Locomotive - The Idaho Rancher's Wife

Weekend Adventures in Locomotive: Part I

March 24, 2018 by Allison

** We had a fun filled weekend with loads of stories. In order to share them all, I’m going to post them in a three part series. Keep an eye on the blog to get the whole story!

When you can’t take vacation because work on the ranch is true crazy, you find a way to take a working vacation. For us, something like that looks like a weekend in Locomotive to camp out while keeping an eye on the cows. Work on vacation, sounds like win to me!

In past years, the only time that we have camped out with the cows in Locomotive is when they needed extra looking out for. Those times are rare and only happen when it’s so cold and so snowy that we have gathered in the herd to feed and watch the calves through the cold nights. I always felt bad admitting it, but I loved it when we would head down and camp with the cows. I didn’t want to hope or wish that we have some time down there camping because that would be wishing for the cold, lots of snow or poor calving and I couldn’t wish that upon The Rancher.

But this year, somehow, someone saw the light and realized that things do have to be so bad down there for us to go camp out for a few days!

Our story of weekend adventures camping in Locomotive starts on the trip down. Adventure lies not only in the destination but in the journey too, right? In this instance, it’s a resounding YES. Let me set the scene so you can fully grasp the exhausting-ness of this night.

We had already spent the day at the Carter Cattle Co. bull sale in Pinegree, Idaho. And while we hurried to eat some lunch, buy our bulls, settle up, load up, do a little PR with the different ranchers and bankers and such, it was a long day. I had intended to have done some packing and prep work in the camp trailer the day before but that just hadn’t worked out. That meant as soon as we got home we had to scurry to get everything ready. When I say we, I mean me, of course, because The Rancher had chores to do outside as well as to hook up to the camp trailer, load up the gator, and hook that to the camp trailer.

Can you imagine the long list of things that we needed to check off before we could head out? And of course we had to get it all done NOW because we had to stop to get propane at the truck stop before it was too late.

Now, let’s add to the frenzy of getting ready, the kids hyped up for the adventurous weekend ahead of them. They were so pumped and jazzed about the whole thing that they were just bouncing off the walls and begging to take the most random things in the camp trailer (all while forgetting the important things, like underwear and socks…). There came a point they were just too much and I kicked them out to go find their bikes (… still trying to decide if that was a good mom moment or not). To top off the chaos and tension you could feel from all the excitement and stress, the baby was running a fever and all he wanted was to be held. To be more specific, he just wanted his dad to hold him.

I’ll admit that is was stressful getting ready to go- packing bags for everyone, packing food, getting enough bedding, grabbing towels and cooking supplies… and, of course, I forgot stuff. I do every time I go somewhere, I swear… (Ask my sister-in-law, she is always shipping me something after I have been to visit their family!)

But we got on the road.

Finally.

The sun was setting and it was dark before we even got 10 miles down the road. Not biggie, we thought. Sure it will make things a little more challenging, but we could handle it. We made it to the truck stop, figuring it would only take a few minutes to top the tanks off and get back on the road. But we were wrong… so wrong… It seemed everything we tried to do went wrong or took more time that it should have.

As we pull to the back of the station we saw a truck and flatbed trailer parked in the middle of the truck parking lot. There was enough room to move around him, but not enough room to move around easily. Of course he was right in front of the propane tanks, making it especially hard for us to get where we needed to go. With his mad truck driver skills, The Rancher managed to sneak us in to get filled up. After three trips into the store to get everything right, we were filled up and ready to go, except for the truck in the way. He had bottlenecked everything and there was a line of semi’s we had to wait to get where they needed to be before we were finally able to make our wait out.

So now we are stressed, sick, excited, and anxious, with lingering feelings of frustration but on our way.

Phew.

Then I realized I forgot the hot dogs and the roasting sticks. Curses. (I had plenty of food packed so we didn’t starve, we just didn’t get to have our roast out… bummer)

The trip was uneventful as we pulled our haul down the squishy, gravel road to our corrals in Locomotive. We were getting close to our turn off and I was thinking that things were all settling down when something on the road looked off. It was just after the cattle guard and I couldn’t quite tell what it was until eyes started shining back at us.

Cows! Black cows, all over the road, lingering and meandering SLOWLY in the middle of the dark night. The Rancher hit the brakes and I silently prayed that the bump wouldn’t be too bad and that we could keep going. Ya, I didn’t even think we would manage to avoid smashing into a cow. You can imagine how a truck towing a 30(ish) foot camp trailer and another 16 foot trailer with a gator on it would be hard to stop or maneuver through cows dotted across the road. By the grace of heaven, a loud horn and good trailer brakes, The Rancher got us stopped and the cows scooted off the road.

