Blog - The Idaho Rancher's Wife

Fall in Less Than 50… um 500… um 660

March 15, 2018 by Allison

This post has been a long time coming. One because its about fall of 2017… which was a long time ago. I mean it feels like it was just yesterday-ish… ok maybe more like last week, but certainly not MONTHS and most definitely not LAST YEAR. But it was… You may be thinking, “Allison… let it go! It was so long ago, don’t take us back. Move on!” But guess what? I’m the one with the password to be writing here and I love the photos from last fall so… boom… I’m posting.

Its also a long time coming because, man, it has taken me so long to get it all together and edited and play mom… but here it is.

I say that, and it sounds like this is going to be super fancy or exciting or crazy. And its not. I mean its nice and a fun look at our fall in its nearly comprehensiveness, but its not life changing or anything. Just a look at our crazy, beautiful life (in the fall, of course!).

The fall work officially kicks off when the cattle come in from the summer range in Cow Hollow to the fall range in the Bowis fields. Just before their hit the final destination, they take a pit stop at the Stocker Corrals (not stalker… even though sometimes I write that instead… sounds creepy in steady of beefy, livestocky…) to sort off any bulls or any cattle that don’t belong with the herd. Mom life keeps me from getting head out with the crew to gather first thing in the morning, but my posse and I meet up with everyone at the corrals and get our fill in the rest of the day. This is the same place that went to last year and got lost along the way. Surprised? Anyone?

Once the cattle are moved to fall range, we get to the “fall work”. We start by weaning off the calves and brining them home. We have 3 main groups that we have to wean. Each group has a day of gathering, sorting the calves off, and sorting calves between the different ranches. After having the calves home a few days, we run the calves through the chute to vaccinate, retag, and do a wellness look over them. Then we start all over with the next group. Eventually we kick all the calves out in the alfalfa field to eat down our 3rd crop.

October is prime preg-checking time. With so many cows that we run with, it take several days to get it all done. Of course, the work is sweetened with load of candy, donuts, and great range dinners. I think these guys like the long days working together and teasing the man that happens to make a mistake. The inside jokes and stories can keep ’em laughing all day long. Of course, its all kept a little interesting with the feisty, ornery cows that have been penned up for a few days.

We always do a little trucking in the fall too and I’m pretty sure that the whole reason we keep doing it is for the view. OK, not really. But getting a scenic drive up Logan Canyon as the colors are at their peak would be reason enough for me! I always try to get at least one run with The Rancher up there to take in the colors as well as snap some photos of the cowboy life in canyon.

Fall work ends with a bang when we ship the calves. This is more than the culmination of the season but of the YEAR! We work day after day throughout the year for this one day that we finally get our paycheck. We need to keep all the calves alive, healthy, and heavy to have a profitable year. 2017 didn’t disappoint with its ups and downs but we lived, learned, and earned enough to make it to another year.

Calves on the Ground

February 28, 2018 by Allison

Calving 2018 is well under way here at Eliason Livestock! The few weeks before we start calving, I get all sorts of excited and just long for those cute, cuddly babies to be born. There is just something so exciting about new babies! Everything from their wispy tails to their soft noses to their wobbly legs screams “SNUGGLE ME!”

Of course their mommas are sitting behind them, snorting up a storm saying, “Get back before I eat you alive!”

Its not really like that. Too often at least. And in some regards, we like it when mommas are protective. Its their instincts teaching them how to mother and protect their calves. Them being a little feisty is better than them ignoring their calves completely!

For the longest time, we thought that we would be calving in the most ideal weather. January couldn’t’ have been more perfect- warm (ish… for Idaho at least), no wind, no rain or snow… But good things never last, especially when it comes to weather. Within a week of our first calf hitting the ground, we’ve had storms roll in, temperatures hit the single digits, and the wind blowing like it was going out of style.

So what do we do for the cold?

