The Idaho Rancher's Wife

The Ranch From the Wife's Perspective

A Letter to a Teacher

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Dear Teacher of My Ranch Kid, Four Years Later,

Well, here we are again.  Four years ago, I wrote you a letter apologizing for my ranch kid. I warned you that after a summer spent on the ranch instead of buried in books, there was a chance they might walk into your classroom a little behind.  

I owe you an update.

The ranch kid has grown up a little.  The ranch has continued its very unconventional educational program.  We still don’t do worksheets.  We still don’t have a summer reading schedule.  And I can confidently say that nobody has ever handed my ranch kid a packet and said, “Complete problems 1–25 before lunch.”  

Instead, the ranch has continued teaching lessons that don’t come with a grade.  For starters, the ranch has provided an advanced course in responsibility.  Cattle don’t care if you’re tired. Calves don’t care if you have plans. A broken fence doesn’t care if it’s 100 degrees outside. Hay certainly doesn’t care that you were up late the night before.

Apparently, this is one of the ranch’s favorite lessons because it always seems to be taught when no one really wants to learn it.  If we were to give a grade, we might not have quite earned an A+ yet, but thankfully we can be sure we are always enrolled in that class.

The ranch kid has learned that hard work doesn’t always look impressive as much as they try to glam it up.  Let’s be honest, as some of the youngest ranchers on the job, they get the grunt work.  And that’s on purpose.  The only way for them to truly appreciate the air conditioned tractor is by racking up countless hours in the hot sun from the seat of an open cab tractor.  Or jobs like moving hand lines, picking rock, and pulling rye.  It’s character building, at least that is what grandpa used to say.

The ranch has also provided a practical education in problem-solving.  I can’t say that all of the problems were of natural happenstance.  Yes, cows get out of their own accord, and equipment has their own break downs.  But getting stuck in the mud because you were sure the four wheeler would make it through 8 inches of mud could definitely be avoided. 

Out here, there isn’t always an answer key and dad is rarely available to come to the rescue, if you even want him to know there is a problem.  We may laugh at the amount of used barbed wire, baling twine and duct tape is used to fix a problem but this is what we call critical thinking.

This summer has also offered an extensive course in agriculture economics.  The ranch kid has learned that money doesn’t magically appear because you need something.  Or especially, when they just want something.  The bumpy field can’t just be dug up, smoothed out, and replanted.  Renting a rock picker is much more expensive than the free labor of ranch youth.  Buying a new swather really would be nicer than fixing up the old one but just isn’t in this year’s budget.  And maybe not in the next five.

When in doubt, fix it up and make do.  I return to the bailing twine and duct tape.

We had a more advanced course in consequences now that we are taking on more responsibility.  These lessons were not the theoretical kind.  More like the immediate kind.  Leave a gate open on the coop?  You get to gather the wild chickens.  You stay up late playing?  The work still starts with the sun and now you get to do it tired.  Haphazardly drop your phone in the storage tank?  You get to go swimming for it.

The ranch has a… lasting way of making cause and effect remarkably clear.

One of the most needed lessons on the ranch has been the ongoing course in patience.  We need to retake this class.  Breakdowns, breachy cows, and consistently overdrawn timelines have provided plenty of class time.  Most test days proved that patience is short and had an inverse effect on language.  In essence, less patience resulted in more curse words and yelling.  I’m going to turn to you for lessons on more appropriate synonyms, better grammar, and complete sentences.  I don’t know if that will help our course in patience but at least communications might improve.

There has been a fair amount of science, too.  Not always the kind with goggles and carefully controlled experiments.  Usually ones like- the purpose of locking a trailer to the hitch is to keep it secured and avoid bouncing off as we drive across the bumpy range.  Another has been to painstakingly following the path of electricity to the broken taillights to find why in tarnation they aren’t working.  Getting older has also meant a more advanced class of reproduction.  Let’s just say we solidly know where babies of ALL species come from and could even explain IVF.  

Perhaps the most valuable lesson the ranch continues to teach is confidence.  Not the loud, “I know everything” kind.  Yes, we still have some of that.  But I’m talking about the quiet kind.  The kind that comes from being trusted with something important and realizing you can handle it.  A ranch kid who once followed someone else around eventually becomes the person a younger sibling now follows.  The kid who once needed every step explained eventually gets handed a job and told, “You know what to do.”

That lesson doesn’t fit neatly on a report card.  Neither does learning to show up when you’re tired.  Or to finish what you started.  Or to take responsibility when something goes wrong.  Or to keep working when the job isn’t fun anymore.  Or to recognize that the work you do today may not pay off for months.  Those are lessons the ranch teaches exceptionally well.

