At the Ranch - The Idaho Rancher's Wife

10 Lessons Learned as a Rancher’s Wife… Part 2

October 3, 2015 by Allison

Last year I gave you a handful (ok 2 handfuls) of things that I’ve learned as my time as a rancher’s wife. Let me tell ya, that was not an all included list. There are so many gems out there. If people really only knew all the truths of making it married to a cowboy they would say we live such a bizarre life! So as weird as you may think I am, I have another 10 lessons I’ve learned.

There gonna be dirt. And manure. And mud. And dust and grit and weeds and anything else dirty you can think of. Ok so that isn’t too much of a stretch to imagine all that until you start to think of all the places this dirtiness goes. If it’s on your boots it’s on your floor. If it’s on your pants it’s on the couch. If it’s on your hands it’s on every blasted light switch, door handle, counter, key, or button you touch! So this is my advice: DON’T EVER CLEAN!! It’s all going to be messy all the time, so don’t worry about putting any effort to it… Ok that’s not how I roll. I do clean. The barn dirt and germs can stay in the barn but you have to pace yourself. Or hire a maid. I’d really love a maid…
Learn your 1st aid and always keep band aids on hand. It’s one if those Murphy proof things. If your prepared it’s not gonna happen, right?! Actually no… Cowboys think that they are either invincible and nothing will happen to them or they are can handle any type of wound or pain. And that leads to another lesson- know how to MAKE them stop and get real help. My rancher is pro at washing it in the ditch and calling it good. It’s only after I make him go to the doctor that he realizes that a pretty intense infection has set in and I was right.
You can hope for a set dinner time but don’t be heart broken when he’s late. In fact, that is more of the rule than the exception. Some machinery will brake down or a pipe will break or he might just forget what time dinner is on. That gives you two options- you either start eating without him or slap a smile on your face and wait. Its as simple as that.
Ranching and cowboying can be tough work but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. They really are just little boys playing with bigger toys. Having to saddle the horse to go rope a bull or load up the motorbike to bring in a few strays might be their job but that doesn’t mean they don’t get any thrills out of it. You might think then, that since they play all day on horses and tractors and bikes that when they can really go play, they will head out to do something else. But likely not… With any free time they will head to some team roping or start working a new colt or take the bike up in the mountains. Some days its hard to know what is work and what is play! We just roll with it and jump in no matter what he’s doing.
There will be so many hats. So many!! And I’m not talking figuratively. Sure, there is that too- he is the vet, the mechanic, the feeder, the farmer, the business man, the irrigator, and the milker. But right now I mean to tell you that ranchers have so many hats. They buy a new swather and they give him a new hat. He gets a load of feed in an he given another couple of hats. The vet comes around and has a handful of hats to give away. But he still needs a good cowboy hat to the keep the sun off of him so every few months its time for a new one of those. And not to mention that that he needs felt hats and wool hats in the winter. And heaven forbid it when a new hat comes in, we throw an old one out. You’ll get some sort of response like, “But it has a lot of good life in it!” or “I just got it to fit me just right!”. It may be greasy, grimy, poopy, and sporting a nice sweat ring but it MUST stay. Just call him a hat collector and move on… (and sneak a few out to the garbage during spring cleaning!)
Just because you don’t get a paycheck from the ranch doesn’t mean you don’t get called into work. In fact, you are on call… 24/7… no weekends, holidays, or even birthdays off. You have to have a really good excuse like in the hospital having a baby or on the couch with a broken leg to get off the hook. You never know quite what to expect when it is time to drop everything and go help. It could be something quick like stand on the road to turn the cows or come help moves the trucks to the next field ready to farm. But it could be in the middle of the night because you have to help with the calving. Or it could be an all day thing and you are sent on a parts run. I guess that’s what you sign up for when you marry a rancher, but you could always try to guilt him into a nice foot rub at the end of your long day!
Have you ever seen a cowboy in a tux? I mean, aside from a wedding, where the groom was threatened within an inch of his life that if he didn’t where his tux on the MOST important day of his life his bride would throw out his favorite rope, slash the tires on his truck and smash his best cowboy hat. His formal attire looks a lot like his work attire except that its clean. He will still have his boots, belt and buckle, jeans and a good western shirt topped off by his favorite hat. If its super fancy he might throw on a tie, but you can guarantee that it won’t last the night. I’ve been told that I can get all fancied up and it will work for the two of us. Naturally, If I’m dressed up appropriately for whatever event we are at, he is too simply by association. Honestly, I stopped caring… So long as he is clean and doesn’t stink, jeans and boots suit me just fine!
You will find that no matter the experience you are trying to help him relate to, he will find a way to compare it to ranching. You want him to understand that you are trying to eat nutritiously and he starts talking about feed supplements and offers you a salt block. You are trying to help him understand that he has to move the furniture when he vacuums and he realizes its much like how he has to move the wheel lines to cut all the hay. The best is when it comes to having babies, nursing babies, and raising babies. He is the expert in this field since every year he helps hundreds of mothers and babies. I guess that means that he is trying to get it if he is making the effort to make the comparisons.
This next little lesson was a hard one to take… A rancher isn’t always that sympathetic. There is no room for weakness in cowboying. It doesn’t matter the reason you need a little pat on the back… If you want to be out with the guys you had better suck it up and tough it out. After enough days of trying to get a “thanks, honey” for the late nights checking cows, early mornings haying, painfully cold days calving, or sweltering afternoons of hot fencing I’ve just decided its not gonna happen. I guess when your job demands that you show up no matter the conditions, you just expect it out of everyone else. And wives are no exception… Darn it…
When its movie night, just go for the western. You will never go wrong with a little gun play, a few pretty ponies and the handsome cowboy saving the day. When in doubt go with John Wayne or Tom Selleck. Or if you have the time you could even go with Lonesome Dove (although I have to admit, I have only done that once… and I think that’s plenty). Fortunately, there is a plethera of great old westerns that will make your cowboy proud to ride and a little more manly at the end of the night.

