The Idaho Rancher's Wife

The Ranch From the Wife's Perspective

Live a LIfe of Passion

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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

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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?

Momma-Cow Turned Momma Bear

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Before we moved to the family ranch, we worked our way through college at few different ranches.  Of course nothing compares to working your OWN ground or your OWN cows, but we still had some great times and some great memories on the operations we were a part of.  Once in a while a story comes to mind from those days and we have a little fun reliving those good times.  Every year when calving season comes along, there is one story that always comes up.  One of those remember-whens that you actually don’t want to remember.

Any rancher will tell you that a momma cow can instantly turn momma bear real fast.  A cow that seems perfectly harmless suddenly becomes anything but as soon as you lay hands on her baby.  And really, who can blame her?  I think that sometimes I turn into a momma bear when I have sweet little babies, and they aren’t even getting tagged!

But… Even if I do relate to them, sorta, that doesn’t mean they need to eat my husband for lunch!

Actually this story was before we were married.  Even before we were dating.  I was in the midst of my sophomore year of college and my only sanity was heading up to my brother’s near Salmon, Idaho.  He had my horse, cows, and a population of about 50 and it called to me after long hard days of school and work and SO many people.  Ironically, I didn’t have a car (probably a good thing or I would have spent all of the money I didn’t have driving up there all the time) and I had to convince friends and roommates that we should take a trip up to the ranch to have a little R&R.

It was on one of these weekends that I met The Rancher.  He was doing his internship up there, partially in an effort to avoid the school work and people like I was.  Truth be told, I had no interest in him at first.  I had sworn off boys because they just caused frustration and heart ache.  Cows and horses, on the other hand, only caused frustration. I was determined to take advantage of the little time I had on the ranch and soak in as much fresh air and get as much poop on my boots as possible.  To that end, I got brave, and asked The Rancher if I could ride along with him to check cows on his late night watch.  Being the player he was at the time (haha…) he shyly agreed and I hopped in the truck.

For the most part, it was uneventful.  There was a calf or two born.  We tagged them, gave them shots, wrote it all down and moved on.  It was cold and bumpy but it was fun.  We went out checking for a few nights and it was all the same every night.  Until we found one of those momma-bear momma cows.

This brilliant momma, had decided to have her calf in the snow.  Something not all that conducive to life if you were just born and wet and cold.  We had been checking around the different fields and found this cow exactly where she shouldn’t have been.  Labor does strange things and apparently with her, it made her want to climb through a few fences and birth in the privacy found in the wheel-line stock pile.  Not knowing that she was calving or had just had a calf, we drove over to get her back in where she was supposed to be.

The Rancher hopped the barbed wire fence, figuring it would only take just a minute to get the cow back in her field.  That’s when he saw the baby and plans changed.  Getting the two of them back was totally on the back burner and keeping the calf alive was all that mattered.  The momma was loving on him, but he had yet to get up and out of the snow.  So being the nice guy that he was, The Rancher grabbed a leg and started dragging the calf out of the snow.

It only took a second for that cow to turn momma-bear.  For all she knew, someone was messing with her baby and she wasn’t going to have any of that. 

Now put yourself in my shoes, or rather my seat.  Here I was, sitting in the front seat of an old, beat up ranch truck, riding around with a kid I hardly knew.  He was across a barbed wire fence, through drifts of snow and there was a momma cow about ready to have him for a midnight snack. 

What was a girl to do? 

It was dark and the only light was from the poor headlights (calling the headlights as poor was a compliment!), and he was far enough away I really couldn’t see well enough to know what was happening, just that things were getting a little (or a lot!) intense over there.  But, was he ok and wouldn’t need any help?  Or was he only seconds away from broken bones and smashed insides?  Was there even anything in the truck that I could use to help him?  Should I risk life and limb for this kid?  I could see myself jumping out of the truck, slipping a time or two as I trudged through the snow, getting tangled up in the wire fence as I tried to cross it in the dark and finally make it to him only to find everything ok and totally unworth my efforts.  Or I would do something embarrassing like fall on my face in the snow or rip my pants on the barbed wire…

So I just sat there.