So, Teacher, when my ranch kid walks into your classroom in a few short days, I may not need to apologize quite as much as I did four years ago.  The summer reading list may still have been more of a suggestion than a schedule and the handwriting may still leave something to be desired.  And there is a very good chance the backpack contains something that should have been thrown away several months ago.

But my ranch kid learned.  Teacher, I’ll let you handle the books, the essays, the equations and everything else that happens inside those four walls.  We’ll keep working on the things that happen outside them.  Between the two of us, I think we might just have this education thing figured out.

Sincerely,

A Still-Proud Ranch Mom

An All-Hands-on-Deck Kind of Day

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When a broken water system, wandering cattle, and a handful of unexpected problems all hit on the same day, everyone on our ranch had to pitch in—even the youngest hands. It was a reminder that on a ranch, there’s always work for someone willing to learn, and today’s little helper often becomes tomorrow’s dependable hand.


He may not be old enough to fix a pump or haul a trailer, but he already knows what it means to lend a hand.

Some days, some jobs, and some outfits only need a cowboy or two to keep things running. The tractor has only one seat, and the pickup has only one driver. A job in the shop requires the master mechanic instead of a budding apprentice. You get the picture.

Then there are days that demand help from even the littlest and least experienced ranchers. All they require is a willing heart and able hands to be hired on for the job. Those sorts of days remind us of an important lesson about ranching: if you’re willing to help, there’s always a job for you.

Not long ago we had one of those days on our operation, an all-hands-on-deck sort of day.

It began innocently enough with one man heading out for a routine water check, another into town for some off-ranch business, and another climbing into the swather to knock down some hay. I joined The Rancher with a couple of kids, loaded up the pickup, and headed to the meadows to drop off a few pairs and do a quick ride through.

Our divide-and-conquer approach had the handful of us steadily checking things off the list. It didn’t take long, however, for the day to start adding its own to-dos in the most urgent ways. The first wasn’t unexpected, just moved up on the schedule.

The grazing association had purchased several heavy-duty custom panels that we’d hauled as far as the ranch. They still needed to be delivered to the proper allotments, and another rancher had volunteered to unload them. Since he was already hauling his own tractor, we needed a second driver to haul the panels. We hadn’t made it back from our cattle check, so my husband called our teenage son to step in.

It wasn’t much longer after he coordinated that move that his phone rang again. As if fate knew no one was home, a neighbor down the road called to say he’d watched a herd of cattle slowly make their way through a lazy stretch of barbed wire fence and into our roping heifers. As soon as he hung up, The Rancher called the range rider to let him know something was going on with the neighbor’s cattle and they needed checked on, stat.

No sooner had that call ended than the phone rang again. This time someone reported that the pump on the BLM range had gone out, and more hands were needed to troubleshoot the problem and haul water to the nearly empty troughs.

That call had barely ended when the range rider called back. He’d found the reason for the breachy cows.  Their own trough had gone dry, sending them tiptoeing into our pasture in search of a drink on a hot summer day.

All of a sudden, we had more problems than people, and everyone was going to have to step in somehow.

Our son had a few minutes before he needed to leave with the panels, so he jumped on a four-wheeler to straighten out as many cattle as he could. One of the ranchers who was home headed straight for the BLM range to get the water system back up and running.

Not long after we arrived home, The Rancher climbed into the water truck to keep the troughs full until the pump could be repaired. That left me and the kiddos to take care of the wandering cows. Without a solid fence, we knew they’d hop right back over unless we helped them find another source of water. So we loaded up on bikes and pushed them through the brush to the nearest working trough.

We also had a second, smaller herd along the opposite fence that we figured had better be moved before the two groups mixed together. We weren’t convinced either herd would stay put, no matter how good the fence looked.

As we finished the job, I realized that when it comes down to it, everyone on our little operation can help get the work done. Young and old, experienced or not, there’s work that fits every set of hands.

My little cowboys and cowgirl weren’t fixing pumps or hauling custom panels. They weren’t stringing fence or troubleshooting tractors. But they could ride a bike through the brush, encourage a stubborn cow in the right direction, open and shut gates, and be another set of eyes when we needed them most. Their contribution wasn’t measured by its size but by the simple fact that it helped.

That’s one of my favorite things about ranching. There is always a place for someone who wants to learn. You don’t have to know everything before you’re invited to be part of the work. You start with the jobs you can do, and before long those small responsibilities become bigger ones. The little kid pushing cows on a four-wheeler becomes the teenager trusted to haul a trailer. The teenager becomes the one solving water problems, fixing equipment, or teaching the next generation.

A ranch has a way of growing people right alongside the cattle.

It reminds us that the value of a person isn’t determined by how much they can do, but by their willingness to do what they can. Every capable rancher was once the kid carrying tools, shutting gates, or trailing behind, hoping someone would trust them with a little more responsibility.