Curses! Heart racing, breath holding curses! And then, phew… We refer to those moments as butt-pucker-moments, if ya know what I mean!

I’m starting to think that getting to where we are going can’t happen soon enough but I know that in reality, the hard part was still ahead of us. We had no idea what the road to the corrals was like. It could be fine, but it could also be laden with slimy, greasy, squishy mud and that we would have to park it for the night somewhere else.

We turned off the road and I held my breath to find that the road was surprisingly ok. Not great, but not enough to stop us from going on. We made it through the first gates just fine and continued down the road until the road started to look more like one huge puddle than a road. The Rancher figured that driving along side of the road instead of on it would be a better option at this point and we began off- roading. It really was a good idea because there weren’t any puddles or greasy mud and the grass helped us have a little traction as we made our way across the range.

Our progress was slow but steady and then suddenly The Rancher said, “Uh, oh…” and gunned it. It didn’t take a genius to recognize that we were about to be in trouble. And just like that we sank. When I say sank, I mean sank clear up to our axles. We sank so deep we didn’t even attempt to get out. We sank so deep that when The Rancher stepped down out of the truck there was no down part of it.

Curses… again …

I started convincing myself that we would be fine to camp out here for the night and just deal with it in the morning. I was figuring that my attitude was a good-take-things-as-they-were type of attitude but in retrospect, I was probably just ready to be done with the night. The Rancher, the great problem solver that he is, jumped into action and made up a plan.

To our benefit, and ultimate salvation, the backhoe was at the corrals and we had the gator hooked on to the back of the camp trailer. So The Rancher could jump in the gator, drive up to the back hoe, drive it back down, and finally pull us out of the mud hole that swallowed us. With this being the only real plan we had, he took off down the road leaving the kids and I in the truck waiting. Now, being the God-fearing, religious woman that I am, I didn’t let this moment escape without gathering my babies close and offering up a prayer that everything would work out to our benefit.

It seemed to take FOR-EV-ER (channel your inner “Sandlot” as you read that) but soon enough we saw the lights of the back hoe approach. Yahoo! He made it.

But now, to get pulled out.

I was dreading this moment because I would either have to be in the back hoe yanking on the trailer to pull it out or in the truck feathering it just right as I attempted to steer the truck out of the mud and avoid getting deeper in trouble all while in the dark when I couldn’t see anything except from the lights of the back hoe.

Yikes…

My lot landed in the truck (which was honestly my preference of the two undesirable choices…). My only instructions were to wait until I could feel the jerk of the back hoe and then give it just enough to drive out, without spinning my wheels deeper in the mud. I put the truck in reverse and waited for the jerk. As it came, I began to let off the clutch and slowly push on the gas. To my immediate relief and total surprise, we were moving! I had figured there would be some finagling to get out, but before we knew it, we were out!

The Rancher looked at me and said, “It should NOT have been that easy!” We will take it! And by it, I totally mean the blessings of answered prayers. We loaded back into the truck and made our way to the corrals, following the tracks the back hoe had left as The Rancher made his way back to us earlier.

The rest of the night seemed ordinary after so many other high emotional moments. We made it to the corrals, got cozy in the camp trailer, and managed to warm up some dinner (leftovers never tasted so good!). The beds seemed a little cozier and sleep came quickly after such an eventful night and we were ready for an exciting day come morning.

Running Cows on the Range for You

January 31, 2018 by Allison

Our ranch couldn’t operate without running on public lands. We would love to run our cows totally on private land but that just isn’t doable right now. Don’t get me wrong, the range land that we graze on is really, REALLY great. Our cows come home fat and healthy. But it would be nice to not have someone to dictate where and when we can run our cows.

Remember the days when we didn’t have to answer to anybody about our cows out on the range? Ya me neither… Mostly because I haven’t been around this operation very long. But also because even if I had been around here my whole life, the range has been regulated for longer than I was alive.

When the first cows were grazing out on this range, nobody owned it. It was just leftover land from when the railroad had been built. Cattlemen would take their cows to Curlew Valley to graze through the summer months and then head south to Locomotive springs to winter. It ended up being a conglomeration of all sorts of cattle and brands, which may seem crazy but it worked out well. Between all of the cowboys there was always enough help to get all of the work done- water kept up, the cattle checked, and all the ground covered. In the spring they would help brand each other’s cattle and in the fall they would all gather in and wean the calves.

