Life Off the Ranch - The Idaho Rancher's Wife

The Reality Is…

November 2, 2017 by Allison

… Its November…

GASP!!

I can’t believe that not only is summer gone, like LONG GONE, but Fall is on its way out. And so much has happened in that time. The good news is, I FINALLY (mostly, or almost mostly) have the new look for the blog up and running. The reality is that I am NOT web designer and so what I thought would be a quick and easy change was anything but… There is still a handful of surprises I have up my sleeve but I have enough done that I might sleep at night and NOT stress over it all.

I don’t have the time or the head space to give you a complete update on everything that has happened between now and then. But here is the highlights reel of the summer.

The kids and I made a trip to Montana- a much needed break and chance for renewal before a long and crazy summer. The highlight of that week had to be the basketball camp that The Rancher’s Sidekick got to be a part of. I have to admit that I was swelling with pride because I went to that same camp since I was a girl in second grade and it was my high school basketball coach that put on the camp!

My Montana skies!

Between The Rancher and I, we had FIVE different family reunions scheduled throughout the summer. No, we didn’t make them all, and that’s ok. We still had lots of time to reconnect with family, especially those that we don’t have the opportunity to see often. Highlights included fishing, water slides, bon fires (and consequently FIRE TREATS!), and late night games. Low-lights include being stuck at the mechanics for SEVEN hours, stomach bug while camping, and never enough time for it all.

My sister planned an EPIC road trip for herself and I was privileged enough to kick it off with her. The Cowboy Kid (my littlest) and I braved a plane to California, two full days of driving to Arizona (where we surprised our brother) and a flight back home in just a few days. Once again never enough time, but still so much fun. I have a whole new appreciation of how much I love where we live. One, because it isn’t swarming with people and two, because it isn’t a desolate, dreary, bleak, sterile desert. I mean, we live in a desert, but at least we have cedar trees and sage brush growing!

Road trippin’… (we really had fun despite these crazy faces!)

Even though it was summer, there was so much work to be done on the ranch. We rolled from crazy winter to busy calving to hectic branding to a quick turnout to rushed spring field work. This was our first spring with the new pivots (Christmas in May!!) and there was a heavy learning curve and lots of kinks to work out. I wish I could have had a dollar for every time The Rancher said, “We shouldn’t have to touch the cows until…” or “The field work should be down now…” because I swear Karma would kick in and we would inevitably have something come up that we STILL didn’t have a chance to catch our breath. Maybe we will after the calves are all gone? The reality is, catching our breath is pretty unlikely because we just don’t know how to slow down!

Getting the pivots up and running

A little spring farming!

Out on the range to check water with The Rancher

Of course we had our hands full of rodeos and roping all along the summer. The Rancher’s Sidekick even took a chance to ride into the arena and do a little sorting like the big boys. I don’t know how well he did, but it didn’t matter when you saw the smile he had on his face. All I could do was pray that he didn’t fall off and all he could do was beam with pride!

No summer would be complete without a little fire action. Unfortunately a lot of the action we had was on our private and BLM rangeland in Locomotive. And of course Mother Nature has no regard to Holidays or family time so Fourth of July fireworks had a whole new meaning and the dust was a little thicker with smoke at the Annual Stone Rodeo.

When we actually managed to be home and NOT working, we poured sidewalks and laid sod! I had been saving my pennies for a good long time and it was all worth it to a new sprinkler system, established grass and sidewalks instead of mud! It might actually be worth dusting now that we don’t live in a giant dirt bowl… HA! The reality is that even though I don’t have as much dust, I still don’t have any more time to clean!

The summer closed out with fairs, concerts (can you say bucket list!) and a wedding (Cowboy Pete tied the knot! More on that later, for sure!!)! Being on the County Fair Board is exhausting but always worthwhile. From ropings to horse races to hog washes, we did it all! Probably one of the highlights of my summer and the best way to end it was to go to a Home Free concert! The music was awesome, my date was the best and having a TERRIFIC babysitter was the icing on the cake!

Home Free date night!

We are full swing into school and fall work and back into some sort of routine. We eat, sleep, work, play and pray. The reality is, I don’t ever feel caught up and I never feel like I am doing good enough at any of it. But as a good friend recently told me, we are too blessed to be stressed.

Until next time, Friends!

Changes Going on Over Here

June 5, 2017 by Allison

I love blogging. I LOVE it! And I also hate it… Because as much as I love writing and telling stories and my photography… I hate sitting at the computer. And it is always pulling my chain. The days between posts can slip by so fast and then I feel guilty and terrible and frustrated at not being consistent and organized enough to keep things going.

