The Idaho Rancher's Wife

The Ranch From the Wife's Perspective

It Looks Like we are Working, But we Call it a Vacation

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We preg checked the buffalo again.  Not because we had to, which is usually why we go preg checking, but because we want to.  Are we weird because we want to do more preg checking?  I know we are… We are one of those families that enjoy working, so instead of taking a real vacation, we go to my brother’s place to do more work.
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Actually, we didn’t go for the work.  I went for the family.  I guess if preg checking crazy buffalo is what I have to do to hang out with my family, then I guess that’s worth it.  Because I think that my family is pretty awesome.

Let me walk you through that day a little bit…

Yep… there was buffalo.  They are ugly and majestic, all at the same time.  They are so powerful and terrifying and awe inspiring.  In all honesty, I think they are pretty cool but I am so glad that I’m not the one running the place.

 Here is my nephew, with pretty sweet hair.  He is so funny because although he lives in Washington, he was born in Alabama and he can’t seem to get that thin Alabama blood out of his system.  No matter how many northwestern winters he makes it through or how many layers he puts on, the boy can’t stay warm out there.  But the cold doesn’t matte when his dad gives him a job to do.  He toughs it out anyway!

And then there is The Rancher’s Sidekick, that is there for the fun and the snacks.  Good thing the company and work is fun.  Funny story about this boy and the licorice…  He saw a guy walk over to the fence, dug around in his coat pocket, and pulled out a piece.  The guy offered The Rancher’s Sidekick a licorice and he took that as an open invitation to crawl up the fence and have as many pieces of licorice as he wanted.  And you guessed it, over the day, my boy ate up the whole package!  

Working out in the middle of nowhere may be inconvenient at times, but the view is always worth it.

My other nephew… I can’t believe how fast this boy is growing. I’m not old enough to be an aunt of a teenager, or soon to be.  If he had to choose his job for the day, it would be watching the little ones instead of working the stinky buffalo.  He has such a big heart and can’t help but love my babies and I love him for it.

My cool oldest brother.  When I was teeny tiny, he would go out of his way to hang out with me.  He was the cool brother that would help me saddle up to go ride or swing by the house to give me a ride in the wheel barrow.  Then when I went to college he still would make the effort to hang out with me.   He would drive hours to pick me up so I could spend the weekend out on the ranch with him.  In fact, that’s how ended up meeting The Rancher.  He did an internship with my brother and I fell in love with him.  Yep, my brother’s pretty cool.

The Rancher doing the easy job for once.  And by that I simply mean that he was doing someone else’s cattle (buffalo) and had no stake in game.  Its almost relieving to not be the boss every once ina while.

My beautiful neices.  They’re cool.  They’re smart.  And they are TOTALLY off limits to any boys that want to take them out.  For at least 20 years or so. 

This is the set up.  They put panels around everywhere because buffalo are crazy.  Super crazy so we make sure that our backs are covered…

Apparently The Ranch Princess doesn’t know how to take a serious picture.  But that’s ok.  Every bit of this picture is her personality and I love it!

Nobody is immune to this cutey.  Everyone needs a minute to snuggle a sweet, chubby baby like The Cowboy Kid.

The Rancher took the opportunity to sharpen up his preg checking skills since he had someone to teach him along the way.  Buffalo are actually a little easier to check because their back end is narrower and not so deep.  But it all translates just fine to cow anatomy terms.

My brother open us the gate so I could catch a picture without the chute in the way.  And while, I was taking the picture and looking through the lens and NOT paying attention to what was happening around me, The Rancher came around and scared me.  Scared me so bad I screamed and jumped a mile high.  Sure the buffalo wasn’t coming after me, but somebody or something was!  I still haven’t got him back for that… Hmm… Any ideas?

The little ones…  They work the buffalo once a year to cull out the old, sick ones, get the preg checking done, vaccinate everything and then wean out the babies.

My sweet baby loves to be outside.  He came home from the hospital a little cranky, but taking him outside always calmed him.  Even in the cold now, he loves to be out and never fusses with what’s happening around him. 

The buffalo were stinky and crazy and my fingers were so cold I couldn’t feel them, but the food was great and the people are my favorite so all-in-all, I could call it a great day.  

Christmas Sledding, Mackay Style

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Its winter here.  Full blown winter.  It has been cold.  Not as cold as some places, but there is a point that cold is just cold.  But its not just the cold that has us knee deep in winter, its the snow.  SO MUCH SNOW!  Like, now that it has settled and been rained on, we are down to about 2 feet.

