to flip your steak once.  But the opposite is possible- over cooking.  I’m not a fan of burnt steak… or a dry steak.  I don’t know about you, but pink in the middle is perfect.

But however your momma likes it, is what we’re going for.  And no matter how that is, she is gonna love your delicious, home-cooked steak dinner.  Add some steamed veggies and some fresh watermelon and you will rule the day!

Because really, don’t all the mom’s in your life deserve nothing but your best?

Happy Mother’s Day! (early…)

Just Follow Your Momma

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I haven’t seen my husband too much of late.  Don’t worry, we are still SO much in love, its just the time of year for early mornings and late nights.  We have made it to our spring turn out dates so over the last few weeks we have been gathering the cattle, sorting into the different groups and then hauling them to their new pasture.  Of course that includes branding (and read tagging, vaccinating, marking) any calves that we missed or were born after we branded (ya, that happens…).  And we gotta make sure that the new pasture is ready- water flowing and fences up.  The combination of no water and terrible fences means cows out… not what we need.

So needless to say, I haven’t seen The Rancher too much.  But every once in a while I have a day that I don’t have anything else going on (well, except house work… but that’s never stopped me from going out!) and they are doing something that we can help with so we tag along.

We were helping gather up the cows out on our private land and I just had to chuckle at some of the things that we deal with working these darn cows.  Lets just start by saying that cows don’t think (mostly), they react, and calves don’t react, they freak out.

Most of these cows get that when we start pushing them towards the gate that it means new grass and boy do they step out.  They just get a-walking, thinking only of filling their bellies.  But then all of the sudden, they remember that they have a calf… somewhere.  So they turn around and start bawling for baby, making other mommas do the same.  Hey now!  We are trying to go out the gate and every time you stir up the herd to find your baby that you forgot about because all you think about is food you cause problems!  Too bad saying that wouldn’t actually get anything done- rational talk doesn’t work with cows that don’t really think.

With such a big herd we use our cow dogs to move them along.  But sometimes that causes a little bit of an extra stir.  See, in the winter we can get coyotes or even wolves that bother the herds, putting momma cow on super high alert.  Anything that looks like a coyote is in trouble, including The Rancher’s dog.  This is the same dog that is around every year, all year and they know who he is but they put up a stink if he gets too close.

The roughest part about moving the herd in the springtime is pushing the calves.  With momma gonna, they are doing their darndest to find her and keep up with the herd.  But with such little legs and no clue of where they are going, they tend to just lag.  And if, for some reason, they get behind they freak out, running in the exact opposite direction as the herd.  There is no coercing the darn things to go in the right direction until they just do it themselves (hmm, sounds like my kids!).  They will run through fences, the brush, anything that gets in their path!  Sometimes we just get ’em good and tired and then grab them.   

It sounds pretty bad when I explain it all out like this, and it is if all of this is happening at once.  But usually its not every cow that turns back and the dog has learned to shove with love and we do pretty good at keeping the calves from getting behind.  But it would all be so much better if those darn babies would just follow momma (or momma not leave them behind…)!  Regardless, we are getting the work done and loving it (well, most of it).  And we will love it even more when it is done!

God Given Green

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You probably already know this, but ranchers are God fearing people.  We have been through too much to not give credit to a higher power.  There have been too many almosts, close calls, and “if I was one step closer!” moments.  I’m pretty sure that the fact that ranchers keep going year after year is evidence that they believe that there is someone out there that will make it better.

Not too long ago there were hundreds of thousands of ranchers, farmers, and families praying for rain and praying for this draught to end.  But there is one prayer I have to tell you about from one humble cowboy that strengthened determination to keep asking for the rain.

This prayer was given at a conference where he was asked to give the blessing on the food. He began with the usual stuff, like any other ordinary prayer.  But then he began thanking God for the heritage and legacy of ranching. He was thankful for the calling to be stewards over the land and for the opportunities to pass it all on to our children.  Then with a humble, yet strong plead, that cowboy prayed for rain and for the resources we ranchers need to feed the world.  And it was that last little bit that struck me.

I think a lot of times we pray for the rain for our own skin- and rightfully so.  If we don’t get the rain, there is no way our operations can continue.  If we go too long without rain, we will lose the means to provide for our families.  But this rancher was thinking bigger than himself, or even his neighbors.  He saw the bigger picture of what we do as ranchers.  Because the rain means more than just supporting and feeding my family, it means feeding so many other families.  Sure, there are other ranchers that produce beef and if we were to go under there would still be meat in the market.  But it might make a difference for one family somewhere around the world. 

Do you want to know what ranchers do?  Ranchers fight world hunger.  They put out there a super nutritious, affordable (and delicious) product that people need.  And that is why we are praying for rain.  We pray that we will have the resources to feed world.

I think that someone out there is listening, because we are getting rain.  A little at a time, we are getting the rain.  The alfalfa is starting to grow, the new seeding is sprouting, and even the sage brush is turning a little green (its been brown for a long, long while…).  Yep, I’m a God-fearing woman- because that is the only way that we will be able to feed the world.

A Roundup- Ranches Branding From Montana to Kansas (and some in between)

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We aren’t the only ones busy branding this time of year.  And I’m not the only one blogging about it (although with my number of posts over the last few weeks you might think I own the corner on it!).  Its always fun for me to see how others ranches do it and the pictures that they put up.  And I love reading the histories of branding that they write.  Do you check them out?

Its ok if you don’t, because I grabbed a healthy handful of the ones I found lately.  You should read them!

Some of these have great photos, others have great descriptions of how they brand.  Two are posts from people that don’t normally brand, and its interesting to hear their take on it all!

