Ranch Life - The Idaho Rancher's Wife

Apparently There was a Road

November 4, 2026 by Allison Eliason Leave a Comment

The Rancher told me to head up the hill to deliver salt blocks. Simple enough, except he neglected to mention where the road was. Sometimes ranch work requires a little more figuring out than the directions suggest.

“Just head up the hill. It’s by the spring-fed water trough.”

Those were my directions for delivering salt blocks to the pasture as we turned out some cattle earlier this spring. Simple enough, except that while I had a general idea of where the water trough was, I had absolutely no idea how to get there.

This isn’t exactly an unusual situation for me. There are plenty of times on the ranch when I know what needs to be done but don’t necessarily know how to do it. Or, in this case, how to get to where I need to be. I like having a plan, preferably one with details, even if it’s just a few. Unfortunately, ranch plans often consist of little more than figuring things out as we go.

With a load of salt blocks, I headed toward the pasture in our rusty, trusty side-by-side, where I was supposed to meet The Rancher. I had been to the trough before, although it had been a while—a year or two, is all—but I felt reasonably confident I could recognize the area once I got there.

That confidence lasted until I drove through the gate.

Immediately, I realized I had no idea which direction to go. I looked around for tire tracks, knowing The Rancher had already driven through and figuring I could simply follow his path. But there weren’t any obvious tracks to follow. Undeterred, I pulled out my phone, hoping the map might show a road or at least help me pinpoint where the trough was located. That wasn’t particularly helpful either. There was barely even a cow trail to suggest which direction I ought to head.

I knew the trough was somewhere uphill, and I remembered enough of the country to have a general idea of where it might be. I also knew that sitting at the gate wasn’t going to get the salt delivered. So, after considering my options, I decided to see if I could find my own way up.

The hillside was brushy, rocky and steep, with tall weeds that made it almost impossible to see what was underneath them. There wasn’t much of a trail, which meant I had to pay close attention to where I was driving. I wasn’t interested in finding a hidden rock with the underside of the side-by-side.

I slowly worked my way uphill, looking for a route that seemed reasonably safe, or at the very least not unsafe. At the same time, I kept watching for signs of the spring. I figured the greener grass around the water would act as a sort of beacon. If I could find that, I would know I was headed in the right direction.

And true enough, I eventually spotted the trough. Better yet, I spotted The Rancher standing beside it, both nearly camouflaged by the overgrown weeds. I picked my way across the remaining hillside and pulled up beside him, feeling pretty good about having successfully reached our destination in one piece with all the salt still on board.

He was on the phone when I arrived, explaining why my call for directions had gone completely unanswered. Also, nothing new. I waited for him to finish his conversation, ready to unload the salt and get on with the job.

When he hung up, he looked at me and asked, “Why didn’t you take the road?”

The road?

I figured there was a perfectly good way to get to the trough, but I had managed to miss it entirely. I explained that I couldn’t find a road, so I had simply made my own way up the hill. Laughing to myself, I thought that, having not given me better directions or made himself available to help, The Rancher didn’t really have much room to criticize how I got there. He should just be thankful I did.

It wasn’t long before I had dumped my load of salt, he had the trough up and running, and it was time to head home. I figured I could either take my long, circuitous route home or follow The Rancher and learn the “right” way back. Having now traveled it, I would suggest that the term “road” was being used rather generously. Still, it was considerably easier than the route I had chosen.

The entire adventure probably took 15 or 20 minutes, maybe even less. It certainly wasn’t anything remarkable in the grand scheme of ranch work. We delivered the salt, nobody got stuck, and I learned where the road was for next time.

But I’ve thought about that little trip several times since.

I sometimes struggle with the uncertainty that comes with being given a job I haven’t done before. I want to do things correctly, and I don’t particularly enjoy the feeling of not knowing what I’m doing. There is a certain comfort in tagging alongside The Rancher, watching how he approaches a problem and following his lead. I’ve learned an enormous amount that way, and there is still plenty I need to learn.

But I don’t want to spend my ranching life as someone who simply rides along. I want to contribute, take on some of the responsibility and be someone who can be counted on to get things done. That means occasionally accepting a job without knowing every detail of how I’m going to accomplish it.

I wonder how often we hold ourselves back because we aren’t sure of the best way to do something. We wait for better instructions, more experience or someone who knows what they’re doing to show us the way. There’s value in being prepared and learning from others, but eventually we have to put what we know to use and trust ourselves to figure out the rest.

Of course, that doesn’t mean charging ahead without thinking. There are plenty of situations where guessing your way through a job would be dumb or downright dangerous. Knowing when to stop and ask for help is important. But sometimes we know more than we give ourselves credit for.

I didn’t know where the road was that day, but I knew where I needed to end up. I could recognize the country, look for signs of the spring and choose a route that seemed safe. It wasn’t the most efficient way to get there, but it was enough to get the job done.

Next time I head up that hillside, I’ll take the road. I know where it is now, and I see no reason to fight my way through the brush again. But I’m glad I made that first trip. I learned a little more about trusting my own judgment, and I got the job done without having someone show me every turn. Besides, if The Rancher wants me to take the road next time, he might consider telling me where it is.

She’s Got One More Good Year in Her

October 26, 2026 by Allison Eliason Leave a Comment

The decisions behind who stays in the herd and who makes the cull list.