Yep.  Full blown winter.
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Click “Read More” for the rest of the story!

But that’s mostly ok because we really need the moisture and this is the slow time of year anyway.  So except for the super, SUPER cold days, we are loving winter.  The Rancher takes every chance to go coyote and bunny hunting, snowmobiling, and the kids and I pull out the tubes and sleds every chance we get.  We have had snowball fights and built snowmen.  We have made snow forts and even had a herd of snow angels until they were snowed on again.

Its been lots of fun.  Most of the time I’m too busy being the mom immersed in the fun to take a step back to take any pictures (which I need to do for posterity’s sake) but I do have some awesome stories and pictures from sledding over Christmas break while we were in Montana with the cousins.

Even though the temperatures were hovering just about zero (when you were OUT of the wind) we thought we would pull out the sleds and four wheeler and have a go.  Because it had been so cold, the snow was really fine and powdery, even though it was nearing a foot deep. That meant snow was flying everywhere!  Spraying in our faces, going down coats and shirts.  So cold!  Most of the littles only lasted a few minutes outside, and I don’t blame them.  At the end there was only a handful of the big kids and then the even bigger kids, aka- the parents!  

And that’s when one of my brother’s had the idea to build a jump.  He’s an engineer so of course he figured out the math to make it a pretty awesome jump.  He figured the perfect spot on the downhill side, coming off the corner so that we would have the most momentum swinging around as we hit the jump.  After just a few runs I had to grab the camera to settle in to catch it all.  But that might have gotten me in a little trouble when the mom’s looked at just exactly what we were doing!

Have a look!

The super fine powder was everywhere when they would fly through the snow.  And I’ll admit, I got a little excited with it being backlit…

These kids would FLY through the air when they hit the jump!  Their feet would be above their heads as they sailed above the fence.  It was a pretty crazy site.

When I took a turn on the tube, my sister grabbed the camera and caught a few of me and my brother.  We went as hard and as fast as we could and didn’t come off.  But to save ourselves we had to let go so we didn’t run into the parked car at the bottom of the hill!

You can’t really tell, but this is my brother and his son.  They were riding side by side, but about this time, my brother ended up on top of his boy and then….

… they landed the jump like this!  It sorta looks like a bomb went off here…  So cool!

 I still stand by what I’ve said so many times in the past, ranchers are boys that just couldn’t stop playing… Now they have bigger toys and even more fun! 

My 2016 Christmas

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Merry Christmas!  What a fun, crazy, fantastic whirlwind of a few weeks we have had!  I have been trying to send my greetings to you for over a week but I’ve been dealing with some technical difficulties… Well lets just say that the computer may have won then, but I’m winning today!

So yes… Merry Christmas!  Doesn’t it always seem to sneak up on us and then all the sudden it is gone again?  Every year I am determined to get going on it sooner or to be more organized to hopefully make the season seem easier.  I think in order for that wish to come true, I’m gonna have to hope for next year!  A small piece of advice- don’t wait to go shopping until 10 days before Christmas…  Its not that we procrastinated our Christmas to do list, but it just seemed that the Universe was against us.

My bad luck started early, like December 1, when we went to get a Christmas tree… I had a massive cold that wasn’t backing down.  Now, we could have gone for a tree another night, except there really was no other night to do it.  I guess I did have a teensy bit of luck on my side because I don’t think the tree hunting has ever been so easy.  We spotted the tree from the road, hiked up a bit, chopped it down and we were done (well, we had to get a few little trees along the way, but they didn’t take any extra time…).  Once we got the tree in the house it was all I could do to get the lights on the thing… There may still be a lot of ornaments and fluff still in the boxes because spending any more of my non-existant energy just wasn’t happening.

We have been terribly blessed with several snow storms coming through the valley the last few weeks that added to the craziness.  I say blessed because we are always thankful for moisture, but it was always terrible timing.  Like the first day we tried doing some shopping… I had a babysitter and everything lined out so it was bound to be a great night. Or not! It was wet and slushy and we couldn’t see to drive.  I just wanted to cry…  And then there was that one other time we had lots of snow that made us SUPER late for the school Christmas program starring The Rancher’s Sidekick (when there is only 8 kids in the school, every was is a start!).  Thankfully everyone else had the same terrible roads so we weren’t the last ones to arrive.

I had hoped that even if I wasn’t going to be terribly organized this year, at least I could totally immerse myself with all of the fluff and fancies of Christmas to make it feel super cheery.  But I felt thwarted at every turn.  We did get our tree up and decorations, but I didn’t get to watch all the classic Christmas movies or spend my nights wrapping fancy gifts.  I didn’t even manage to make any Christmas cookies or candies!  Gah! What is Christmas without Christmas cookies?!