Here’s one last bonus thought… Crap runs downhill, therefore stay upriver, upwind and out of the spray zone!

A New House

June 7, 2015 by Allison

Big things are happening, folks! BIG THINGS! I (and The Rancher of course) am building a new house! It has always been a dream to build my own home and this summer we are making it a reality. I’ve wanted to share my news with you for so long but I wanted to make sure it was really happening. I mean, how rough would it be to make that kind of announcement and then be devastated by reality?! Heartbreaking, I’m sure.

Like any house building project it’s been simple. No big things to mull over. No learning curve to overcome.

Ya right! It’s been crazy prep work that we’ve done over the last year. But honestly, the toughest decision has been the “where” of it all. A place that gives us a nice view, our own space and definitely on the same side of the old highway as where dad works (because yes, my kids have scooted their little bodies across the road by themselves!). We found a treasure of a place when The Rancher had the idea to build where another old, old, OLD house stood. It had trees, the view, the yard and most importantly, it’s in the right side of the road.

When we finally realized this was the summer to build it meant we had to get to work making a place for a house. The old house (commonly called The Broken House by my kids because it really was old and broken) hadn’t been used for more than storage in 30 years. I would say nobody lived in it, but that’s not entirely accurate- there was a a few happy families of rats and mice and all sorts of other yucky creepy creatures.

It had been our plan to keep and remodel a lot of the existing house but unfortunately we could see it just wasn’t sound. With my luck I would have put in my pretty new cabinets and shiny new appliances and they would all go crashing down if we left the old structure. So we had our work cut out for us. The whole house had to come down to the bare basement. My vote was to just take a match to it. Or push it all in with a bulldozer. All very fast and certainly effective. But being the smart man that he is, The Rancher wanted take it apart more carefully to save every thing that was good. We were able to save all the good lumber in the floor and walls along with the outside walls. We actually just lifted the roof off (ok, more truthfully, we made the roof cave in) and cut the outside walls down to use later. Where, I don’t know but there are done walls ready to make some kind of shed…

The demoition part of our project began at the first of January. I’ve never been so delighted and so satisfied to punch a whole in the wall. I’ve also never been sore like i was after swinging a sledge hammer like that for so many days! It took months to take down walls, clean it up and move on to the next room to do it all over again. But all the sudden the house was gone and we were digging for the foundation!