Heroic, I know.  But before I made a move, I wanted to know what that cow had in mind.  It didn’t take long for her to prove that she meant business.  She took off straight for The Rancher, covering the 10 yards between them in seconds.  At this point all I could do was pray.  Pray that he got out of there in time.  Pray that she changed her mind.  Pray that even if she did get him, it wouldn’t be too bad.  Pray that he wouldn’t need mouth to mouth…

It must of worked because just as she was about to him, a snow drift popped up in front of her and she dropped to her knees.  It was the few seconds The Rancher needed to get clear of the calf, sail over the fence, and finally take a breath!

And then, to be terribly honest, I don’t remember much that happened next.  I know we had other cows and fields to check and so I’m sure we just moved on with the night.  The Rancher might have been a little more weary and a little more spry in case any other mommas had a little bit of momma-bear in them.

Reliving that story every year always brings new things to light, like how The Rancher was actually grateful for the chance to look so brave and he was a little sad that I didn’t need to give him a little mouth to mouth…  I, on the other, hand, am just glad that he managed to survive that night so we could have our life together now.  Do any of you have a good momma-bear story?

Its All About a Bunch of Bull

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Bull sale season is coming to a close.  It ends just as fast as it comes.  I kind of have a love hate relationship with Bull Sale season.  I love it when I get a chance to go, but I hate it when I get left behind.  And unfortunately, with all of my other OTHER responsibilities, it happens more than I’d like.  But I usually try to send a child or two if that’s the case (hahaha… hehehe…).  My mother-in-law and I were having a great conversation the other night, talking about all the pros and woes of being a rancher’s wife during Bull Sale Season.  I’m sure that we aren’t the only ones that have noticed the ups and downs that come Bull Sale Season.  In fact, I’m sure that we have it easy compared the wives of the ranchers PUTTING ON the sale.

I’ve actually had the pleasure of both sides of the sale- the selling and the buying.  Growing up I loved the prep work of a sale.  Trimming everything, photographing them all, sprucing up the sale barn, staying home from school on sale day…  Yep, it was a kids dream.  But I’m sure as the wife to a rancher, my mom didn’t think it was quite so awesome.  When I imagine her at that time of the year, one word comes to mind- STRESSED!

Even though I am on the buying side of the bull sale now, I still love it.  There is such an energy at a cattle auction!  The combination of the noisy crowd, the feisty bulls, the auctioneer’s ramble, and the anticipation of when to put in your bid gives the air a little extra zing.  You can’t help but love it, right?!

While the debate of whether Bull Sale Season is an actual thing is still being decided, I have unofficially dubbed March, plus or minus a few weeks, as such.  If you were to come look at our bull-sale-calendar, you might mistake it for a bingo card for as many days as have been scribbled on.  In fact you might even think we were going for Black Out!  And while there may be so many to go to, you can be sure that every one will be different and every one will be good.

The obvious upside to having so many days out to a bull sale is that I get a free pass on fixing lunch for those days.  While we can always expect the sale to be great, we KNOW the meal will be even greater!  In fact, it may be so good and we come home so full, that I might not even have to make dinner (actually that’s never happened, but every time I’m hopeful!).  Is it bad to admit that I have even asked for a recipe or two after watching my family down their lunch?  I figure its a great compliment!

Once you get to the sale and have a chance to look around, you realize that ranchers can actually dress up and they are a pretty darn good looking crowd.  You spend so much time seeing them in shirts torn up from the barbed wire or pants covered in what looks like tractor oil and grease (and maybe even something else you can’t even recognize!), or boots smeared in mud and manure and stinking even worse than they look, that you forget how good looking a rancher can be.  And I think they will take any chance to get out of their grubby clothes too!  Maybe that’s why we hit up so many sales….  Hmmm….