The Rancher takes a lot of time to prepare the pen that the heifers calve in. The pen itself is on a large hill which is so great for naturally protecting mommas and babies from the wind. On top of that, the guys push the dirt and poop around to make hills for additional wind breaks. Right up against the breaks and in a few other places throughout the pen, they put out straw for a dry warm place to snuggle down into. Then to top it all off, we have a few calf sheds that are a perfect nursery to keep the calves warm and dry.

So long as it is dry, we can do a darn good job at keeping the calves warm. We only really have to worry about them getting cold in the first few hours after birth. Naturally, those babies are wet when they come out. So naturally, they are going to get cold. Of course, their mommas help them get warm as they clean them up. A belly of warm milk goes a long way too, to getting warm from the inside out.

Once in a while, those things just aren’t enough to keep a baby warm. So we go in and scoop that baby up to bring it into the warmer. Its amazing how just a few hours in the warmer can perk a calf right up!

Calving in the winter is hard but we hope for the best and plan for the worst. Instead of waiting for the bad to happen, we try to be prepared and proactive to give our calves the best chance possible. And then we watch and hope and pray that we can make up the difference when it just isn’t enough.

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.

Why a Rancher Goes to College

January 24, 2018 by Allison

We just got done with an awesome weekend with the whole family. Nothing big. Just some good food, some game time, and our favorite people. Three of The Rancher’s brothers are in college right now and coming home to the ranch is their quick breath of fresh air and their means for rejuvenation before the next week of school. I totally get the need to take a break and come up for air after so many deadlines nagging at you over and over again. Over the weekend we heard all sorts of “I gotta study for this big test…” or “I have this huge assignment coming up…” and it almost sorta, kinda took me back to the days that The Rancher and I were in school.

I had two different college experiences in the quest for my degree. The first was when I was single and living my own dream and all that was on my schedule was a little bit of school, a little bit of work, a little bit of homework, and a lot of sports games. That was my life. Oh, and trying to get into nursing school… Then I got married, moved and started a new university experience. I didn’t have an apartment of girls that I had to share the bathroom space with anymore, but I had a man that needed real food, that I had to negotiate who got the car with and that I was building a life and sharing a dream with.

It was awesome.

It was hard.

The Rancher is not a sit-down-read-the-text-book-to-learn kind of kid. There might have even been some classes that he didn’t even open his book up, let alone learn from it. He is hands on, learn as you go, trial and error kind of learning guy. He learns fast and can see so quickly how to get from A to B. But sitting in a classroom just drained the life out of him.

There were a lot of times that I heard people say, “Why is he going to school if he is just going back to the ranch? He isn’t even going to use his degree anyway. Its just a piece of paper.” And when I hear those words, my blood starts to boil.

Yes, my husband was very VERY lucky that he had a job waiting for him the day he finished college. The job he had dreamed of having his whole life. He didn’t have to do scores of applications and interviews. He was qualified for the job by his experience long before ever finishing his degree. But that doesn’t mean that his college experience wasn’t a valuable asset for him as he returned to the ranch.

Here’s why.

When a grad walks away from college, we like to think it was only worthwhile if they got a job in their field or if they are able to make money using the skills and knowledge that they gained. If not then their experience was a total waste. In The Rancher’s case, it would seem that he already knew everything he would need to know to cowboy, so what was the sense in spending all that time and money on math classes and literature classes that he would never use anyway? And of course everything they would teach him in his ag classes were things that he should already know or he wouldn’t need to use. Right? It was just as wasteful as someone that went to a trade school or did an apprenticeship but changed course after getting done. Its wasted money and time if the girl that went to beauty school doesn’t open up a salon the week after she is certified or if the boy that went for diesel mechanics doesn’t end up working on trucks. Right?

Wrong!

I get that getting degrees and certificates and those kind of things cost money. I also get that we feel that there needs to be a return on that investment that is deemed worth such an investment. But the future potential income ISN’T the only returns from going to college.