Does it sound like I’m complaining?  I promise I’m not…  just musing.  And this sort of musing and pondering brought to me some great insight.

Even though I wasn’t able totally immerse myself with Christmas fluff, I immersed myself in my family.  I spent time reading and doing homework, snuggling sick babies and rescuing my stranded husband.  And enjoying (or enduring…) them was immersing myself in the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given.  Yes they are crazy, demanding, frustrating and some days I might refer to all of them as the most terrifying terrorists, but they are mine.  All mine to hug and love and squish and squeeze and occasionally spank.

So when I thought my Christmas wasn’t very Christmasy I was wrong.  Because what is more Christmasy than being with and serving the people you love most? That’s what the first Christmas was all about- family, love and service.  And so my friends, I’ve learned a valuable Christmas lesson, maybe somewhat like the Grinch (don’t worry I love Christmas, I was just slightly off target)… Christmas isn’t about the fluff and fancies.  You may try so hard to make Christmas, Christmasy that you get frustrated with the people and things that seem to get your way.  But if you focus on those things and people, Christmas will find its way to you.

Merry Christmas!

2017 Cowboy Calendar

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I don’t know what kind of terrific mood I was in this fall, but I was DETERMINED to get my calendar up and going way earlier this year.  And I did!  It was a good thing that I did since it took a while to get the proofing and shipping and what-not done.

But…

No more waiting!  The calendars are here at my house waiting to send them to you!!  If you are interested you can either email me directly at theidahorancherswife@gmail.com or you can find it on my etsy shop online HERE.

Here is a little taste of the photos featured in this year’s calendar!

The Family That Brands Together, Stays Together

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I’ve been feeling somewhat emotional about family this week.  It could be leftover mushy feelings from Mother’s Day extra stirred up from all those post-partum hormones flowing through my veins and totally exaggerated from looking at all these photos of my favorite people.. but I dunno.  Regardless of the why, I have a mega-sized dose of love for family and all I keep thinking is, “I love my life!”

Seriously, how often do families get days like these?  How many times do you have a chance to take your kids to work?  It happens pretty much daily around here.  How often do you see three generations of men working together?  Yep, every day.  We are pretty lucky that even the brothers come around the ranch often.  And when I say often I mean, like, weekly!  I know guys that would give anything to be able to work with their dad and brothers like these boys get to.  Of course, the fun doesn’t stop there- we have sisters-in-law that love this life too and that, my friends, is no easy feat.  Honestly, its hard enough for brothers to marry wives that like each other, but then to find wives that love ranching and cowboying too?!  Good work boys… Good work!

We all have varying jobs at what we do to help or entertain, but no one is sitting around. Some come packing the camera and some bring the cinnamon rolls (thanks to The Cattlewoman, for sure!).  The kids are always elbow deep in the work (sometimes making more work for the rest of us, but at least they are out there wanting and willing to work!)  Some live the dream life on the back of the horse and some do the dirty grunt work.  Even if you think that you are just going to spectate, crazy things happen to get you moving.

Check this out.  Quick story time-  The Buckarette…  This girl was 39 weeks pregnant on this fine day of branding (which is why there isn’t a SINGLE picture of her… hmmm…)  She came out planning to just sit on the back of the truck and, ya know, just take it easy.  Then she starts holding the calves back and helping sort out the already branded calves.   Then she starts helping with shots (which is admirable in itself because that meant bending over and if you know pregnant ladies, that gets a little difficult when you are growing a human being in your middle!).  And then she suddenly swings her way up on the horse to get out and rope!  We teased her that she had better be careful where she dallied because her belly was a little close to the horn.  She got up there, turned her horse to the calves and before you knew it, she was back dragging one in.  She gets extra kuddos in my book because it had been a good long while since she had roped and she was as smooth as ever.  Honestly, we should have had her out roping lots earlier because she caught every calf she swung at!  She told us that she as only going to rope one, but once she got started, we couldn’t stop her.  Ok, not really… but she did have her good handful of them.

Anyone can tell you, working as families can be rough.  One person wants something done one way and someone another, and some crazy fight ensues.  One person feels like they are doing all the work while the others get the benefits.  One suddenly thinks they are the boss and the others stop working dead in their tracks.  It can really happen…  But I don’t think feelings like these have ever come up around here (I’m crossing my fingers that even though I am saying it out loud, nothing changes…).  Sure we have our moments of frustration or disagreement but I have never seen an operation run so smoothly.  Family comes first and with that, everyone works together towards a common goal that brings us together.  At the end of the day, we are all apart of making Eliason Livestock successful and sustainable.  More importantly we are apart of a family legacy, building from our heritage something for the future that we can all be proud of.  