I’ve decided that there is an art to bidding.  You don’t want to jump in too soon, because that just might take the price right out of your budget.  But you don’t want to get in the action too late because then you might be out altogether before you even got in.  Unless you can manage the sneak attack and steal the show with a last second bid.  Then there is the whole other ballgame of bidding online.  That one really makes me nervous… What if the connection goes out all of the sudden or what if it takes a second longer to register the bid or what if …. something else could go wrong, I’m sure! 
Whatever way you bid, you gotta have a game plan!

Usually we go to a sale with a budget in mind and a number of how many bulls we need to buy.  I always figure that once we spend the money or we get all the bulls we need, we will head home.  But the truth of the matter is, a bull sale is a rancher’s social hour.  Believe it or not, ranchers to like to gab!  They all hurry up to buy their bulls and then hustle over to the cookie table to chat away the rest of the sale.

At the heart of every bull sale is their bull magazine. You can ALWAYS know it is Bull Sale Season by the stack of magazines on the desk.  I wonder if the mail man gets tired of filling the mail box up with them?  We’ve seen a few ranches that REALLY want you to come, so they send 2 or 3 magazines to be sure you get a good look at what they’ve got.  It makes things easier for The Rancher when there are more, though.  He can leave one on the kitchen table to read while he eats, one on the night stand to have his final look before he goes to sleep, and one in the bathroom where he does his best thinking.  For some ranches, they send out the whole sale lineup.  They figure then you can come to the sale knowing exactly what you want to go home with.  For other ranches it is more like a ranch-and-family-year book.  They try pulling at your heart strings a bit with those sweet smiling grandbabies.  Then there are the ranches that just send their own type of save-the-date card and figure its gonna save them a lot of work if you just grab the magazine as you walk through the bulls. 

But without those magazines, a rancher would be lost keeping everyone and everything straight.  Besides the fancy names and photos, they are full of the info any rancher needs to get a good buy.  Its those EPDs.  If anyone ever thought that rancher wasn’t an educated guy, he should try his hand at EPDs…  I’m slowing starting to gather what scores are good birth weights, weaning weights, milking and futures.  I have no idea how they figured them, but I believe them.

Well,  Bull Sale Season… its been real, its been fun, and no we are done.  Its just a little more than a month away until the real fun starts and we see just how good of a buy we made!  Until next year… (Maybe the season will be official then and we can have an opening day celebration!)

PS-  I think the life of a bull is rough… Seriously, who else has a job of pleasure that only has to work a few months of the year and then is literally put out to pasture for the rest of the year?!  And to have pasture like we did last spring…  Yum…

Favorite Winter Weather Gear

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If you had to have super-hot weather or super cold weather, which would you choose?  I go for the cold.  My theory (along with probably thousands of others!) is that you can always add layers in the cold but in the hot, eventually, you can’t take anymore off.  Thankfully, I don’t have to choose one of the other and I get to have both the hot and the cold.  And I’m even more thankful I get mostly warm….

I’d say that I can (usually) handle whatever kind of cold comes our way if I have enough of the right kind of layers.  It probably isn’t gear for Antarctic kind of cold, but since I’m not going there any time soon (or ever), I think I’m set.  I’m that kind of girl that so long as I’m not freezing, I can do whatever needs to be done.  So we pull out our cold weather gear and get to work.

So without any further interruptions, distractions, or whatever else, here is, from one rancher’s wife to another (or anyone else that is interested to know), my top 5 things that helped us survive the cold of winter.

1.  Our Muck Boots… These boots are a serious staple at our house, year round.  But they are an absolute necessity during the winter.  Let me give you the highlights of this boot: water tight, insulated, great tread, and NO LACES!  I love these boots for myself but I really love these for the kids because they can put them on and tucked into their snow pants without momma’s help. And they are great for those long weeks when the snow is melting and we are sloshing through the mud.