Over time and from experience, they established good patterns of grazing, making sure that they wouldn’t over graze the land and have something available when it was time to come back. They let the seasons and weather dictate how and where the cattle would be, flowing with range and its needs.

These days we still run our cattle the same, just with a LOT more direction from the higher ups. We still run in an association, with most of the original brands that we began with so many years ago. We still help move cattle, brand, wean, and check water just like they did in the past. But now we are on somebody else’s schedule. They tell when to turn out, how long we can stay, and where we go next. The dates are rigid and there is no flexibility to work with what the range is giving.

I really have mixed feelings about this. I think it is smart to have organization to it. We want to ensure that the range is healthy for our cattle to feed on so it is important to make sure that we don’t have too many cattle or spend too much time in one area. But at the same time, having someone from behind a desk telling us what we can and can’t do, especially when they don’t understand cattle or the work it takes to run them, is frustrating.

The job gets even harder when there are special interest group trying to keep you from your range land. There are all sorts of reasons that they don’t want us on the public lands. They think that we are harming the land. They figure it needs to be left for the public to use for recreation. They want it preserved for wild life. Or some just don’t want it used at all for any purposes.

Right now, we aren’t in a position where we are being troubled by anyone directly, but we aren’t excused from the fight to get cattle off of public lands either.

I’m the kind of girl that is all about being efficient with what we have. I’m pretty sure that it’s in my genes. I hate to see things go to waste when there is so much value to be had. But I also don’t want to use it all up at once. That’s being wasteful too. There’s that sweet middle ground that should keep from wasting by keeping things from totally unused but also keeping it from being over used and ruined.

But how can we apply that to the range?

It’s all a balancing act, friends. Its working to keep too many cattle off too little ground with too little feed for too long. But it is also having cattle out there to disturb the ground to help new seeds to grow, to cultivate the ground, to carry seeds in their poop and fertilize them to grow. Its having cows out there to eat the grasses and keep the fuels down so fires don’t devastate the range. Using it for cows keeps it as usable, profitable range land and not the next development area for a new subdivision.

Balance. That’s how we do it.

A few years ago, I saw a book that was talking about public lands and it was obviously against ranchers using it for their cattle. In fact, there was a caption in big bold letters that said something to the point of “keep ranchers from turning your land into a feed lot!” And right next to it was a picture of an area that had been overgrazed (most likely it was right next to the water trough, right?!).

It was a little like a punch to the gut.

Is this what people really think ranchers do? Do they assume that we use public range land to feed our cattle so that we can make some money by fattening our cattle while we ruin someone else’s land? I just wanted to shake someone, anyone, EVERYONE and say, “WE DO THIS FOR YOU!”

We run and raise cattle for people to eat. It’s plain and simple. Yes it is our jobs and we are trying to make money doing it (enough to survive at least… ha… ha…). But at the heart of it all, we care about making a good, affordable product for families to put on the table using the resources available.

For years and years, nothing has changed how ranchers use the range. But what has changed, is the public’s perception of how and why use the land. Their land. The bigger picture is that we use their land to raise cattle to feed their families. And we have before it was really anyone’s land. The cattle were there long before any interest groups even existed, let alone had an agenda.

We are going to keep running cattle out on the rangeland for as long as we are able. We are going to keep using that land to keep our cows healthy and we are going to keep using our cows to keep the land healthy. And in the end, you, that eat our beef, will stay healthy too.

Fix up After Fire Season

December 20, 2017 by Allison

As you probably know, things on the cow front are pretty slow right now. Super slow. Which is good. Good because I get to enjoy my husband a little bit more. But also good for The Rancher to get some of the maintenance work done. After the summer we had, Locomotive really needs a lot of maintenance.

Our summer was riddled with thunderstorms rolling through our private and allotted BLM ground. The storms were popping with lightning and too many times that lightning turned to fires that swept across the range. I got pretty good and recognizing when those moments were upon us. The Rancher would get a call and you would hear things like, “Where did it hit?” and “Is there any wind? Which direction is it moving?” and “Who is there?”. Then of course there was the, “We will be down there right away!” At that point I just got some snacks and water and told him to be safe as he headed out the door.