There are so many life skills learned while going to college from the little things of doing laundry to learning how to problem solve from some crazy math (I will NEVER forgot the ah-ha moment I had mid-math class when I figured out the most complex problem… Never…) . Not to mention learning how to meet deadlines and pushing through to the end when you don’t want to.

You also gain an amazing network of friends and professionals in your area of study. They are the people you can work with, lean on and learn from. They push you to be better, help pick you up when you fall, and encourage you to try again. These people are so invaluable!

Taking time to step back from the ranch to learn from other people, their experiences and knowledge widens what can be a narrow view. You learn different ways, other ways, possibly better ways to work in the same industry.
If you ask The Rancher, a boy that spent all of his growing up time on the ranch, he will immediately tell you that he uses things that he learned from his classes. Especially his ag classes. Could he still ranch and cowboy without what he learned? Probably. Is he better at doing what he loves because of it? Absolutely.

The Rancher pushed through school because we both felt it was important to him. Not just for the things he learned, but for him to accomplish something that was hard, something that he thought he wasn’t made to do. We also thought it was important for the day that he may ever have to look for a job. Our dream was always to come back to the ranch, but what if that didn’t happen? What if it took years for that? What if at some point he had to look for other work? Having a degree made him marketable. It was a safety net that we needed for our family.

I am a big proponent of getting an education, ANY education you can. Because it is there that people gain valuable experience and confidence, gain life skills, net work, and find what they do and don’t want to do with their lives. You might think that this is an expensive cost to learn what they don’t want, but gaining an education is priceless. No matter what you are learning. It can be simply that you don’t ever want to be the prescribing rations of feed supplements. It could be that you learn how interested you are in genetics.

Not everyone is made for college or trade school or an apprenticeship. But everyone is made for learning. There is a whole world out there waiting to teach us is only we are ready to learn. So don’t ever think that because you or someone you know wants to cowboy or be a rancher that they don’t need to go to college or that they shouldn’t waste their time on college. Because it isn’t wasted time. Its invested time. Support them and their want to learn, their want to do something hard. They are probably going to complain or even regret it while in the thick of it all. But when it is all over, they will tell you it was worth it!

Cows on the Move

January 17, 2018 by Allison

All the cows are home. Well, all the cows that are coming home at home. I’m like a momma hen with all chicks tucked under her wings. Ha! No… I don’t feel the need to have them all close under wing and my watchful eye. They are probably going to get out and make for more work for me. Hey honey, lets get them kicked back out ASAP, ok!

We brought the last of the girls home a week ago. On our anniversary, in fact. What better way could we have spent our anniversary than chasing cows?! They actually moved super well, which was kinda surprising. Remember a few years ago when it was kinda a disaster? I was busy reading stories to The Ranch Princess when The Rancher walked in and said my favorite words, “Are ya busy? Can you come help?” Even if I am busy, YES, of course I am going to help!

My job was simple- wait and turn the cattle onto the road and then follow in the truck and trailer. I was more than willing for that job because it was a very cold very foggy and rainy day.

You may be surprised to see the guys heading out on 4 wheelers when I mentioned that we had the truck and trailer. This is how we cowboys in Holbrook roll.. Haha! Actually, the debate of taking horses or 4 wheelers or motorcycles can get pretty hot between the brothers. All in good fun of course! Right? I guess a lot of that has to do with perspective. The Rancher, whose every day job is to get the work done, is all about efficiency. If there is a lot of cows to move or gather over a lot of ground, he may pull out the motorbike. Then there is the opinion that what’s the point in moving cows if you don’t ride a horse… That’s half of the greatness of ranching- work that REQUIRES you to ride a horse. Which is pretty much the best kind of work. Because it isn’t work. It’s play. Both opinions have valid points…

I’ll admit, that while I love any chance to get on a horse, there are those times that 4wheelers are just more convenient. Especially when that may be the only way that I can come along. A whole other OTHER perspective on this intense debate.

I cornered The Rancher and had him spell it out for me on how he decides if he loads up the horses or the 4wheelers.

