“If I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all!” There might not be a truer phrase for a rancher to admit to than that. Some days it feels like all the stars have to align for the work to get done without any hitches, hiccups, or holdups. Whether it is Mother Nature the parts man or ornery old boss cow, someone, somewhere is cooking up a disaster to derail even the best laid plans. You can always count on the fact that in the middle of the cattle work, farm work, machinery fixing, fence fixing or anything else on the never end to-do list, something, without fail, will go wrong. And while I don’t have any research data to back me up, I’m pretty sure that the probability and the size of such a disaster goes up exponentially when its a high stakes situation, and goes up even more so when there is zero time for a breakdown and a do-over.
Okay, yes that may be an overdramatization, but you have to admit that there are days when things, not only don’t go right, but seem to go especially bad. It’s those sort of days you might have to concede the victory to fate, turn in early so nothing else can go wrong and laugh at the day to keep from crying. Looking back, we have had our fair share of bad luck days, some we can laugh at now… some that we still need a little more time.
This last winter felt like one stroke of bad luck after another. I mean, to begin with, it had to be bad luck that after years of drought and praying for moisture, it all comes pouring down in one, unending winter. Of course, we never look a gift horse in the mouth, but if I could have been in charge of the timing of said moisture, it certainly wouldn’t have come in a near record breaking winter fashion.
In a season where we really needed all the things to go right, I swear everything would go wrong, especially on the days when we were far from home and help. We put one fire out after another (not literally fires, but that surely would have warmed things up while we were freezing our fingers off). If it wasn’t the tractor door shattering (on a rented tractor, no less) to keep the work from being done, it was the blown hydraulic hose on the back. If it wasn’t the flat tire on the backhoe that kept us from feeding, it was the massive sinkhole that swallowed the newly fixed tractor. Not only did the gator break down but the snowmobile wouldn’t start either. You’ve heard of the hand Midas that turns everything that it touched to gold? We had the exact opposite. We touched it and it died, quit, or broke.
Sometimes it isn’t the hand that is cursed, it’s just the machine that refuses to stay in running condition. Our problem child of a pivot is simply dubbed “the old pivot” although it might be more accurate to call it the-leaky-run-down-dilapidated-old-pivot. As soon as one hole is plugged or fixed, a new pinhole starts gushing. Aside from its leaky bits, there are computer problems and electrical problems. You might say that running an old pivot just signs you up for breakdowns, but I think this pivot runs at a higher level of breakdowns. If we have any luck this year, it’s getting that old thing replaced… hope I didn’t just jinx it!
We might just make our own bad luck for the number of times we say things like “we are all caught up with the shop work” or “all the cows are settled.” It’s like those darn cows know when we breathe a sigh of relief and work to stir things up. If I had a dollar for everytime we think the cows are settled and then get a phone call that says the cows are out, we could pay someone else to keep them in. They are masters at finding the down wires, gates left open or just barging their way through. And with the sort of luck we run, we get those cows back in but can’t find the hole they are crawling through, so they just keep getting out.
Mother Nature especially likes to throw a wrench in our carefully planned out days. Despite knowing the old adage that you bale hay while the sun shines, it always seems we get into the wrong project for the weather. We meticulously check the forecast, make plans to best fit the conditions of the day, only to find the weatherman was wrong once again. It’s spraying weeds or cutting hay because it’s sunny for days on end to only have thunderstorms suddenly come in, day after day. Or planting fields just before the predicted storms never roll through. We move cows or plan to brand, sure it’s supposed to be a nice, sunny day, only to be caught in Idaho’s blustery wind, something we should learn to count on anyway.
Oh the luck of a rancher. It seems the ball never bounces our way. But truth be told, we are far luckier than we deserve with the great industry we have to be a part of. We have the great fortune of working the land, having the satisfaction of working as a family, and doing a work we love. There may be moments, some days more than others, that it feels like we have nothing but bad luck. But I will take these bad luck days on the ranch over any other day. Who needs luck when we live a life so blessed.