The worst timing was when he got a call on the night of July 3. We had been gone for the weekend to a family reunion. We were tired from too much fun and too many miles sitting. And to top off the terrible timing, my brother and his family were there visiting for the upcoming holiday. So here comes a fire RIGHT on our land and The Rancher HAS to go. By brother and his daughter had been hoping for some awesome ranch action so they pile in with all the cowboys and go along with them. Not quite the action I was hoping to give them but you gotta roll with what ya got. They loved watching them work the fire, even if they got home in the wee hours of the morning. That sorta killed my plans for an early morning 4th of July 5K but it was still a great day!

We can only directly fight the fires if it is on our own land. When that’s the case the boys load up the tractor and disc and head down. We go around the fire itself and make a line to stop it from spreading any further. By discing up the grass that fuels the fire we are able to make a barrier to keep it from moving on and eating up anymore of our feed. But so many of the fires neighbored our land or were moving to our land that it was still prudent that we take the time to go down there and protect our land. Instead of going around the fire itself, they disc around our land. Doing this can totally head off the fire from causing any damage on our land. Its amazing what a rancher in a tractor can do to stop a fire.

Sometimes there can be tension between ranchers and those responsible for putting the fire out on BLM ground. We have the experience and know-how to get the fire out but we aren’t authorized to do it. But we are motivated a little more than others to get moving and get the job done because its our livelihood. Every bit of grass burnt up is feed we lose. We can supplement the feed with hay either in Locomotive or by bringing the cows home. But the greater loss is the time we lose feeding down there or not being able to keep the cows in Locomotive to calve out when we have to bring them home. So you can see how things can be a little tense…

But that stuff is all in the past. Now is the clean up. Those fires ripped right across the range taking out fences in any direction. And of course it ate up all the feed, so there was work to be done planting seed for some spring grass. The Rancher and Cowboy E spent a long week and then some getting things settled and back to the norm for the winter. It was long and hard but its so satisfying to put the effort in to do a good job to put things right again.

I haven’t been down there myself since all the fires have happened so I asked The Rancher to get some snaps of what the land looks like now. It is bare and black, but now we have new fences and new seeds planted and ready for a new season of growth.

From The Idaho Rancher's Wife From The Rancher's Wife

The Curlew Cattle Association: A History of Belonging

June 3, 2017 by Allison

A few months ago I was asked to write a story for the Line Rider, a magazine published by the Idaho Cattle Association. The story they asked me to write was a little closer to home than most of my other stories. They asked me to write about our history with the association we run our cattle in. Since it wasn’t my family that I was writing about but rather my husband’s, I had to do a little research. It was interesting and exciting and inspiring. It ended up becoming somewhat special to me that I could write about my husband’s family and share their story. And I wasn’t the only one that felt this way.

Over the last few months, I have had several of the cowboys and ranchers that we work with mention the story. I’m not sure why, but I was really surprised with how much they all loved it! Maybe I’m still a little surprised when people (besides my momma and my husband… they are obligated to cheer for me) think that what I write is something worth reading.

Because of all their applause, I thought I would share it with you!

Ranching can be a tough and demanding lifestyle but with people working around us facing the same challenges and striving for the same goals, we find a collective strength. In fact, it is through the practice of leaning on each other that several ranches in the Curlew Valley have found success amidst the struggles of ranching on the range. Their association of working together began as their ranches were founded. It was long ago that August Eliason learned that the demands of range were easier to manage has he harnessed his efforts with those around him and still to this day, his descendents continue to follow his practices of working together.

August Eliason came to America from Sweden with his family as a young boy at the age of 9. At the age of 14, he decided to go out on his and found a job working for the Bar M Ranch, hiring on as the ranch foreman.

The Bar M Ranch began after the construction of the trans-continental railroad through Utah. A wealthy railroad baron from San Francisco had seen the boom of cattle empires in the west and he wanted part of it. He saw an opportunity to buy up the available land left from building the railroad and purchased the land from Connor Springs to Kelton, Utah, approximately 365,000 acres. Soon after, they bought their first 2,500 cows and they were in the cattle business. They continued to acquire land and cattle as they bought out other operations, bringing their numbers up to a herd of 45,000 cows running throughout northern Utah and southern Idaho. Unfortunately, the owner of the ranch and his managers had no experience managing a cattle herd. Their lack of knowledge ultimately set the ranch for failure.

As the foreman of the ranch, August was responsible for grazing the cattle throughout the Curlew Valley. Through managing so many cattle over so many miles, August developed a great talent for overseeing the cattle and land. The cattle grazed the range for feed year round, often overgrazing it. The operation never purchased or put up any additional hay, and the cattle were left to forage on what little feed was available during the winter months. This mismanagement proved detrimental for the ranch.