Ironically we had to put things on hold for a couple of weeks at the beginning of Msy. I say it’s ironic because there was too much rain that it slowed us to a stop. I NEVER would have thought we would have rain like that for so many days. It was so hard to not cuss the rain because we have needed it so badly for so long! I didn’t dare tell the man upstairs that his answer to our prayers came at an inconvenient time…

Eventually the storm clouds parted and my floor was laid! And then I blinked and the walls were up! It’s been incredible to watch it unfold right in front of me. I am so happy, so excited and so (happily) stressed.

And unfortunately that is why my little blog has been somewhat neglected. I’m just pulled in so many ways and throwing a house in the middle of it all didn’t help! But maybe I can appease myself by sharing it with you here. You want to hear about how a rancher’s wife puts a house up, right? I’m sure there are life lessons being learned that are worth someone reading about!

The old house… Taken as The Rancher took the porch roof off.

The upstairs completely gutted. At this point we took out the windows, the final studs and then began taking the outside walls down.

No windows or doors…

Goodbye old house!

We borrowed a track hoe from some great neighbors to do the work. And I have to say that being able to operate this is a serious talent!

The walls are going down!

A last look from the inside.

The roof fell in…

And no more house!

Footings- the first new construction!

Pouring the foundation walls…

The floor system in (and beautiful green EVERYWHERE!)

The first wall up.

The best little helpers… They have loved every bit of this!

More walls

Beautiful progress!

Eliason Branding 2015 Day 1

May 10, 2015 by Allison

This last week I had the scariest thing happen… I thought I lost my external hard drive! It stores all of my photos and if it was gone I was gonna be in big trouble. And heartbroken. Mostly heartbroken.

But I found it!! This means I can finally share the many MANY more pictures I have.

Today’s tale and pictures to post- our branding!

With having so many cows at home to calve, we had so many calves to brand here on the ranch. We made a weekend of it, inviting cowboys and cowgirls out to help. Day one consisted of all the calves on the ranch- two heifer groups and 3 cow groups. The nice about when we did these was that they had already been tagged, castrated and given one shot. We sailed through these calves! For most of the day I was giving shots on my own and I could barely keep up! It also meant that there wasn’t a lot of down time to take pictures. So not a lot of day one… Mostly a shot here and there between groups, set up, clean up… But stay tuned for day two!

Click the “read more” link below to view the complete post…

A Little Cattle Character

March 27, 2015 by Allison

I like cows… And I like them for more than eating. I actually think they are really funny to watch. They have their own funny quirks and personality. I may humanize them a bit, ok a LOT bit. But it keeps things interesting.

The Rancher probably thinks that I am crazy and he probably gets tired of my cow watching, but he just gets to deal with it. I’m sure that he gets sick of me taking the cow’s side when I say things like, “I wouldn’t want to run if I was 9 months pregnant!” as he is chasing cows. Or when he frustrated with a cow that just won’t hold still as they preg check her, I tell him I wouldn’t want someone’s arm up my huh-huh and would DEFINITELY squirm. I may even occasionally tell him he deserves some of the mean-mommy-attitude because he is messing with their babies and the inner momma bear just isn’t ok with it.

Having so many cows at home this winter has given me lots of subjects to watch. They turn into a bunch of obsessive old ladies when it come to feeding time. They have to be the first one to the hay and if another cow starts munching on the wrong flake they sure tell them. They get to head buttin’ and kickin’ and eventually push them right out. “You’re outta the herd!” You can hear them saying that, right?