There is one thing we can always be sure about come fall cattle work– there are cows we know won’t be spending another year on our ranch. The funny thing is, we don’t necessarily know how many there will be or exactly who they are until we start working through the list. After weaning the calves and before we put too much labor and cost into the upcoming year’s calf crop, it’s the right time to decide which cows measure up and which ones make the cull sheet.

The preg checking verdict usually makes the first cut for us. If a mature cow comes through the chute open, she is almost always headed down the road. If she isn’t carrying a calf that we can sell next year, it’s pretty hard to justify feeding her for another year. We lose the income from the calf she won’t raise while still paying the costs of feed, vaccinations, medications and everything else that goes into keeping her.

Because no rule is ever black and white, even that one has exceptions. We tend to give a young cow that has just raised her first calf a little more grace. To her credit, she has been trying to grow herself, produce milk for a calf and become pregnant again all at the same time. All of those demands can mean reproduction gets pushed down the priority list.

If we otherwise like her, her potential may be worth more to us than the cost of giving her another year. Replacing her isn’t free either, so we opt to gamble in favor of keeping her.

Those are the easy decisions. Okay, not easy, just easier. Once we’ve dealt with the opens, things get a little less black and white.

Every year is different. If preg checking leaves us with quite a few open cows to sell, some of the older cows we have been watching will get another year on our operation. We still need cows to fill the country we have available, and an old cow that is bred and still getting around might look pretty good when there are already plenty of holes to fill.

If nearly everything comes up pregnant, we can afford to be pickier.

That’s when we start looking harder at the cows that have accumulated a few marks against their names, not just the things we can see as we work them chute-side, but what we’ve noticed throughout the year whenever we lay eyes on them.

Maybe at calving we notice a cow with an engorged teat or an udder that isn’t holding up very well. That can make it harder for her calf to nurse and eventually show up in the calf’s health and growth. Maybe she’s getting old enough that her teeth are disappearing. Her nutrition is important, and if she can’t stay in good condition, our ranch might not be her place anymore. Maybe her hips or legs are beginning to break down, making us wonder how many more summers she can travel the range.

Or maybe she’s just a pain to deal with. Cows that are wild, jump fences or consistently create more work, and occasionally more dangerous situations, earn themselves a note too.

None of those things alone necessarily earns a cow a one-way ticket off the ranch. We’re pretty forgiving and patient. We might even be a little forgetful. But when we start reading through our notes and the same cow has collected several problems over the years, it gets harder to ignore them.

We also want to know that she actually raised the calf she was supposed to. As we wean, we pay attention to whether cows are still milking. If one is already dry, we make a note. Maybe she sloughed her calf. Maybe her calf died somewhere along the way. Maybe she abandoned it. One dry year doesn’t always tell us enough, but when the same cow shows up dry more than once, pregnancy alone isn’t enough to keep saving her. Getting bred doesn’t do us much good if she can’t put a healthy calf on the truck at the end of the year.

Sometimes the decision is as much about our ranch as it is about the cow. Our cattle need to be able to travel and forage on fairly rough range. A cow whose legs, hips or hooves are beginning to fail might still have several good years in an operation where she can spend the summer on irrigated pasture. We’d rather sell her while she’s healthy, mobile and still has value than wait until she reaches the point that she can’t get around at all.

Of course, knowing when we’ve reached that point isn’t always easy. We’re trying to run as many productive cows as we reasonably can, but there are bounds to how large our herd can be. We don’t have unlimited grazing permits, pasture or ground to produce winter feed. There is a ceiling on the number of cattle our resources can support, and ideally we want to use those resources as efficiently as possible.

We pay for our grazing permits whether we completely fill them or not. There are other costs around the ranch that don’t disappear just because we’re running fewer cows either. If we have the resources to support a cow, we want to have a productive cow there using them.

That’s probably why the cows sitting right on the edge are the hardest ones for us to sell. She may be old, but she’s bred. Her teeth aren’t great, but she made it through this summer. She’s caused us trouble before, but not lately. We know there is something waiting to replace her eventually, but we’re also pretty good at finding reasons she could make it one more year.

Late-bred cows create another headache. She’s pregnant, so it’s hard to call her unproductive, but she’s stretching our calving season later. Her calf will have fewer days to grow before we ship in the fall, and now we’re managing cattle at different stages longer than we really want to.

At some point we have to ask whether that calf is worth the added costs. And there isn’t always a right answer. Keep the cow and maybe she raises a great calf next year and makes us glad we gave her another chance. Or maybe her health declines, she comes up dry, or we spend another year’s worth of feed only to have the exact same conversation next fall. Sell her and maybe we’ve given up a cow that had several productive years left.

That’s what makes culling more complicated than simply sorting the good cows from the bad ones. The line moves a little every year depending on how the herd performed, how many cows we need to replace and what our resources can support.

Some cows make the decision for us. The rest leave us standing there looking at a list of numbers, trying to decide just how much another year is worth. When we really don’t know, we can always smile, nod our heads and say, “I’m sure she’s got one more good year in her.”

Or at least someone else can. That’s about the time I’m glad I’m not the boss in charge of making all the hard decisions. I’ll just stick to the sure ones.

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.