The guys like to take horses as often as possible. They can get anywhere a cow goes, especially those rangy places. It means that we can rope and doctor anything we see, rather than having to come back to take care of it later. And of course, it satisfies a cowboy’s soul to sit up in the saddle in harmony with his horse.

So when do we take 4wheelers? We usually pull them out when its a quick push down the road and it would take almost as much time to get the horses in and saddled as it would to move the cows. (ok, it doesn’t really take that long to get the horses out, but you get the idea…) But you can see how it might not be worth getting them ready for just a little jaunt down the road.

It seems that the times The Rancher rides the 4 wheeler or motorbike the most is when there is a lot of territory to cover and not a lot of man power. I see this mostly the days where they are bringing the cows in off the range than just trailing them down the road. Or if he is out checking the herd during calving season.

A few years ago we had a really hard winter. Really hard. Acutally, we have had several hard winters over the last few years. But the year I’m thinking of was hard in the midst of calving. It was so important for us to be able to get around the cattle quickly so that if there were any calves that needed help, mostly helping get warm, we could get to them before it was too late. We didn’t hardly lose a calf to the cold and I think the biggest deal was getting around fast.

Where do you stand on this issue? Because it is super important… I know some guys that at more on the rancher end than the cowboy end and they do 4wheelers only. I know another guy that likes to use horses because they will do less damage to grasses and feed. And I even know another ranch that they don’t use horses or 4wheelers… They walk. As much as they can they like to do it all on foot. They aren’t too horse savvy to use horses but they are also concerned on the impact of 4wheelers.

Do you have an opinion? I want to know what you do at your ranch! Because… I’m a curious creature, and even though we all do the same thing- ranching, we all do it differently. But however you do it, keep doing it. 4Wheelers or horses, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we all find our own BEST way to get the work done. Be your best and rock on!

Until next time!
The Rancher’s Wife

Trailing the Cows Home: If Only We Can Find the Gate…

January 12, 2018 by Allison

Its definitely winter here on the ranch. Not because it is cold and snowy, because it has actually been warm (relatively) and rainy. I’m saying its winter time on the ranch because the cows are here and The Rancher is officially feeding every morning. Slowly over the last 2 weeks we have trailed and hauled cows home, starting with the group up in Quaken Asp.

Quaken Asp is some of private ground in the mountains past our home where we pasture the cows in the fall. Its a favorite of our family’s- a place where we go up for a 4 wheeler rides, hunting, an evening drive… you name it, we do it up there. In fact, The Rancher proposed to me up there. Yep, I love it up there. When The Rancher announced that it was the day to bring the cows home from there, I immediately asked if I could come along too. I would say it was 50% me wanting to go for a ride, 30% that I needed get out of the house and do something, and a strong 20% that needed some quality time in a place that I loved.

Luckily for me, I managed to upgrade my ride from the gator, which I always plan to take because it lets me take all my little people and manage to take photos off the trail, to my horse! The Ranch Boss, my father-in-law, had shoulder surgery a few months ago and the thought of something going wrong and him coming off his horse was enough to make him call dibs on the gator. At first I thought that meant I was destined to stay home or to sit in the truck and wait. But, because I am his favorite daughter-in-law, The Ranch Boss volunteered to take my kids with him and I was free to saddle up and go.

Once we got up the mountain, it didn’t take long for us to realize that the cows were going to be difficult to bring home. We rode to the very edges and corners of the field and only gathered up a small portion of the herd. As cows do, they had managed to tear the fence down in a few places and meander far, FAR away. And not only they were few and far between, but they were also belligerent and stubborn and wouldn’t move. They would sit in the trees, head up the mountain, and no matter what we did, turn tail and run.

Ya wanna here just how stupid and ignorant and frustrating these cows were? Ok, it wasn’t the worst move we have ever done, but still frustrating.