In 1888, the blizzard of a lifetime came through. Heavy snowfall and extreme winds caused the cattle to stray as they followed their instincts and walked with the wind in attempts to stay warm. With nothing to stop the wandering Bar M cattle, they walked for miles and miles. With such terrible storms, August and the other cow hands knew there was nothing they could do. They knew they would never survive searching for the cattle in the storm over the snow covered range. All they could do was wait and see what the outcome of the storm would bring.

Eventually they found that from the combination of exhaustion from the walking and the lack of feed because it was buried beneath the snow, the majority of the cattle had died. Accounts recall that there were so many dead cattle across the land that you could walk for miles stepping only from one cow to the next. When spring came, they found 35,000 dead cattle wearing the Bar M brand. The numbers of surviving cattle are somewhat unknown, anywhere from 10,000 to only 800.

The Bar M Ranch never recouped from the devastating winter and was disbanded shortly after. The cowboys were left to fend for themselves. But what was the end of the Bar M Ranch was the beginning of several grazing organizations in the area, such as the Curlew Valley Horse and Cattle Association and the Black Pine grazing group.

It was rumored that August and his two brothers-in-law, Andrew Anderson and Ed Showell, gathered up any unclaimed and unbranded cattle to start up their own herds. They continued to winter the cattle in Locomotive and graze north through the Curlew Valley, similar to how the Bar M Ranch managed their cattle. It was hard work but with their experience on the range, their desire to succeed and their strength by working together, they facilitated their own beginning.

At the time, ranches from all over northern Utah and southern Idaho would turn their cattle out on the public rangeland. There were no boundaries, no regulations and no expectations grazing on the open range. All the animals roamed free, fending for themselves where ever it may be. Because of the water and good feed, most cattle would migrate south to Locomotive Springs. At the end of the grazing season, everyone would work together to gather in the cattle to sort and take to their home ranches.

In addition to running on the public lands, August and the others also homesteaded land in Idaho. They were successful on their homestead land in Stone, Idaho on what was called the North String. There he set up headquarters for his ranch and his family. August had 6 children, including his two sons, Bert and Chester, who took over the ranch at his untimely death when they were teenage boys.

Even though they were young, the boys were able to successfully run the operation for their mother with the help of their uncles, Andrew and Ed, keeping both the ranch and the family alive. The time came that they decided to buy the ranch and their partnership began. It took time, but they were able to add cattle to their herd and land to their operation.

The Curlew ranchers recognized what an asset Locomotive was for cattle, although most of the area was deeded up to homesteads. But over time, the flies and sickness of the wetlands caused most homesteaders to sell out, an opportunity Bert, Chester, Andrew, and Ed jumped on. In addition to wintering the cattle in Locomotive, they decided to hay the land as well. Once a year, they worked together to carry out the very labor intensive job of mowing, raking, pitching and stacking the hay.

Over the next several years, many things would happen that would bring more organization and need for the association. In 1934, the Taylor Grazing Act was set in place to regulate the use of public lands. Throughout the country, drought and poor management of the land had caused severe losses that devastated the farming and ranching industry. In Idaho and Utah, cattle and sheep ranchers would graze an unrestricted number of animals that overwhelmed the rangeland. With the Grazing Act, those ranches already running animals had to apply for permits. With the homestead land in Stone and Locomotive, the men were granted permits to continue running their cattle on the public lands of Black Pine of Idaho and Wild Cat/Cedar Hill of Utah.

Every season had its challenges, but Bert and Chester managed to find success. A large part of their success was working hard, but an even larger part was working smart. With their operation being divided over so much land, it required a lot of time and labor to manage it all. The men would spend days on the range haying and moving or tending cattle. By working together, it made it easier to ensure that everything was be done and looked after, without having to hire additional men.

Shortly after the depression Chester had the chance of a lifetime. Dave Dilly was ready to sell the piece of land that Chester had wanted all of his life- the Rockhouse Ranch, famously named for the house made of rocks that provided protection from the Indians in the 1860s and later used as northern headquarters of the old Bar M Ranch. Living just a few miles away in Stone had given him plenty of opportunities to see its potential.