But I keep doing it because I LOVE IT!

We have had this conversation before…

Usually my absence on here is due to the busy rancher’s-wife-and-little-cowboy-momma life I lead but for the next few weeks you won’t here from me for a good reason instead of my slacking.

Are you confused? Or maybe just wondering what the heck I am talking about… I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. For the last several months I’ve had big plans in the works. Actually I have been dreaming of big things for even longer and now I am pulling the trigger.

I am giving my blog a facelift! Its not that I don’t love how things look now, its just that I want to add more. I want to incorporate so much more for you and for me. Knowing me, it is actually going to go quite slow to get everything where and how I want it. But in the next few weeks you will see the beginning and I’m so excited for it.

So… you won’t hear from me for a few weeks and even though that isn’t uncommon for me, it is on purpose!

Pausing for Perspective

May 24, 2017 by Allison

I love my life. I really do. Its amazing how much joy and satisfaction I find in what we do. I get to watch my kids learn and grow and fail and succeed. They get to watch their dad work and see what it means to have responsibilities and carry them out. It is exhausting and amazing and inspiring… and exhausting.

I love our life but it is exhausting. Most of the time when life gets busy and exhausting, you pause, give yourself some space, do something new to recharge yourself, and then jump back in.

We don’t do that.

Not that we don’t believe it taking a break, but its kinda difficult. With cows, irrigating, haying, feeding, checking water, and all the other things on the never ending check list, we don’t have the time to just up and leave. Not to mention the fact that we live in the middle of nowhere and going anywhere requires plenty of travel time.

But that’s ok.

We may to be able to be world travelers or we might not have the opportunities to visit exotic places. Its all ok, because we have an entire world to explore in our back yard. We have horses and 4wheelers and mountains and trails. We really have everything we need.

What we do, everyday, is what we love. Yes, we get tired of the daily grind, but that is when we load up in the gator and go for a ride. And we take a moment to refocus on what our priorities are and then we get back to it.

I’m in desperate need for such a pause. I am feeling the weight of the work that needs to be done on our home, for our community, in the fields… There is always more work to be done than there is time and energy. Think I can talk The Rancher into taking me on a romantic motorcycle ride tonight?

Live a LIfe of Passion

April 17, 2017 by Allison

Over the last few years since I bought my “fancy” camera and started to learn more about photography, I’ve had a few people ask me to do pictures for them. I’ve done family pictures for my best friend, engagements for my brother-in-law and his (now) sweet wife, and even graduation pictures for another brother-in-law. There are lots of others, but you get the picture (haha..)…

I love getting a chance to take pictures of families, couples and individuals and help capture their personality so that they can share and preserve them. Its not my niche (yet) but I am learning. I do have to admit, its a little weird to get to be in control of what’s happening in front of the camera instead of making photos out of what is happening around me. Does that make sense?

A few weeks ago I got a chance to kinda do both- a posed and directed photo session but still out on the range with the horses and cows. Could it get any cooler? I don’t think so. Our neighbor (about 30 miles down the road), Mackenzie, was selected to be a National Collegiate Beef Advocate with the American National Cattle Women organization and one of the first things she needed to do was to send in some photos of her working cattle or with horses or whatever she does as a ranching girl. She had a few snap shots, but they weren’t exactly what she wanted to put out there in a press release.

So that’s when she called me.

We went out on our range land and got to work (tough work, huh?). It was such a different experience for me because the purpose was for me to take pictures. I didn’t have to worry at all about being in the way or anything like that. It was a little refreshing actually… Do you think I can convince my cowboys out here to let me just have free rein? Probably not…

That’s ok. I’ll take what I can get.

Back to Mackenzie. In between photos we would visit and she told me a little bit about what she gets to do as an advocate. I don’t remember everything she said, but I definitely remember how her face would light up as she talked about what the opportunity meant to her. It didn’t take long to realize how proud she was of her life in agriculture and how rich her passion was for sharing it with people.

I don’t know who said it but somebody smart said, “Follow your passion, and success will follow you!” I have no doubt that whatever Mackenzie does with her passion, she will be successful. Passion can conquer fear, make you bold, and push you to take those leaps we might never have risked. I think all to often we get busy and bogged down with all of the must-do’s of life. We get so focused on the have-to’s, we don’t do the want-to’s and our passion for life slowly sizzles out. The excuses of not having the time or energy or money just get in the way. We become complacent, and stay right inside our comfort bubble and suddenly we don’t do anything exciting or adventurous. Nothing we do gets adrenaline flowing or our hearts pumping.