Many Irons in the Fire

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Having 760 cows means that we have to find places for all of them, which means that we have groups spread out on the range.  Some of them are on our own private ground but a good majority of them run with other ranches on the Association rangeland.  And that means that when we go branding we have EVERYONE’s cattle to brand!

The upside to this is that we have plenty of help to brand our calves, but that comes with the price of going out every weekend to brand (but that’s a price we are so happy to pay).  It takes a LOT of time to get so many calves branded! 

The group that we run with has 7 different brands in the fire!  With so many different operations running together, we want to make sure that we get it right on branding day.  The ropers are limited to the ranch owners or other cowboy they designate.  The ropers have to be good at finding a mothered up pairs and recognizing which brand it will need.  Talk about pressure!

Not only do we need to make sure we get the right brand on the right calf, but each operation has its own vaccines and marks to do.  Each ranch sets up their branding station and is responsible for doing their own ground work.  If you want a job done right, I guess you do it yourself, right?  Actually there are a lot of the men that have run together for YEARs and YEARS that would do a fine job of doing work on each others cattle.  But for the sake of not confusing the help, we don’t do too much crossover.

Since we are trying to get as many done as possible we don’t use the Nord forks.  The time a roper would be tied up is time that he could be roping, which is precious.  So they drag in their calf, the ground crew pounces and mugs the calf.  They slide the rope off to send the roper back to rope and then they get to work.

When you write it out and explain it, it sounds crazy and a lot of work.  But after doing it for so long, its amazing how you just know what to do! 

 

 

Almost as Good as a Photo Shoot

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I love taking pictures on the ranch- that’s why I have this blog.  And branding time is one of my FAVORITE times to take pictures.  The gathering, roping, riding, and fun times together are just too awesome to not capture.  In fact, last weekend I took like 1,400 pictures!  Its almost like having my own cowboy photo shoot!

A lot of the pictures were duplicates (which have been deleted…) because I set my camera to burst mode to make sure that I don’t miss a thing.  And some don’t turn out, so its not like I have 1,400 picture to share.  But I do have a lot!  You’ve been warned, there are a lot of photos here… (like more than a hundred…)

 
Click “Read More” for the rest of the pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

 

 

 

Days of Branding: Castrating Bulls to Steers

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Branding day really is a big day for some of these calves, especially the bulls.  The poor fellas especially have a big change…  I kinda feel bad for them- glad I’m not destined to be a steer.

You might not think it, but castrating is an important part of our operation of producing the best beef possible.  How are a pair of cahonees related to a yummy hamburger?  I’m glad you asked!  I’ll tell you!

Testosterone is produced in the testes (duh, I know… have to start somewhere).  And although testosterone helps calves grow fast, this is at the cost of a lot of energy.  I don ‘t just mean a lot of energy to help them grow (we are totally for growing) but I mean a lot of energy to first develop testes and then produce the testosterone.  In a castrated calf, more energy is put towards more marbling fat- the fat that gives meat its flavor and tenderness.

Besides castrating to make a better product, we also castrate for management sake.  With testosterone comes aggression (again, duh… I know…) and aggressive cattle make for more work.  On a ranch there is ALWAYS something to be done and anything we can do to ease our load is so worth it.  Its also make sure that as the calves develop that they don’t get overly zealous in starting the next generation of calves- we don’t want babies pregnant with babies!

We castrate in two ways.  Actually “we” only castrate in one way, then those boys do another…  The first is using an elastrator.  I mentioned this when we talked about tagging.  There is a stretchy ring that we stretch around the testes that will eventually cut them off.  This works best for young calves that haven’t developed as much.  The other method is surgically cutting them- a little more intense (I’m not a wimp, I promise…). 

Castrating is stressful for a calf, and stressful times can cause calves to get sick or lose weight.  They will bounce back a lot better when they are younger and pick up on that weight gain faster.  There have been studies that found that in the end, a calf that is castrated younger will be heavier when it is harvested versus a calf that was castrated at weaning time.  Who knew!

Maybe this is more than what you wanted to know, but its a few fun facts about ranch life and what we do to make the best product we can!

PS- We had to document this first time of castrating- talk about getting in there with two hands!  Way to go girl!

Days of Branding: Marking the calves

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Part of our branding routine includes, marking our calves.  Running our cattle with so many others means we need easy ways to identify which is ours.  We use tags, but sometimes tags fall out.  And we use brands, but we can only see them when we are up close. So we have ‘nother other (in the words of The Rancher’s Sidekick) way to identify them.

The first is marking the ears.  Calves naturally have a really full ear that can be easily seen.  This makes for a great place to mark.  Some notch out the ears, some do a split.  We trim down the ear making for pointy, less full ears.

I have to tell you something… I’m not a fan of marking the ears.  They look like a bat or something… But I do like how easy it is to pick up a pair of binoculars and spot those pointy little ears!

The second marking we make is a waddle.  A neck waddle.  I’m sure that we call it a waddle because is waddles to-and-fro…  To make a waddle, we cut a flap of skin back off of the neck.  When it heals what we have left is a wiggling bit of skin hanging from the neck.  We only waddle the heifers since we will keep them as replacement heifers down the road while we sell the steers.  No reason to waddle a calf that won’t need it!

Once again, NOT a fan of the extra wiggling, unattached waddle… but it makes it SUPER easy to identify our cattle!

Its important that these marks are done right.  We don’t want too big of a slice taken from the ears or too big of a cut on the neck.  We want as little stress on the calves as possible (because they have ALREADY had stress).  So we let The Rancher and Rancher Sr. do it for the most part.  Its a good job for them…

 

About Me

Hello! I'm Allison, The Rancher's Wife! There's nothing I love more than being out on the ranch with my husband and kids. Join me for a look at what goes on here at the ranch and the life being a rancher's wife!

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