Dave Dilly, Chester’s uncle, first offered the Rockhouse Ranch to Bert but with Bert declining the piece, it was Chester’s for the taking. He sold his home, land, and half of the company property to Bert and moved his family and his half of the cattle 14 miles north to their new ranch in Holbrook, Idaho. Starting his own operation had been a longtime dream and he was excited for the opportunity. He continued to run things alongside the others in Stone and to run his cattle on his portion of the rangeland permits.

Running separate, but parallel operations was very profitable for the two brothers. They were both able to grow their operations and later pass them on to their own families. Bert had two sons, De and Bert Jr., which in the end inherited his cattle and land. De stayed on the homestead in Stone while Bert Jr. began a new operation in Snowville, Utah. With his portion of the permits he continued to work alongside his brother, until De sold his operation. Bert Jr. ‘s operation, known now as the Eliason Ranch, was owned by his son Dave Eliason, who just recently turned things over to the next generation- his son, Shane.

Dave enjoys the same benefits of running cattle in the association that his grandpa did. Dave says, “The greatest benefit is that we can share the labor without having to hire extra men. We all have large enough herds that we couldn’t do it alone.”

The Rockhouse Ranch, now known as Eliason Livestock, is managed by Ken Eliason, the third generation to run cattle in Holbrook. His father, Don, was just a boy when Chester began ranching in Holbrook. In his time, he watched the ranch develop from a small operation to a thriving family business. With the goal in mind of keeping it a thriving family business, Ken’s oldest son, Brayden has returned to eventually take over the ranch someday.

While time and innovation has changed how things are run from day to day, Ken and Dave still employ the same operational practices that the original Curlew cowboys did. They still winter the cattle in Locomotive with the Anderson and Showell operations. They work together to wean, brand, move cattle, preg check cows, and check water.

Working together with so many different operations can be challenging but these men have made it work. While they have seen similar groups fall apart by disagreements, they have found a way to keep things beneficial to all. Ken says that the best thing about the association, and how they have continued working together for so long is because of the trust. “You know that you can trust that they will be there to get the work done and that they will do a good job. You can trust that they have your back.”

Running together in the association has proved to be a successful practice for everyone in the Curlew Valley. They enjoy the same benefits that the old cowboys did- the autonomy to run their operations but still have the man power to get the work done. But the benefits go beyond the obvious. Each man in the association a niche- his strengths that the whole group can rely on. It may be the equipment and skills that he has or the “in” for a good deal on salt block. Some have their finger on the pulse of what is happening in the cattle industry across the country and some have the relationships and contacts for more support and information.

Helen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.” The ranchers of the Curlew Valley have been the embodiment of that phrase for so many years. Alone, one ranch could never have accomplished what has been done. They would have succumbed to the hard reality of homesteading and the fatigue of the rough range. But together they have advanced the industry, produced cattle, improved the land, raised families and strengthened communities. With the help and support of one another they will continue to do so much.

Following the Roads Across the Range

May 26, 2017 by Allison

90% of the time I head out on the range to brand, I drive out myself after the crew of cowboys has left. I don’t believe in waking babies if I can help it. Well rested babies are happy babies and happy babies make for happy mommas. And everyone knows that if momma aint happy, nobody is happy. So to make this momma happy, we go branding but AFTER the babies wake up. You get it…

But as I was saying, I get the privilege of finding my way all on my own. I get to follow the over simplified yet confusing directions to try and find hundreds of cows corralled in the some remote area of the range. I’m actually getting pretty good at finding my way around, but that is only from trial and error from the last few years.

Sometimes I think that my husband forgets that my knowledge of the area (read hundreds of miles and thousands of acres) isn’t the same as his. He tells me directions that would be totally relevant to someone that has lived here for decades and knows everyone. Like when he tells me to turn left at the Taylor Lane. Of course there is no road officially named Taylor Lane but there is a road that Charlie Taylor has property along so of course, that is Taylor Lane. Too bad I didn’t know that. Fortunately, The Rancher told me that across from the road are several, very large hay sheds. Unfortunately, there are hay sheds all along the road like that. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

I swear that some of the roads that I get to drive across the range aren’t “roads” at all but are more like goat trails. They are rough and bumpy and winding and seem to take you nowhere. Eventually you see the cloud of dust from the cows after you have bruised your sacrum from bouncing along the goat trail and you let out a partial sigh of relief. I say only partial because you still have to finish driving the nearly debilitating road to get where you are going and if you breathe too deeply, you feel it in your sacrum…

If the roads aren’t yucky and bumpy, they are probably washed out with craters that are waiting to take out the underside of your truck. Or they are slick and muddy with a special kind of gooey stickiness that has the potential of stopping you in your tracks. I once was explicitly following The Rancher’s instructions that nearly stranded me in the middle of the range’s biggest mud pit. He had forgotten that there was a small road that followed the fence line before his road that followed the fence so when he said take the first road to the right just after the fence it got me into big trouble. My “road just after the fence” was a small road that took me to the end of a bunch of wheel lines and was subsequently a nightmare to drive down.