2.  A good wool hat WITH ear flaps…  When I was a kid, I always laughed about the look of a wool cap.  All I ever saw was Elmer Fudd.  But with my cute Stormy Kromer hat, function has totally met fashion.  And although looking good out on the ranch for those cows that are really into that is top priority, more importantly, I now have an awesome hat for a super warm noggin to make it through the cold winter days!  The Rancher isn’t so concerned about looking good as he heads out (because looking good comes so naturally to him) but he totally agrees with me that a wool cap is the way to make it through the winter. His only stipulation is that it has to have some good long flaps to pull down over his ears.

3.  Our Carhartt… everything!  We wear so much Carhartt because it is good stuff.  We have coats, jackets, and even wool socks!  They definitely win first place.  A blue ribbon. A gold star.  But seriously, they do an amazing job for keeping the cold at bay.  Then they last all season long, and the next and the next!  I have been wearing some of my favorite winter weather pieces for years! (Not that I have had the same pair of socks on for years, just that I have been using them for years.  You know what I mean, right?)  I’m all about a product that can do its job well, not once, but for a good, long haul.

4.  Good ol’ long johns…  The old time cowboys had it right when they wore their long underwear all winter long. They are like a snugly winter coat. It’s that all our critters need, so it sounds like a good plan to me!  I don’t have a favorite brand.  I’m simple like that.  They just need to fit in my jeans and keep me moving!

5.  Insulated leather gloves… Every year we pull out the insulated leather gloves I am always amazed at how well they can keep ya warm.  When winter hits I’m ready to put on the heavy-duty, snowman building, all-day-sledding, hill-climbing-snowmobiling, sort of gloves.  Then The Rancher grabs his trusty insulated leather gloves and I know we are already good to go.  Now if only they make them for teeny tiny hands…

There are lots of other winter favorites like our wild rags, vests, snow pants and many more cluttering my mudroom.  But when it really comes down to it, this handful was our everyday-go-to winter gear and so long as we had them, we were good to go.  What helped you make it through the winter? Anything that isn’t found in the mud room?   

Learning Problem Solving One Stuck 4Wheeler at a Time

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The Rancher’s Sidekick loves to drive the 4 wheeler.  All the time.  Typical boy, right?  I tell him we need to go check heifers, he starts the 4wheeler.  I tell him we need to help dad move cows, he volunteers to drive. We say lets of load up in the feed truck and he asks to drive the 100 feet from the house to the shed where it is parked.

To be totally honest, its our own fault.  Mostly The Rancher’s, but I am the supporting wife so I will take my share of the blame.  For quite a while, we had been letting the boy drive out in the field while we were moving pipe or “help” us drive around the ranch.  But it didn’t take too long for him to start asking to drive on his own.

Is anyone surprised?

Nope.

This kid has known how to start the 4wheeler since he was 3 so I guess it was inevitable, right?  I thought we had done pretty good to distract him from wanting to go hot-rodding on his own, but once he realized he could actually reach the handle bars and turn the thing, he decided it was time to be a man and drive solo.

So we let him.

There were two important rules.  First, he had to stay in low gear and second, he could just drive around the ranch yard where we could keep an eye on him.  That was good enough for him! Being a big 4wheeler driver was all he could have dreamed it to be.

That was last summer.  Fast forward to now with a few more months of experience and new adventures in driving through the snow and mud and puddles and he decided to go at it again.

It has been a beautiful few weeks lately and what boy could resist cruising around.  One afternoon, he decided to buzz around the ranch while we finished tagging and doing chores.  No big deal. Until all the sudden the bruummm-brruummm of the 4wheeler was silent.  I looked around and there was the 4wheeler, driverless and stuck in the snow.  Seconds later, The Rancher’s Sidekick came waltzing back to his chariot carrying a shovel.  After finishing the barn chores we walked out to him to see just what was going on.

When we reached him, he started a very detailed and animated story of how he was sure he could have made it through the snow and that it was all ok until, bam! it wasn’t (I’m not sure what the bam! was other than just his dramatics with the story!).  So he decided to go and get a shovel to dig himself out with.

