Meet the Ranch - The Idaho Rancher's Wife

Wanted: Good Fall Pasture

October 25, 2014 by Allison

Have I mentioned how thankful we are for rain? We are so thankful for the rain! Its been incredible what the rain has done for us this fall. The most recent realization of its awesomeness is that with all of the growth that has come from the rain we have found ourselves in some what of a dilemma. OK, not a dilemma really, but more of an interesting situation that we haven’t seen…

Every fall when the calves are weaned and we are done with the summer pasture we look for fall pasture. The more fall pasture means that we can leave our cows out longer and not have to feed them at the home ranch. Really, that never happens but some years finding enough pasture has been a slight issue.

But not this year! We have had calls from so many farmers and ranchers saying that they have great regrowth after their last cutting and would have plenty of feed for our cattle to go through the fall on. In fact, there are some farmers with wheat fields with winter wheat in that may be growing too much (so much it might not make it through the winter!) and want us to knock it down a little. Can you say blessed?! Oh, how we love the rain!

So a week after weaning the calves off, we gathered off 150 cows of the forest group and hauled them out for some good fall pasture. And honestly, we hope not to make the return trip with them for a good long time!

Can I Have a Wordless Monday, Please?

October 7, 2014 by Allison

How about a wordless Wednesday on a Monday? Is that like “Mums the Word Monday”? I have recently found some pictures from this last spring and I thought I would share. And I have a few from the last few busy weeks of moving cows, working calves, and just being cool. Because we are so cool… I might like to think that I am- please, don’t burst my bubble!

Haying on the Ranch

August 11, 2014 by Allison

The Rancher is out baling tonight. I told him that I was going to bed… but I have some pictures that just need to be put. Its 10:30 pm and he’s out baling, while I’m in bed writing about it.

We started second crop last week, slowly. We have been blessed rain this week. Not a lot, but enough to slow down progress. We did have a little hay down-its what happens when the weather man cries wolf too many times. He says that its going to rain, it doesn’t, we cut hay. Most of the time that works out but not this week.

94.7% of the time we have to work around Mother Nature’s unplanned schedule. We work around the storms, rake and clean up after the wind, and bale at night when the dew is on (or should be on… Its why I never have baling pictures!). We could just do it when things are convenient. The boys would get a lot more sleep, but we believe in doing things right. Even when Mother Nature tries to throw a kink in the mix.

Summertime on the Ranch

July 1, 2014 by Allison

Oh what do you do in the summertime? That’s the line to one of my kids’ favorite songs. Our answers aren’t like the song… We don’t have a stream to sit lazily by, or trees to swing on… Instead we have a ranch with hundreds of opportunities for fun. But when the votes were in, everyone around the ranch agrees that these are the summertime favorites!

1. Roping at the arena- We have an arena, we have the roping steers, and obviously we have the horses and ropes. What do they all mean? Roping. Lots of roping. The Rancher is all over it… You say roping and he will beat you there. The rest of us tag along of course! The Rancher’s Sidekick floats. He spends some playing in the dirt, some time riding his horse, and some time working the chute. The baby hangs out with me. Somehow we manage… We love every bit of those nights. There’s nothing better than playing out in the arena as the sun goes down!

2. 4 Wheeling- Hands down, this has to be The Ranch Princess’s favorite. The first place I go to check when I can’t find her playing outside is on the 4 wheeler. I’m terrified for the day that she can actually start it. There are so many trails and roads to just head out for a drive. You can get a little crazy with some off-roading or you can take it easy. Either way we have a great time!

3. Cookout, or “roast out” as The Rancher’s Sidekick calls them- When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When life gives you massive tractor tires, you make a fire ring and have a cook out. Tin foil dinners, weenies on a stick, mallows… its ALL SO GOOD! There is no shortage of scrap wood here at the ranch, so bring on the bon fires!