You are probably laughing at me and thinking, why didn’t I recognize that I was heading down the wrong road? Here is my defense- the road was good when I got started, much better than many of the roads I had driven on before. And secondly, I could see the cows and they were absolutely, straight ahead of me. It was nearly infuriating how I knew it was going badly but I could see where I needed to be. But by good luck and my rancher’s wife skills, I made it alive. Barely…

Despite the roads criss-crossing the range, they all take me where I want to go. And there is probably a lesson to be learned in there. In life, we all have a destination in mind and the road to where we want to go isn’t always easy. It can be frustrating how slow and painful and painfully slow the going may be, but there is so much to learn along the way. And if we don’t learn anything along the way, at least we got a great laugh at how terrible things can get!

Pausing for Perspective

May 24, 2017 by Allison

I love my life. I really do. Its amazing how much joy and satisfaction I find in what we do. I get to watch my kids learn and grow and fail and succeed. They get to watch their dad work and see what it means to have responsibilities and carry them out. It is exhausting and amazing and inspiring… and exhausting.

I love our life but it is exhausting. Most of the time when life gets busy and exhausting, you pause, give yourself some space, do something new to recharge yourself, and then jump back in.

We don’t do that.

Not that we don’t believe it taking a break, but its kinda difficult. With cows, irrigating, haying, feeding, checking water, and all the other things on the never ending check list, we don’t have the time to just up and leave. Not to mention the fact that we live in the middle of nowhere and going anywhere requires plenty of travel time.

But that’s ok.

We may to be able to be world travelers or we might not have the opportunities to visit exotic places. Its all ok, because we have an entire world to explore in our back yard. We have horses and 4wheelers and mountains and trails. We really have everything we need.

What we do, everyday, is what we love. Yes, we get tired of the daily grind, but that is when we load up in the gator and go for a ride. And we take a moment to refocus on what our priorities are and then we get back to it.

I’m in desperate need for such a pause. I am feeling the weight of the work that needs to be done on our home, for our community, in the fields… There is always more work to be done than there is time and energy. Think I can talk The Rancher into taking me on a romantic motorcycle ride tonight?

For the Love of Branding

May 8, 2017 by Allison

I have literally thousands of pictures of branding this spring. THOUSANDS! 5 different days of branding and taking so many pictures of busy cowboys (I might have less if they stopped and posed, but I take what I can get…) has made for so many photos to go through and edit.

I’m certainly not running out of photos, but I feel like I am running out of rocking stories to tell you. Its not that cool things didn’t happen, but I’m just afraid that those details of the day might bore you. Especially since we do about the same thing every year- we gather the herd, sort out the cows, brand the calves, eat lunch and start over.

It really is an exciting day that the crew looks forward to every year. I’d say its their drug of choice that they are going through some seriously withdrawals of roping and riding after a long winter. They take off across the range, adrenaline flowing, and they can’t get enough of it. They rope all day long until they are so sore they can’t keep going. Then they wake up and do it again.

The photos are going to keep coming and hopefully the stories come too! But sometimes, the photos speak for themselves. As they say, “A photo is worth a thousand words!”

Going Nuts Over Branding

April 28, 2017 by Allison

With all of my years of ranching and branding there is something that I have never done. Ok, there are plenty of ranchy-branding things that I haven’t done… But there is one that I took pride in not doing until just a few weeks ago. I don’t know if I should be proud for what I did, but I did it.

Here is what I did- I ate a nut. Not like a nut nut, but like a calf nut. A lemon peppered, battered, deep fried calf testicle.

Gross, I know.

Like I said, I don’t know if I’m proud of myself for doing it, but I did.

My brother-in-law, Cowboy Pete, had some buddies that thought it would be a great idea to fry up some nuts and have a party about it. So all day long, we were collecting nuts as we were branding. He even had his mom bring a tupperware with water that he had in the cooler with the vaccines to keep the nuts clean and cool. He went to some pretty extensive lengths to make sure that everything would be just right for their dinner that night.