Revisiting 2015

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Our New Year’s Eve was pretty uneventful.  We had an early dinner, watched a movie and just relaxed at home, which in reality was the best way to end our crazy, stressful, busy 2015.  With the new year well under way, I’ve finally taken a minute to look back over the last year and realize that it was a HUGE year for us.  And before you contest my observation (because I didn’t blog hardly anything that eventful and if it didn’t happen on the blog, it didn’t really happen, right?!), I’m gonna list it all out for you!

Lets just start at the top, shall we?

We started the first of last year with a bang, literally, as we began demolishing the old ranch house to build our new home.  When the walls came crashing down we knew we had committed ourselves to this adventure!  Although it was oddly satisfying to take a sledge hammer to the old house, it did get tiresome and the work seemed long but after 3 months we got it down!

In January we realized that there was nowhere near enough feed to calve out all of cows in Locomotive so we kept back an additional 250 cows at the ranch.  Luckily we had an easy winter that helped things go more smoothly, but calving was a lot more intense.  And because there was such little feed in Locomotive, we ended up hauling a lot of hay down south, putting a lot of extra miles on the feed truck.

When we weren’t busy on the ranch or demo-ing the old house, we were busy studying to be EMRs (aka first responders).  The Rancher and I took a class to test and certify to run on the ambulance in our little valley.  The long weeks and late nights of studying took me back to my college days and I was so glad when we tested and PASSED the beginning of May.  Don’t worry, if you get hurt out here in Holbrook and need assistance, you have a ready, willing, and terrified crew to put you back together!

The spring was its normal craziness of branding, turning out, and praying for rain.  Luckily, we were blessed on all fronts with a successful branding season, fast turnouts and a lot of rain!

The busyness of spring only got busier with summer as we were full swing into building a house, haying, hauling heifers to rodeos and ropings, and summer fun.  I worked on my bucket list and scratched off hiking Mount Timpanogous with my siblings (it might have been a few days before I could walk normal…).  Being the cool people that we are (and humble, I promise…)  we volunteered in our community at every chance we could!  A few highlights included our 4th of July where we cooked breakfast with Farm Bureau as the Young Farmer and Rancher’s chairman, had a fire truck in the parade to represent the Holbrook/Stone fire crew, cooked dinner with the Search and Rescue and put on a fire work show with the Malad fire department.  I planned and took (with help!) the 12-18 year old girls on a week long camp trip (that had its own ups and downs with beautiful sunny mornings and snowy afternoons!).  And we ended the summer with a week long of fair fun where I helped organize rodeos, a hypnotist show, vendor booths, and horse races all while doubling as EMS after a huge meth cookhouse was found (don’t worry, it hadn’t been running in years, but still scary to have in our little valley!).  And if that doesn’t sound like a crazy summer, lets add in a little morning sickness!  Let me just tell you that one of the highlights for our summer was NOT our garden…  I don’t know that I have ever neglected it so bad as this summer.

As the summer came to a close, we hit a new milestone when we sent The Rancher’s Sidekick to school for Kindergarten!  I didn’t cry, but the house certainly felt empty without him.  While we was at school, The Ranch Princess and I spent a lot of quality time at the new house painting… and painting… and painting…  Don’t ask me to come paint anything… I’m all painted out…

Even though we were solely focused on getting the house done in the fall, we took time to go on school field trips to the zoo and pumpkin walk and our annual family fishing trip.  Of course we had calves to wean, cows to preg check and fall pasture to be moved to.  And before we knew it, the calves were sold (so glad that we contracted in the spring!!)  We also learned that my dad’s cancer had returned but we are hopeful with a quick catch and aggressive treatment he will beat it again!  With appropriate timing, we gratefully moved into our new home the day before Thanksgiving.  In fact, we moved our crap in and then jumped in the truck to head to Montana for Thanksgiving all in the same day!

We closed the year out by watching The Rancher’s Sidekick first Christmas program, Christmas shopping, The Rancher breaking a few ribs, a week long trip to Tijuana and strep throat.  We were delighted to stay home for Christmas to celebrate the season and enjoy our new house!