Who wants to live that kind of a life? A life with no passion?

So today, do something your WANT to do, especially if you don’t have time to. Let the list wait. Be crazy and creative. Go out on a limb. Fail terribly. But, call it a success because you tried. Let your passion drive you, if only for a moment!

Who knows how you will succeed!

Dinner For a Rancher

April 12, 2017 by Allison

The other night I made dinner and, as our life goes about now, The Rancher had to head out just as I was putting it on the table. I fed the kids and myself a tasty dinner of grilled steaks, fresh pineapple, salad, and green beans. Everything I love and my kids too! It went over with flying colors and any dinner that I don’t have to coax my kids to eat every bite is considered a win.

But with The Rancher it was a whole different situation.

He came home sat down ready to eat. I was pumped for the steak and the pineapple was a fun treat. But he looked at me and we had this conversation:

Him: “So where is the rest of the food?”

Me: “The rest of it? I think you got it all out.”

Him: “But, like… where is the filling stuff?”

Me: “The filling stuff? What does that even mean?”

Him: “Like potatoes or something. I’ll eat this, but I’m still gonna be hungry if I eat JUST this!”

I couldn’t help but just laugh and laugh! Heaven forbid he had some fruit and veggies in his diet. He thinks that he is going to shrivel up and die if he doesn’t have meat and potatoes for every meal. Actually, I did hear him say once (and I’m sure it will be the only time in his life!) that he was a little tired of potatoes… But that only lasted a few days.

But seriously, cooking for a rancher can be tough. With such a physically demanding job, he needs some serious calories to help him make it through the day. Over the years I have learned a few things about cooking for a rancher.

Things like how a salad will never cut it for him. It may be yummy and it may be nutritious, but it will only last about an hour before he is back in the house looking for a snack to help him make it to the end of the day. Only once has a salad been ok and that was on a hot summer night when the idea of a hot meal was just more than he could handle. Lesson here is, a salad can only be a side, not the entree!

It may be because we raise beef, but I’ve learned that EVERY meal needs to have meat in it. I didn’t even have to attempt a meatless meal to learn this lesson! I think it came with the wedding proposal, something like, “Honey, will you marry me and not EVER make dinner without some meat in it?” I can’t blame him though. Protein is essential part of a healthy diet and it is even more essential for a physically demanding job like his.

Making sure the menu meets his criteria isn’t the only thing I had to learn when I started cooking for The Rancher. His daily schedule is anything BUT predictable, which means that his dinner schedule is also anything but predictable. So what I do is ask him what time he thinks he will be home, add at least 45 minutes to that, but make sure that the table is set if he manages to make it in early so it looks like I believed him. Ok, not really… I think we have had a few reheated meals or overcooked and mushy noodles or the kids and I eat without The Rancher. Its what happens when dinner is on schedule and a calf needs pulled, a cow gets out or something breaks down. Its what happens when you are married to a rancher!

Dinner for a rancher isn’t typical or predictable. Usually I don’t even know what is for dinner until it was time to get fixing and all to often I have to ask The Rancher what he wants for dinner (and his usual reply is “I dunno…”). But dinner at our house is delicious, nutritious, never meatless, and full of love, because every dinner is a chance I have to take care of my rancher so he can do a little bit better at his job.

What is dinner look like at your house?

Battling the Winter Blues One Blessing at a Time

March 6, 2017 by Allison

I love winter. I really do. I think I’ve told you that… lots of times. You are probably tired of me talking about it.

But its been sorta hard.

I love it, but its hard.

With so much snow all at once, that meant there were days and days of dealing with it. Pushing snow in the stack yard to get to the hay, pushing snow in the field to feed the hay, pushing snow around the ranch just to get around… and then pushing snow for our neighbors that really couldn’t handle it without a tractor.

God bless that rancher of mine and his tough, sweet heart because he spent nearly a whole day plowing snow for everyone in the valley just because he could when there were so many other things that needed to get done! He’s good man.

Back to the snow… You get my point that there has been lot of work because of the snow. Aside for the physical fatigue of dealing with it, I feel like we have been emotionally fatigued as well. Maybe its just me, but I feel drained. Super drained.

I think I have the winter blues…

And I don’t like it.

I’m a happy person. I’m the glass half full kind of girl.

So to battle my bit of winter blues, I’m going to count my blessings. Ready?