So Cowboy Pete gets home, pulls out the nuts and made up his own little recipe for some gourmet fried nuts. All day he kept telling me that he was going to bring them over for me to try and I just laughed him off, so sure that he wasn’t going to do it and even if he did cook some, he wouldn’t bring them over.

But he did.

He comes over with his buddies and his plate of fried testicles and wafted them in front of my face as if its tantalizing aroma would be something I couldn’t resist. He grinned from ear to ear as he was trying to convince me just how good it was and that I HAD to try them.

I waffled back and forth on what I should do. Because really, one bite wouldn’t kill me. And if it was nasty, I could just spit it out. But I didn’t want to give in to him and justify his claim that his deep fried calf testes were good.

Just then, my husband reached over grabbed one and took a bite. I was super surprised because no one had been goading him to eat one and he JUST DID IT! And he liked it! Or at least I think he did. He at least didn’t spit it out, although he didn’t have another bite so maybe he didn’t like it so much.

After that, I knew I had to do it. If I didn’t, I would be the weak one. The one that wasn’t brave enough to even eat a little nut. So I took a bite.

I still shudder to think about what I did. I stooped to eating genitalia… Gross. Except, it was good. Or at least not bad. They seasoned them enough that it just tasted like a lemon pepper beef nugget (like chicken nugget, but beef… get it?).

Now I have done it all. And I will likely never do it again. Cowboy Pete did say that no self respecting ranch blogger couldn’t call themselves legit without trying a nut at least once. I tried it once, now I’m legit and have great credibility with my people, right?

Let me know if you want Cowboy Pete’s Deep Fried Calf Nut recipe ;).

Growing Some Thick Skin

April 26, 2017 by Allison

One of my favorite rancher wives once told me that she chooses NOT to work beside her husband a lot of times because she doesn’t have thick enough skin. Its not that her husband is grouchy and it isn’t ever her husband that is the problem, but to keep things happy in all corners, she just stays out of it.

From her words of wisdom and my own experiences over the last few years, I have learned two things. First, if I can’t handle what the cowboys say, I’d better stay out of the work. And second, I if I’m determined to work with them, I better grow some thick skin to be able to handle it all.

You know me… although the best way to go would be to go with the first little lesson I learned, I’m taking the harder way and following the second.

There are a few reasons a person might need some thicker skin when working with the cowboys, especially if its your husband. At home, he calls you honey and sweetheart and any other pet name I might not want to know. But those lovy names are totally forgotten once the two of you are out the door to work. All of the sudden, he sounds a little cold or distant and pretty soon, you begin to wonder if you did something wrong. Really, what has happened is that he has his rancher hat on and that is all that is on his mind. Don’t worry, he will warm back up to you when the work is done!

Now, unfortunately, ranch work can be noisy. Really, REALLY noisy. Loud tractors or pumps, noisy, bellaring cows and so much more. Hearing anybody talking to you over any of this noise is nearly impossible. So the easiest solution to this problem is just to talk louder than the noise. Most commonly known as YELLING. Yep, I just admitted it, my husband yells at me. At least that is what I used to think. That quick, “CLOSE THE GATE!” without any tender love or affection can cut a wife right to the heart if she doesn’t have some thick skin to protect her. But once ya learn that he is yelling TO you, not AT you, its not so bad. In reality, anything he might be yelling to you is probably to help you do your job better or to keep you safe. Just read it as his way of saying “I love you.”

Eventually, any ranch wife that decides to help the guys get the work done, is going to make a mistake. Its hard to admit, but we wives aren’t perfect. We try hard to be perfect because there are some pretty intense expectations of the level of work that needs to be done and inevitably we might miss the mark. And without any warning or intention, some words might slip out of somebody’s mouth and somebody’s feelings are hurt. I’ve been there thinking, “I am here helping you get YOUR work done and I am doing MY BEST and you are mad at me?!”

But in all honesty, I had made a mistake.

And I hate to admit it.

But in admitting my mistake, it actually made things better.

I’m sure that there are a lot of other wives out there that have their own stories and lessons they have learned about how to make it working with their husbands on the ranch. But ultimately, if you’re going to work with the guys, you gotta handle whatever they might say. Some of it they mean, some of it they don’t. But some thick skin can go a long way to keep things happy at home.

Because really, it can’t get more true than the t-shirt that says, “Sorry for what I said when we were working cattle!”

Live a LIfe of Passion

April 17, 2017 by Allison

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!