4. Hanging’ out at the reservoir- Ok so its not AT the ranch but its where we head when the work is done. We have a few old jet skis that occasionally work to make it a really good time. Once I asked if they were sick of fixing the darn things but they told me that was half the fun of them! Actually, they have been working GREAT lately. I’m working on my 360 when I get pulled on the knee board… we’ll see if I can conquer it this summer!

5. Bunny hunting- Don’t be weirded out, but we love to bunny hunt. And I feel a little justified because they are terrible out here. There isn’t too much more fun that loaded up the truck in the dark to spot bunnies. After a good bunny hunt, I start seeing them all over the road!

Summertime means fun family time. We work hard during the day to play hard at night. Cool off in the reservoir, take little drive, have dinner around the fire, and have a little excitement with the hunting or at the arena. That’s how we summer at the ranch!

Days of Branding: Castrating Bulls to Steers

April 25, 2014 by Allison

Branding day really is a big day for some of these calves, especially the bulls. The poor fellas especially have a big change… I kinda feel bad for them- glad I’m not destined to be a steer.

You might not think it, but castrating is an important part of our operation of producing the best beef possible. How are a pair of cahonees related to a yummy hamburger? I’m glad you asked! I’ll tell you!

Testosterone is produced in the testes (duh, I know… have to start somewhere). And although testosterone helps calves grow fast, this is at the cost of a lot of energy. I don ‘t just mean a lot of energy to help them grow (we are totally for growing) but I mean a lot of energy to first develop testes and then produce the testosterone. In a castrated calf, more energy is put towards more marbling fat- the fat that gives meat its flavor and tenderness.

Besides castrating to make a better product, we also castrate for management sake. With testosterone comes aggression (again, duh… I know…) and aggressive cattle make for more work. On a ranch there is ALWAYS something to be done and anything we can do to ease our load is so worth it. Its also make sure that as the calves develop that they don’t get overly zealous in starting the next generation of calves- we don’t want babies pregnant with babies!

We castrate in two ways. Actually “we” only castrate in one way, then those boys do another… The first is using an elastrator. I mentioned this when we talked about tagging. There is a stretchy ring that we stretch around the testes that will eventually cut them off. This works best for young calves that haven’t developed as much. The other method is surgically cutting them- a little more intense (I’m not a wimp, I promise…).

Castrating is stressful for a calf, and stressful times can cause calves to get sick or lose weight. They will bounce back a lot better when they are younger and pick up on that weight gain faster. There have been studies that found that in the end, a calf that is castrated younger will be heavier when it is harvested versus a calf that was castrated at weaning time. Who knew!

Maybe this is more than what you wanted to know, but its a few fun facts about ranch life and what we do to make the best product we can!

PS- We had to document this first time of castrating- talk about getting in there with two hands! Way to go girl!

Days of Branding: Why we brand

April 24, 2014 by Allison

Branding can be a touchy subject when we talk with some people outside the ranching world. It can seem like a harsh or cruel thing to do. So why do we still brand?

The best answer is because it is required by law. A brand is a rancher’s signature, saying which ranch these cattle belong to. Its nice to know which ranch to call when the cows get out, but its more important to know when its time for those cattle to be harvested.

If a cow were to go in without a brand, there is no way to know who that cow belonged to, where it was, what other animals it was running with, and what region it was in. Its important to know this because we want to be VERY sure that there is nothing wrong with the meat. We don’t want to spread disease or sell contaminated beef. Ya, that’s a good reason to brand…

When cattle are sold, cross state lines, or head to be harvested they must be checked over by a brand inspector. This makes a record or a paper trail of where and when the cattle come and go.

But even if we didn’t HAVE to brand, we still would. I don’t know that there is any method out there that is as effective and efficient at marking our cattle as our own. Yes, it is stressful for the calves. It is probably painful and I really feel bad about that. But until someone finds a method of marking that can’t be altered, we gotta stick to branding. Did you know that cattle rustling is still prevalent today? (and in the state of Idaho it is still punishable by hanging!). Too many of the ways to mark cattle can be changed and someone else can claim them.

So we brand our calves. We do it so we can track our cattle so we can put out the best product possible!