The work has a way of making room for those willing to show up.

Maybe that’s a lesson that reaches far beyond the ranch. Whether it’s on a family operation, in a community, at church, or in a workplace, there will always be moments when there are more jobs than people. In those moments, experience certainly matters, but so does willingness. A willing heart and able hands have a remarkable way of becoming exactly what is needed.

On the ranch, we don’t wait until someone knows everything before we let them belong. We hand them a job they can do, work alongside them, and trust that today’s helper is tomorrow’s hand.

Why Ranch Laundry Is Never Just Laundry

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Twisted socks and jeans full of sand and hay dust smelling like manure, sweat and faint hint of something I can’t name. That’s what laundry looks like for a growing ranch family.

There are a number of reasons I’m grateful to be born in this century, but near the top of the list is this: I don’t have to do laundry in a creek with a washboard and a bar of soap.

Because if that were the case, I’m fairly certain I’d own about two dresses and call it good.

Every laundry day, I thank the man who invented my fancy electric washing machine with all its bells and whistles that make our far-from-simple mound of laundry doable. I have no proof of this, but I’m convinced ranch life laundry is a step above your ordinary washing.

Ranch moms know the only way to keep a wardrobe with a few unstained shirts is to have “work-play clothes” and “nice clothes.” I sometimes wonder if that strategy actually adds to the work. On a typical day, a busy little boy manages to get marker, lunch, and glue all over his nice clothes, only to come home and change into work-play clothes that collect grease, manure, and mud. And then, being so responsible, both outfits find their way into the dirty clothes pile.

But somehow, we still manage to save a few shirts for town days.

It’s a little ironic that I’m the one requesting so many wardrobe changes. We dreaded the toddler days when outfits were changed hourly, but now I welcome it if it means preserving the few school shirts we have left. If we catch things soon enough, we might even get a second day out of one.

There might not be any hard and fast rules for ranch laundry, but there are definitely a few necessities. It must have been a ranch wife who convinced the laundry detergent gods to create things like Febreze and OxiClean, because we need far more than just soap to deal with the stains and smells that come with ranch work. Add in that little spray bottle of pre-wash magic, and a few items might actually survive.

There isn’t much difference in the level of dirtiness between big ranchers and little ranchers. The real difference shows up in the presentation. If there is any possible way for a shirt, pair of pants, or sock to be twisted inside out, it will be. Shirts and hoodies are manageable enough, but socks are a different story entirely.

They’re usually sweaty, stinky, and crusty, with a high likelihood of an ambush of sand, hay, and tiny rocks spilling out as you try to turn them right side out.

The seasons don’t bring less laundry, no matter how much I hope they might. Winter means layers—t-shirts and hoodies stacked on top of each other. You’d think at least one of those layers would stay clean, but somehow they all end up just as dirty. Summer brings long-sleeve, collared shirts to keep the sun off, which take a little more effort to keep presentable. I’ve never understood why every shirt can’t be wrinkle-free. There isn’t a rancher alive with time to iron that many shirts, and if the cows don’t mind the wrinkles, neither do I.

It’s really only the town shirts that get pressed.

Just as much as I wish for a season with less laundry, I always hope for a season with less mess. But it never quite works out that way. Winter trades mud for grease from shop work. Calving season brings its own kind of mess that doesn’t need much describing. And even out on the range, the dust has a way of working itself into everything.

Mom’s ranch clothes are a bit of a wild card. If I’m out on the ranch all day, I’ll put on my work jeans like anyone else. But if I’m going back and forth between the house and outside, I usually stick to my comfy leggings—despite my husband’s reminders that they aren’t proper work apparel. I like to point out that coveralls were made for exactly this purpose, but even I have my limits. So on the hotter days, I go rogue and risk the leggings.

It may not be practical, but it’s comfortable—and it still ends up as another load of laundry.

Checking pockets is a given for any mom, but on a ranch it feels especially important if I want to save my washer, my laundry, and my sanity. From nuts, bolts, and fencing clips to tagging markers and paint sticks, there are plenty of things that should never make it into a washing machine.

And then there are the treasures—little collections gathered throughout the day and tucked away for safekeeping. If I miss those, there’s a good chance they’ll disappear into the washing machine’s black hole, never to be seen again. I try to avoid that kind of heartbreak when I can.

Despite the dirty laundry roulette we play every wash day, I wouldn’t trade this ranch life for easier laundry. Every stain, every worn-out shirt, every load that takes a little extra work comes from days spent working, learning, and living out here together.

Turns out a pile of dirty laundry isn’t just a chore. It’s proof of a life being lived.

But I’ll still take the fancy electric washer over the washboard.

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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