Proud momma moment RIGHT HERE!  I was so pumped that instead of just leaving the 4wheeler for someone to find or even coming to find us to tell us it was stuck, he knew it was his responsibility to get it out.  So he figured out a solution and went to it.  I almost thought I could hear the heavenly choir as I had the parenting-for-the-win moment but not quite.  We left him to dig himself out as we headed back up the heifer hill to do a last check before heading in.

Our last check wasn’t a very fast check (heifer caught on her back as she finished pushing her baby out which was promptly mothered by some other cow… The struggle is real, friends…).  By the time we made it back to The Rancher’s Sidekick the 4wheeler was still stuck but there was a lot more story to tell.

After shoveling for quite a while, he was looking for a better way to get rid of the snow.  To his credit, he really did bury the thing so it was going to take a lot of work to dig it out.  So his Plan B was to use the hose to “wash away the snow” (I’m assuming he meant melt it but whatever…).  But the hydrant by the shop was frozen so that didn’t work.  Plan C was to start a fire to melt away the now.

Did you just get nervous?  When he mentioned fire, my eyebrows shot straight up and my eyes doubled in size.  But I calmly asked how he planned to do that.  “Oh, I just started that heater thing (the diesel heater) in the shop and tried to start that square bale string (baling twine rather than the net wrap we use on the round bales) on fire.  But it didn’t ever really burn, it just melted.  But it gets HOT!  I burned my finger!  I wanted to use the torch but I didn’t know how to do that…”

Wow… At this point it was my only thought.  I was super impressed at his problem solving and critical thinking.  School for the win!  But I was also terrified at his independence and his own confidence in his abilities.  Don’t get me wrong, I was still super proud of how he was figuring it all out, but maybe he was doing just a little too good for a six year old.  Like, maybe he needs a little less shop time with his dad.  Hallelujah that he couldn’t figure out the torch for a fire!

Ultimately he had decided to go back to the shovel because that was the only way he had been making any progress before.  Lucky for him, his dad had a better idea to get him out- the tractor.  That little boy grinned ear to ear as The Rancher chained the 4wheeler to the tractor and gave him instructions on driving it out.

I still laugh every time I think about this story.  I hope its recorded in heaven for me to watch on repeat when I get there because it is a winner!  That story right there, is a clear illustration of my son.  He loves the ranch and wants to do everything his dad does.  Maybe there are some things he still needs to learn to do and not to do, but he isn’t going to let anything slow him down.  If there is a problem, he is determined to find a solution.  It might take several plans and a little burn on the finger, but he will get to it!

And I couldn’t be anymore proud of that.

That is what the ranch life is really about.  Yes we raise cattle, but more importantly we raise kids and the ranch is a tool to teach them all of the lessons they need to make it through this life.

Battling the Winter Blues One Blessing at a Time

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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?

Monday Musing and Frosty Pictures

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Mondays are for musings.  You look back over the weekend or figure out what’s happening ahead in the week.  You plan. You schedule.  Sometimes you give yourself a pep talk.  But it all happens on Mondays. 

So here I am musing.

We went to Montana to visit my parents over the weekend.  It was refreshing and exhausting all at the same time.  My mom works for a small k-8 school and they had their ski day, so we trekked up there late Thursday night to join in the fun.  We had the whole spectrum of weather that day- icy rain, sleet, massive flakes, blue sky and fog.  There was a point we decided to bite the bullet and invest in some goggles for everyone and that was the turning point of the day.  Its amazing how much more fun skiing is when you can see and your eyes aren’t being pelted with ice!   

There were high school boys and girls basketball games going on while we were there so we spent Saturday night cheering on the Drummond Trojans.  It may have been the third game I have gone to watch since graduating 11 years ago.  It was like I never left but at the same time I felt so old.  There were kids playing ball that weren’t even in kindergarten when I was in high school!.  I only knew 2 of the kids on the boys team.  Yikes… I am getting old…  But at the same time, I still call my kindergarten teacher Mrs. Verlanic and my science teacher Mr. Schindler so I guess I don’t feel all too old.