The babies are their own kind of cute and fun when it comes to watching them. The first attempts at getting up are so wobbly and even funny! Is that mean of me? (I’m sure someone laughed at me when I first started walking, so its all ok…) It doesn’t take long for those babies to get strong and fast and they race across the fields. We’ll be out feeding and you see dozens of calves just take off running. Usually there is one old cow babysitting all those calves and she starts bellering (is that a word?) for them to come back… Darn kids…

I’m sure I give these critters more personality than they may have, but I love the bit of cattle character we see. With so many of the blasted things around, why not change it up a little?

Test Day on the Ranch

March 23, 2015 by Allison

Spring is in the air and we are doing spring things on the ranch. Field work, taking care of new babies, semen testing bulls…

Oh, what? Testing bulls isn’t part of you think of spring time? I know, I’ve been ruined… Its funny the ways that ranch life has influenced my thinking. But yes, when I think about testing bulls and going to bull sales, I feel like spring is in the air.

Testing bulls was as exciting as usual this year. We teased Rancher Sr. about his fun running the torpedo and I took a look or two in the microscope. This year we had Dr. Philip come out to do the testing. The fun about this is that he was actually The Rancher’s roommate from college. That means I get to learn a little dirt on my cowboy. I won’t tell you those things… they aren’t blog-o-sphere appropriate… Actually I’m sure that I would be dead if ever I mentioned those secrets from the Dr.

As weird as it may be, I love test day. I love the medical side of ranching just as much as the daily chores. There is so much that they are looking for when they test- how many swimmers there are in each squirt of semen and how many of those swimmers are good and viable. They measure the scrotal circumference and of course test for Trich.

What a wonderful spring day it was with the good folks from the Bear River Animal Hospital. We heard some great stories, learned some new things and got some important work done. Although, I guess it may be somewhat of an awkward day, at least for the man running the torpedo!

So Many Calves, So Many Tags

March 20, 2015 by Allison

Having tripled the number of cows that are calving on the ranch that means we get to spend a significant more time tagging. And if we don’t spend a good chunk of tagging every day the number of calves needing tagging really piles up. In fact, we did have a few days pass by where we didn’t get to the tagging, which meant The Rancher and Rancher Sr. spent nearly the entire morning getting caught up.

The hard part isn’t necessarily that there are so many to do. Yes, it takes more time from their day, but they just expect that in the midst of calving and tagging season. What really stinks about missing days of tagging is that the calves get bigger and faster in such a short time. If we get to them within the first day of being born, they don’t really take off or aren’t too fast on those new legs. But give them a few days and they get a little stronger and a little wiser and take you for a chase! I tease The Rancher that its the best way he gets his running in. If he really wanted to go running so bad, he could just come in the mornings with me rather than letting the calves get too old. As you can imagine, he just rolls his eyes at me…

Tagging for us is pretty simple. With the heifer calves, we match the momma’s number to the calves. That’s mostly because they tend to forget which calf is there and need a little help (I’m so funny…). But its helps us to make sure everything is pairing up ok. With the older cows we are tagging the pure bred calves with an orange tag vs the sem-angus cross calves with a black tag. We differentiate which ear heifers and steers get tagged. Just a few things for us to see about the calf when we look at it. They all get their first round of shots and then the boys get castrated with a rubber cheerio.

When I write it all out like that, it seems like a lot more than what we do in reality. It only takes just a minute. And that sure is a good thing with so many babies and so many tags!

Late Night Babies

March 16, 2015 by Allison

Life would have it that whatever crazy that could happen, will happen at just the wrong time. I mean, we all live a life with Murphy stopping in for a visit. Some even have a spare room for Murphy… Calving always brings good ol’ Murphy along for a stop in, but fortunately for us it hasn’t been too frequent!

Really our calving is going great! (but now that I have spoken it out to to the blog world we are doomed, I’m so sure…) These first time mammas are doing terrific. There is always an occasional issue of one heifer trying to claim another but that’s easy enough to handle. And not too many have needed help birthing. Only a handful have had calves big enough that the cowboys have stepped in to pull it. And then all of the babies are doing well to jump up just as soon as they splat on the ground. We really can’t complain.