Yep, looking back we had a crazy year, but I don’t think that I would have changed anything about it.  OK, I could have done without camping in snow in July or the morning sickness or The Rancher breaking a few ribs (I mean, did you have to do it right when we were finishing moving in?!) but we learned and lived and laughed so much!  I love and appreciate my family more this year than ever and truly look forward to the coming year.  In some regards I’m a little afraid, because I have learned that times can be tough.  But I have also learned that together we can get through it all!

Expanding the Herd

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With all the preg checking done with for the fall, we look to be having a great calf crop on its way.  The heifers are set to begin dropping calves towards the end of February and the cows to start shortly after that.  As always, March will be a busy month for us, but that’s ok… Springtime babies are so fun!

The cows won’t be the only ones to expand their herd in 2016.  You guessed it- our little ranch family is expanding by one!  As any good ranch wife would, I’m due to calve right with all the other cows the beginning of March.  The Rancher has already said that it will work out great to check the cows and check me all at the same time.  That comment only got him a swift kick in the pants!

We are delighted to have a another little cowBOY on the way, something that The Rancher’s Sidekick has known from the beginning.  Before we even knew pink or blue he was telling everyone that he was going to have a new baby brother.  The Ranch Princess is loving the prospect of a baby around the house and tells me everyday that my tummy is getting BIG.  Thanks…. The Rancher is excited too, but I see it only through his comments of me being in good shape for calving or that he will be sure to bring the chains along the way to the hospital, just in case.  And of course I am excited, and terrified all at the same time.  What if The Rancher is in the middle of pulling a calf when I need to go?  Who is going to do night calving while we are at the hospital?  What if he gets stuck in Locomotive were I can’t call him?  Ya know, normal pregnant wife concerns…. When I try to get some answers out of my cowboy, he just says that I don’t really need him anyway and it will all work out. 

He is right, it will all work out… Somehow it will all workout…

2016 Cowboy Calendar

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Life has ben crazy but I still couldn’t NOT make a few calendars!  After having a few years of calendar making under my belt it really didn’t take too much to put these together and I just love how they turned out. 

And now after my yeas of wisdom, I have found a new printer where I have been able to SIGNIFICANTLY drop the prices!  Now you can get a 2016 Cowboy Calendar for on $8.49.  If you are interested, email, comment on this post or message me on Facebook and I will get your order in!

A Family Cattledrive

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Oh boy was this a crazy summer!  With all the ropings, family events, community activities, and building a house we were running in every direction.  To help things out, the cows decided they didn’t need much moving for the summer.  For real… Between the field rotation we were on and the rains it seemed we hardly had to move the cows.  The unfortunate thing about that was that I didn’t have many opportunities to ride with the guys or take any photos. 

On the one chance I had to saddle up, the whole family got to tag along.  We really weren’t even moving to new field, just pushing the cows to a different trough.  So even though it wasn’t too much of a ride, it was perfectly short enough that we knew they would last and have a great time.  We have my old horse from when I was a kid that The Rancher’s Sidekick has claimed.  And the Ranch Princess bounced around between me, Rancher Sr., Cowboy E, and The Rancher.  It might not have been much, but we made a few good memories.

Ag in Your County Promotions!

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Ag promoting has become a big part of my family- my dad, brothers, me…  We all love the life and want to share what we have!  My brother works on his Farm Bureau board in Salmon had a fun opportunity to do a little ag promoting at his fair.

Their board had seen posters with farming/ranching photos with a some facts relating to agriculture as a whole.  My brother’s wanted to put up something similar at their fair, but more specifically they wanted to spread a few facts about their county.  They thought about using the generic posters for the sake of ease and that they were already available, but my brother said he knew a photographer that might be able to help out…

Then he called me.

And I said yes!  I love this stuff!  I love spreading the word, creating posters, using my photos… ALL OF IT!  The one hitch was that it was the week before my fair and I was already pulling my hair out getting everything ready.  (Ya know, they ask the young naive ones to be on the fair board before they know how crazy it REALLY is.)  But I didn’t want to miss out on this fun chance so I packed up my stuff and found a corner at the fair to pull together these posters!

My brother did the hard work of picking the photos and the wording.  I got the fun part of throwing it all together however I wanted.  In my opinion, they turned out great!  And it sounded like a lot of people at the fair loved them too.  I should actually say men instead of people, because they were the only ones to see them.  Unless some lady decided she needed to use the men’s bathroom…

About Me

Hello! I'm Allison, The Rancher's Wife! There's nothing I love more than being out on the ranch with my husband and kids. Join me for a look at what goes on here at the ranch and the life being a rancher's wife!

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