Off the Ranch - The Idaho Rancher's Wife

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!”

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!

Dinner For a Rancher

April 12, 2017 by Allison

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

April 5, 2017 by Allison

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

April 1, 2017 by Allison

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

March 28, 2017 by Allison

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?

A Good Winter Day Sorting Cows

February 27, 2017 by Allison

Last week sorted cows in Locomotive. Scratch that… It was actually like SEVERAL weeks ago that we sorted. In fact, its been long enough ago that we sorted, that the snow has melted and we have mixed the cows back up. I had a twinge of hurt when they mixed up the cows again. Because I feel that we just did the work of getting them unmixed up… Oh the work we do…

That day of sorting had a lot of emotions running through it. There were those overwhelming feelings of just being totally exhausted from the added work with dealing with the snow. There was the tension of not knowing how the day was going to go, if it was going to go at all. Then there was the final relief and thankfulness of finally getting the work done.

You can imagine we slept well that night.

I’ll admit, I had my own doubts about how the day was going to go down. They had never had to sort all those cows there. They never had so much snow to work the cows in. I was afraid for the worst- cows not cooperating, horses slipping on the ice, and cowboys coming home hurt and discouraged.

That is always my fear. Because I have seen it.

When I was a little girl, I saw the hard days that my dad had. There was the day that he couldn’t take his own boots off because of the 4wheeler accident. There were the days that he came in exhausted from no sleep trying to keep calves alive in the cold. There were the days he couldn’t keep the equipment running to get the hay done before the storms rolled through.

But there is one day that comes to mind above all the rest as being hard for my ranching dad.

It had been a long winter. The calving was over and breeding season was in full swing. Doing the spring work in the still winter conditions was getting long and tiresome. Eventually there was a break and the thaw finally came. It only took a few days for things to change. The frost thawed, the ground dried and suddenly it was hard again.

He was bringing in a heifer to AI. He saddled up his horse and headed out as he did every time. Now let me tell you a little about his horse. She had a long, long ugly nose. And that was about the only bad thing about her. Ok, not really… everyone horse has her issues. But this girl was good. She could cut a cow as good as any other. Once she knew what cow she was bringing in, you just let her do the work. She could drop her back end and change directions in a second. If you didn’t hang on she would move right out from under you (and I know that from personal experience!). She loved the work and worked hard.

The heifer my dad and his partner were bringing in was a little feisty. No surprise and really, no big deal. And for my dad, it was even a little fun. Like most cowboys, he enjoyed the rush of the ride. But then the heifer cut back and Whitney, his horse, went to spin. And then she went down.

In those couple of days that the weather changed, my dad was busy. Are you surprised? He is a rancher, they are always busy. Busy enough that he hadn’t had a chance to take of the cleats on his horse.

When she turned back, those cleats dug into the ground, and she spun, but her leg didn’t. And it broke.

My dad knew instantly that it was bad. So bad. He was right.

He called the vet and he was able to come in and help Whitney. They were able to set and cast the broken leg. But she would never chase a cow again. It was devastating.

My dad says that every cowboy gets one good horse and one good dog. She was his.

Ya know, despite the great days we have on the ranch and in this life, there are some really hard days. We take risks. We work in sometimes dangerous conditions. We work with animals that can do a lot of damage. And when those bad days come we just have to take it in stride.

My dad couldn’t put his partner down that day. He just couldn’t lose her. She meant to much for him. So he decided to turn her into a brood mare. Now her babies are on the ranch, doing the same work their momma did.

Thankfully, our day sorting on the range had a good ending. A great ending. The work went well and the cowboys came home safe. Not everyday turns out so well and we are grateful for the good days. Its the good days that keep us going when we have those hard days.