But there are those couple of times of craziness that keep us from letting our guard down. There was a freezing, moonlit night that particuarily comes to mind. It was a cold night, but I’m sure that it seemed so much colder because as late as it was, I was all so cozy and ready for bed. But every calving season we need one bed time calf pull.

The Rancher had gone out for a meeting just as dinner was ending, promising it would be quick- only like a half hour or hour at the most. I knew better but it wasn’t a big deal because I would just put the babies to bed and have some time to myself. The kids bathed, we cleaned up toys and settled in the chair for some stories before bed time. It didn’t take long for sister to fall asleep and I was left to snuggle with The Rancher’s Sidekick. We had just finished Curious George when The Rancher came home, two hours later! He said a quick hello, grabbed his flash light and headed out again, this time on the 4wheeler. It was his week for the late check, so it wasn’t a big deal. It turned out to be a big deal when he came right back home. A check that quick means something is up and required icky clothes.

My suspicions were confirmed when I heard him on the phone calling Rancher Sr. asking for help to pull a calf. The heifer had started before he had left and it had been long enough that it was time to get the calf out. Of course she would need to be pulled just after I had pulled on my pjs and was minutes from getting The Rancher’s Sidekick to bed. But the ranch girl in me wouldn’t miss a chance to help. So we bundled up, pjs and all, to help dad pull the calf.

Getting the heifer in the maternity pen proved to be an issue of itself. They generally go in pretty well when they can see where they are heading, but getting them in during the night has its own issues to be dealt with. Just imagine a cow in labor running while you chase her having only a spotlight to help you see all while still trying to drive the 4wheeler… fast… When the chase gets that intense, I opt to sit out because experience has told me that The Rancher can get a little crazy. I choose life, thanks… I think that they traipsed across the heifer hill so many times that they hit all for corners, nearly went out the gate, and then finally made it in.

Looking at the heifer we were pretty worried because things did not look normal. There wasn’t a bubble showing or feet poking out. It just looked weird. Lucky for us, everything was going fine but it was just a huge calf. A LUNKER of a calf. After some intense pulling and pushing and groaning (from the cow, not just me) we had a baby. Having babies of my own has made me quite sympathetic and I think that every time I watch those heifers calve I push right along with them. Its tough work!

The happy arrival of this baby heifer wasn’t the end of the night. Yes this story had a happy ending, the momma licking the baby and baby struggling up. But while The Rancher and Rancher Sr. were getting this momma in, they noticed another calf. A hardly licked off teensy baby without a momma. Abandonment is not really conducive to survival. Kinda common sense, but not all heifers have it. We buzzed around what seemed like forever until we found who we figured was the mom. We tried chasing her over to the baby. We trying just letting her go over to it herself. We tried getting her into the maternity pens. And all she would do was run. If it were me, I’m pretty sure I would park myself and not move- going for a run after birth doesn’t sound good to me! But this cow had something else on her mind and just did not want to take care of her calf.

At that point there wasn’t a lot we could do but wait and see. The calf was in a good place for the night so we opted to let them play things out and we would just keep checking in on them. We headed into the house to thaw our frozen cheeks. Come morning the darn cow STILL hadn’t claimed her calf. And with the morning came more attempts to get her in and get the calf on her. At that point we opted to just take the calf and put her on the milk cow.

Now why couldn’t all of this craziness have happened in the sunshiny day rather than the freezing night? I dunno… There must be some sort of quota those cows have to fill of keeping us up in the night. On the plus side, at least we only had to go out once. And we got to finish Curious Gorge before our wild night began!

Bringing in the Babies- The First Look of the 2015 Calf Crop

March 11, 2015 by Allison

There are so many babies at our house! I love it! In fact, I almost don’t know what to do with myself… Actually… sadly, I haven’t run out to frolic with the new babies as much as I would like. But I still get to drive by them every day and see them enjoying the hot sun. Occasionally I’ll get the privilege to run through the cows to check for any newbie (that really means that everyone else is gone and I’m the all they got to keep an eye on things.. HA!).