Our Ranching Start at Locomotive

March 14, 2014 by Allison

Over the last several weeks I have been looking through some of Grandma’s history books. She has piles of them with all sorts of family stories. There is even a Holbrook history (who knew?!). I’ve been reading through them to get a sense of the ranch’s beginning. Ranching really is in the Eliason blood!

It really all began at Locomotive Springs, clear back in 1885 when he railroad was new. There was a railroad tycoon that realized that there was good land to be had after the construction of the railroad. He bought up thousands of acres, put some cows out, and created the Bar M Cattle Ranch. Being busy with the railroad business, he turned his ranch business over to his son. In turn, his son hired up foreman to do the daily work (probably because he was no cattleman himself!). This is where our story starts.

August Eliason, The Rancher’s great-great grandpa, had left home young looking for some work to live on. Somehow (the books don’t really say) he wound up working for Bar M as a foreman (we figure somewhere in his late teens). He would run with the cows from east of Kelton, Utah (5 miles east) to at least Holbrook, Idaho.

Being a business man and NOT a cattleman, the Bar M owner ran the ranch with little cow sense. When it came to the grass on range he would have the cowboys graze the range hard. That left little feed for the winter. Since they didn’t buy or put up any hay in the summer, this meant that during the winter it was hard eating for the cows.

In 1889, the blizzard of a lifetime came through. When cows get a hard storm they just start walking, the wind pushes them along until something stops them or they are exhausted. With nothing to stop the Bar M cattle, they walked for miles and miles. The snow covered what little feed that was there, leaving the thousands (like 45,000) of cattle to die. There wasn’t a lot the cowboys could do- they wouldn’t survive the storm looking for the herd. All they could do was wait.

Once they were able to get out to the cows they realized that their losses were huge, like astronomical. I read in some places say that they lost all but 10,000 cows but another said only 800 were found. Either way, more than 30,000 died! They said you could walk for miles walking only on the dead cows. I can’t image what that must have been like to experience! I hate when we lose one, I can’t fathom THOUSANDS!

At this point the Bar M just threw in the towel, dissolved the ranch and left everyone to fend for themselves, the cowboys and the cows. Grandpa August and a few cousins saw an opportunity to be had and decided to strike out on their own. They gathered up what unbranded cattle they could find and headed north into Idaho. Having already run the cows that way, they knew where to find good feed and water to set up as their ranch headquarters. They still would summer the cows in the Curlew Valley and then every fall they would head back to Locomotive to winter the cows.

Over the years they built up a few small shacks for cowboys to stay in through the winter. Cowboys would stay a few weeks at a time to feed and watch over the cows and then head home for a rest. We don’t do that anymore, but those old shacks are still around. I try to envision what it must have been like in those. No electricity, no running water, and nobody for miles. Incredible!

And it’s cool to think that the cows we have now are from some of the original cows that survived that blizzard. I guess even the cows have little bit of heritage to them!

On our last trip to Locomotive to check, we took the long way home to go past what Grandpa August started with. We don’t own that piece anymore so we couldn’t go right up to it, but is was awesome to see it all in context, knowing how it all got started.

Sharing our Ranch

January 14, 2014 by Allison

I love to share the ranch with others (as is evident by this being my 90+ blog post) and I especially love to share it with the people I love.

Over the Christmas break our dear friends, the Davis Family, stopped by to see us and to see the ranch. We were neighbors in small town Parker, Idaho while we went to school. But with both of our families moving on after college graduations we get to be long distance friends.

While they were visiting we took a quick trip up Quaken Asp to deliver salt, mineral, and protein. It is fun to experience the ranch with others- their reactions to the cows, the poop, the scenery… the poop.

The Rancher’s Sidekick shared a little more than the rest of us. He shared a taste of the salt we were putting out to the cows! Every time The Rancher and his tagalong take salt to the cows, The Rancher’s Sidekick dips his little finger in the salt for a taste. And every time it tastes salty- surprise! He invited our friends to taste along with him. Oh how we love to share the ranch, every bit of it!