Actually, I have to tell you something else first… When I came home from my first year of college I thought I had died. I was happy to be home and happy to be back working on the ranch, but in some ways my life was over. None of my friends were around, our little town of 300 people had nothing going on and I was sure that I wasn’t going to survive the summer. Dramatics of a 19 year old girl, I’m sure… So I decided that the only thing I could change was my attitude. And I decided that the best way to change my attitude was to be thankful. From then on, everyday I was determined to find one thing to be thankful for and I was going to write it down and make a collage out of it.

It worked, friends. By the end of the summer, I had this huge piece of paper with so many things that I was thankful for and it was beautiful and inspiring. And I was happy.

So when I’m starting to feel down, I try to be thankful. Because when I’m feeling down, epecially about myself, I start making a different list. Something like an I-suck list… You know, the ones of “I can’t keep up with the laundry” and “the house is always a mess and I can’t keep up with it” and “I’m so behind on this project” and “I just burnt the 12th piece of toast this morning”… Those kind of lists can happen without us even knowing it and they can really beat us up.

So here goes!

1. Messes… Yep. It means that my kids have been busy playing and growing and being creative. And that is a mom-win.

2. Snuggles, especially from my older babies that are not babies anymore.

3. Propane. We ran out last week so I couldn’t have a hot shower before bed. Now it is full again and I’m thankful!

4. Snow… rain… MOISTURE! Our livelihood depends on it and although it makes life hard sometimes, we need it.

5. Cows. They make me laugh. They are cute. They are tasty.

6. My bed. My warm, snuggly bed. Its like a magic reset button.

7. Exercising. Its almost as magical as my bed for a good reset, but it takes a lot more work. But really, exercising keeps my body strong and healthy so I can enjoy so much more of life!

8. My home. Its still not finished. I have tape over the stairs that has been there for 18 months. But it is mine and I LOVE it.

9. Snow clothes. We couldn’t have made it the last few months without them. They have kept us warm and dry and saved my washer a lot of dirty clothes!

10. Hot chocolate. This is almost its own food group at my house. My kids drink it every morning. And I almost love it as much as them.

11. MY CAMERA! I love photography and the different perspective it has helped me look at life. Especially when I have had to stay on the sidelines- something I don’t do well!

12. My kids. Of course! They are messy and crazy and busy, but they are also sweet and helpful and kind. I watch them and in so many ways I wish I was more like them.

13. School. I know that everyone has there own opinions about school for their kids but I am so thankful for the little school I get to send my son to. He has learned so much that I couldn’t have taught him from home. No, its not perfect. There are issues. But when I see his growth, I’m so thankful that I can send my little boy to school.

14. The gator… Silly, I know, but its the best way our family of 5 plus 5 dogs can get around the ranch together. And it is a much smoother ride than any 4 wheeler.

15. Soup. Nothing is better than a warm bowl of soup at the end of the day. Or in the middle of the day. I think I could even handle soup to start the day.

16. Me. I am thankful for me. My determination, my endurance, my emotional side… (it keeps things in perspective, right?), my body and how it can nurture my family. I’m hard on myself a lot, but that’s because I have high expectations of myself.

17. Me bed. Oh… I already said that… Still thankful! Do-over… My boots! I have worn the tread off of my favorite boots. There are holes and cracks but they are my favorites. They have walked a lot of miles and gotten a lot of work done.

18. Music. I turn on tunes everyday. And all sorts of kinds. It has a way to drive and inspire me.

19. Books. I don’t have a lot of time to read these days. But it is an escape to adventure and excitement without ever having to pack my bags or leave my cozy bed.

20. My husband… My good, hard working, giving husband. He does so much for so many. And he loves me for being me. That right there is something so worth being thankful for.

21. Home made bread… it goes great with soup (haha). The smell of bread baking in the oven in the smell of comfort and home.

22. God. I’m a religious person. I believe in a higher power and that without it, I don’t know where I’d be today. He inspires me, He comforts me, He guides me and He loves me.

23. Good friends. Everyone needs a support system and I am so thankful for mine. Especially when you live so far from civilization, each other is all you have. And having friends that have farming/ranching husbands is an added blessing because they get it. They know what I’m going through.

24. Technology. Its actually a curse and a blessing. But today I’m going call it a blessing. It helps me pursue my passions. It helps me stay connected with old friends and far away family.

25. Winter…. Yes, I’m so thankful for winter. It is beautiful. There is a sort of renewal and cleansing that comes from the snow and cold.

I could go on. There are a lot of things to be thankful for! We take for granted so many of the luxuries we have and taking the time to remember them is good for the soul. What are you thankful for today?