Remember how I married a cowboy that doesn’t talk?  That made for a super long drive home.  It really was the fastest we have ever made the drive (we didn’t speed, just didn’t have to stop 12 times for the kids…) but it seemed so long.  He seriously said only a handful of words.  Anybody want to come hang out with me so I can have someone to talk to?

And to make the drive last even longer, my kids are to the stage that they ask the dreaded question- “are we there yet?”/”how long until we are there?!”/”how much longer?”  And I think that they eat more when we are in the car than the entire week before.  I can never pack enough treats.  I’m afraid its only going to get worse when my son becomes a teenager… Yikes!  

Its Valentines this week… Yay… Actually, for the first time in a long time I will actually get to see my valentine.  Really I should only say I SHOULD get to see my valentine.  We might sneak in a kiss or two between taking care of the kids and cows, but who needs February 14 to say I love you when there are 364 other days, right? I’m sure a batch of his favorite cookie dough and an early bed time will make for just the V-day he wants!   

So I posted last week about how we were buried to our eye balls with snow.  And then just like that the snow shut off and the sun came out and everything has started to melt!  Its not gone or even close to being gone by ANY means, but there is significantly less.  Its like Mother Nature is trying to discredit me.  I say its crazy and snowy and she brings out the sunshine.  If I said it was a beautiful-blue-sky-kinda-day, I’m sure we would get socked in with the fog for days…  So I’m going to post the last of my snowy pictures and hope that the temps stay up.  The heifer hill is slowly drying out to calve on so its helping The Rancher, right?

Speaking of calving… We had 1.  Soon enough we will be swamped with babies and I am so excited! Last year I was too busy swooning over my own new babe that I didn’t soak in the babies outside as much so this year I will have to make up for it.  But the fact that we are calving does mean my baby is almost a year old and I just can’t believe it.  I’m crying inside.  It just happens too fast!

Have I mused enough for you?  There is still plenty going on up here, but I will stop for your sakes.  I’ll just muse to myself…

Happy Monday!
The RW 

Branding Chased out by the Thunderstorm

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Dare I share branding pictures? Soon enough I will be filled up with branding photos again, so I was half tempted to not but since they were already edited and ready to put up I decided to go for it.  I’m not one to waste effort after all….
….
Click “Read More” for the rest of the story!

When I look at these photos I have lots of memories of this day. Like how…

1.  The Rancher’s Sidekick begged us not to brand this day because he still had to go to school.  He didn’t want to skip school that day to help, but he didn’t want to miss branding so his solution was to just ask us to brand a different day!

2. I took my new car out on the range for the first time.  With my growing family and so many bags and car seats, my truck just didn’t cut it… Such a sad day…

3. The cowboys had a unique problem- there was grass.  And apparently roping in the grass makes for rough catching because your rope gets caught on the grass long before it scoops up a pair of heels.

There were a few other thoughts that came to mind but the big memory was the thunder storm that followed.  I bet nobody else remembers that the rain and thunder chased us out, but I do.  I bet they wouldn’t even say that it chased us out.  But I remember.

I remember those blasted rain clouds rolling in.  They are the ones that pretty much spell thunderstorm and always head right for us.  And that is when I run for cover, usually for my bed covers and under the pillows.

You see, friends… I don’t like thunderstorms.  More specifically I don’t like thunder.  I don’t like the spine tingling feeling you get when your can feel the thunder has much as you can hear it. The lightning I can handle so long as it is far, FAR away (which usually means I can’t hear the thunder… which is probably why its ok..).  The Rancher laughs at me and how I freak out when a storm rolls in but it just happens.

I’m scared of thunderstorms.