And when I do go out I grab the kids and the camera and we enjoy a few minutes in the nursery. There are a few fresh babies we have found, some very protective mommas that we have kept our distance and lots of cute squeals from my babies about the new cuties!

Feeding as a Family

February 18, 2015 by Allison

Feeding- the pass time of winter. If there is one thing you can guarantee we will be doing this time of year it is putting the hay out. The tedious redundancy gets to The Rancher. He just feels like it eats up his time, doing the same thing over and over. Hmmm… He wouldn’t make a good house wife (I’m pretty sure I have said that one before). Having to cook and clean up after people over and over… I’d love it if feeding only took two hours of my whole day.

Despite the fact that feed isn’t The Rancher’s favorite ranch chore, it may be one of mine. Lately Rancher Sr. has been gone on the weekends quite a bit while he supports Cowboy E in his last season of wrestling. That means that The Rancher either gets to feed on his own or I jump into help. I LOVE any opportunity to prove to my cowboy that he needs me, so of course I head out to help him. Really its more than that- I love to get out on the ranch, love to drive through the cows to see how they are doing, and I love the photography moments I get. But more than that I love being able to take the kids out with us and work together as a family.

Living and working on the ranch is so much more than a job to us. There is no separation between home life and work. Sometimes that has its problems, but there are way more blessings that come that makes it worth it. The best take home of all this for this ranch momma is the memories we are making every day. I love looking into the tractor seeing The Ranch Princess jabbering to her daddy. I see her getting excited at the cows, the horses, and the few baby calves. I can just hear her saying, at the top of her lungs, “Look daddy! COWS!!” (actually its more like wook daddy, tows… so cute!) While we drive between fields The Rancher’s Sidekick has picked up battling thumbs in an intense game of thumb war. I’m pretty sure that he is cheating more and more each time, so maybe we should stop with that one… He pals around with me on the 4 wheeler as we cut bale strings, begging to drive. Even stomping the mice as they come out of the bales has become a fun memory!

Sure life on the ranch can be redudant. Every year has the same seasons of calves, seasons of changing sprinklers, seasons of moving cows and seasons of working cows. But the best part about life on the ranch is that we get to do it as a family and spice up the redudant moments by making memories. We feed cows and enrich our souls. That’s what we did today!

A Muddy Morning on the Ranch

February 12, 2015 by Allison

Are you tired of hearing about the weather? Everything we do goes back to the weather. Too hot, too cold, too windy … Always something. Not that I’m complaining, it’s just interesting what Mother Nature throws out there for us.

What’s our current weather issue? If you can believe it, it’s the mud. We are having splendidly warm temperatures and beautiful blue skies. It’s so warm the ground isn’t really freezing. Good or bad? I dunno it just means that we sink down, down, down… Deep down. The warm weather in iteself isn’t too bad. But the warm temps means that instead of getting snow we get rain. Its been fabulous to have the rain. We have loved the moisture… it’s the after math of the wonderful rain that is causing the problems. The ground has become so saturated (awesome!) that the rain doesn’t soak right in. The puddles are lasting longer, the mud is soupier, and its actually running down the sides of the road.

Because I am the awesome wife that I am, I help feed cows whenever Rancher Sr. is gone (which has been more lately with Cowboy E’s crazy wrestling schedule). With what has become the typical division of labor, I’m the one that gets to be out in the mud. I open the gates, I cut the strings, I get to hang off the tractor and flipped in the mud. Needless to say, I’m the one that goes home a complete mess. What I do because I rock (just kidding)…

But really its ok, I’m over it. We can handle the mud, the heaping stinking piles of poopy mud and the endless supply of mud following us where ever we go. We can handle it because having the mud means that we do have rain and we do have warm weather. Although its tough to deal with nows, we feel so blessed and watched over. The rain is what we have been praying for for so long and its inspiring to see it finally come. What better way to start the new year than to be in a muddy mess, blessed with rain?!