I know cowgirls are supposed to be tough and resourceful and brave and can handle anything.  And for the most part I would say that I am tough and brave, until it comes to the storms.  Once upon a time there was a big storm as I was driving the few miles to get home. And as I pulled up to my parents driveway, my gutless bald-tire little car decided it couldn’t make it up the super slick driveway.  I figured that since there was no way my car was going to make it up to the house anytime soon, I probably had two option: either sit in the car and wait for the rain to stop or just suck it up and run through the rain to the house.  Not wanting to sit in the car and die a young death from the scary rain and thunder, I decided to run for it.  I bravely slipped off my flip flops (I just knew that running in my flips flops would end badly), opened the door and jumped put.  And just as I closed the door, there was a flash and a boom-crash and I ran the fastest 40 yd dash up to the house.  It probably wasn’t that far to run but it felt like it…

And that, my friends, is why I hate thunderstorms…

I wish I liked them.  In all reality I know I am safe and the likelihood of getting zapped is pretty slim. And they are the coolest light show ever, but instead of enjoying them my heart just beats fast and I close my eyes.

Don’t think any less of me because I’m not the bravest cowgirl all the time…  Just applaud my honesty and enjoy a few pictures of branding that stormy day!     

Confessions About Truckers…

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I have a terrible confession to make…. Growing up I had a very narrow minded, very terrible perception of truck drivers. There… I said it. And the sad thing is that it was an opinion I formed in the first grade that took me YEARS to change.

I very vividly remember my little 6 year old self sitting around a table with a few of the boys of my class hearing them say that all they wanted to do when they grew up was to drive semi.  Now, if you please, imagine a very cute somewhat bossy, sassy, darling and very opinionated little girl that was sure that the only dreams worth living were her dreams… that’s me.  In my mind, the only guys that drove semis were fat, stinky single fathers that drank and smoked and were on the road so much that their own mothers had to take care of their kids.  It was like they couldn’t get a job at home and the only thing they could do was drive.  I took them for failures and therefore anyone that drove semi or wanted to, were failures at life too.  Pretty terrible right?  At the time I didn’t think so and so you can guess that when I heard these boys I was absolutely baffled why someone would want to choose a life as a failure, destined to be stinky, lonely, and fat from sitting on their rear all day.  

Great opinion, huh?  Remember I was 6!

Fast forward 14 years and all the sudden there I was marrying a man that loved semis just like those boys, and although he didn’t want to be a truck driver all his life, he did love the opportunity to haul cows in the semi.  Eek! I kinda couldn’t believe it and I really didn’t ever want to admit that my husband did such a thing.  But after riding with him those first few years, my opinion drastically changed.

Having an up close view of just what it is like in driver’s seat helped me realize that first, driving semi isn’t easy and isn’t for the faint of heart.  That moment when you have to pull your rig across the highway, stopping all lanes of traffic to get turned around to get backed into that tight spot to load up just about makes me pee my pants… And I’m just the passenger! And speaking of backing up, can you imagine backing up a 50 foot trailer a quarter mile when you struggle to back up your car 10 feet?!  I seriously thought truck driving didn’t require a brain but then my mind as BLOWN watching The Rancher drive. 

Being the wife of an occasional trucker help to debunk the all-truckers-are-fat-stinky-losers myth pretty fast.  I mean, with a wife as awesome as me, how can you NOT be rocking life?! Haha… But seriously, The Rancher’s character of being an honest, hardworking, giving, God-fearing family man easily proves that truckers are great men too.

Do you hate me? I seriously had a terrible perception and really discredited a lot of good men (and women!) with my shallow stereotype.  But now every time Smokey and The Bandit comes on, I have a sense of pride for my trucking husband. So now I am here to tell you truckers are people too! And good people!  Sure there are a few that give them all a bad name, but that’s in every job and industry we see.  They are good, smart, skilled people that just have their own dreams. 

PS On a similar note, The Rancher says to give a little love and share the road with those truckers.  Just remember, they are bigger than you!

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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