There were four cows that I found in the bottoms, stopped in a groves of trees. Calling them trees is kinda pushing it… It was more like a bunch of overgrown bushes that left no room for a horse to move around but apparently enough for a cow to wiggle under. And there was no amount of whooping and whistling that was moving these cows. I tried coming at them from every direction and something worked because eventually they started moving (I guess I am scary… BOOM!) Of course they don’t take the easy way down and jump in with the rest of the herd but they decide to go further up the mountain, through even more brush. About this time The Rancher rides in and he followed them up and over while I kept looking for others in the rest of the brush.

Things were going pretty ok, but we could see handfuls of cows that still needed gathered in. The Rancher and Cowboy E headed out to gather in whatever they could find, while I grabbed those four cows and kept pushing them. I actually didn’t have to push all that much because they were moving plenty fast on their own. Unfortunately they kept going further and further up the mountain and away from the herd. I would get the leader stopped and headed back down just to see one take off another way. This happened over and over again. Where was a good ranch dog when I needed him?

We were headed in the same general direction as the herd and I knew that we would come out just fine, so I opted to stop fighting those old girls and just see where they were taking us. I knew that other cowboys were on the same side of the mountain as we were and that in reality, if I needed help, I could leave the cows and things would be ok. But, being the good cowgirl that I am (or at least pretend to be), I just kept going. One of the best pieces of advice I ever learned when I first trailed cows was to let them take the lead. They knew the range better than I did so it was likely that they knew the best way out. I was hoping that this little bit of advice wasn’t about to fail me. After moving for a long for a while, I start to see more and more cows. Apparently this group all had the same idea to head for the same corner of field, not realizing that they had passed up the better route of going through the bottoms. About that same time, I see Cowboy Pete push a few more cows in my direction and turn around to head for more so I figured I would just take this group and move on down. We started following the fence, assuming that it would take us to the road and out. But I started to look where the fence headed and all I see are corners.

Who builds a fence with 12 hundred corners in it?! Ok… I know that the where and how the fence goes depends on a lot of different things, but still… I mean, if I kept following the fence, where was I gonna end up. I didn’t bring my map of the range so… I called The Rancher instead. He informed me that occasionally they just take the fence down and make their own gate… Oh. Make my own gate. I can do that. I rode up ahead of the cows and took the wires down. Just then The Ranch Boss called me to explain that I needed to turn the cows around, that there is a gate at the corner already opened. Ya know, the gate that we had passed already. He said it was an easier ride out so, I turned those cows around. And went back to where we had started.

No gates to be found… I might have grumbled a little.

And then we turned around again and headed for the place I knew I could get out, make-shift gate I had torn down. And that is when I saw it. A gate. Hidden in a sort-of corner (as opposed to a nice square corner) that we had passed. Over and over again… These blasted cows, that have been on this mountain year after year, head straight for the gate that THEY want to go out, and then MISS it altogether! Gah! If I was a cursing woman, I would have used all sorts of obscenities but… I held my tongue. And those crazy girls redeemed themselves by sticking to trail for the rest of the ride home.

Mostly…

Until the next ride!

The Rancher’s Wife

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

Christmas for a Rancher

December 12, 2017 by Allison

I am a big fan of Christmas! BIG FAN! I love everything about it- the tree and ALL decorations, the gift wrapping, the baking, the music, the snow, the hot chocolate… ALL of it! Except all the crazy shopping. I do admit that my anxiety reaches an all time high when I am shopping and there are 12 other people looking over my shoulder trying to find tooth brushes too. Ok, it was only 5, but still… CRAZY!

Shopping is especially stressful if I don’t know even what to get someone, especially The Rancher. I can pick out Barbie’s and tractors with the best of the best. I know my toys. But I have those moments of total blank-ness (yep, made that word up… Merry Christmas!) when my blonde hair sinks deep in the midst of a brain fart and nothing comes to mind to put under the tree for my cowboy. That’s when I wander the isles aimlessly hoping something will jump out at me to give him.

Obviously the smart thing to do is to ask him what he wants for Christmas. I do. And he doesn’t answer me. Or he says, “I don’t need anything. Spend it all on the kids.” So sweet and noble, right? But I know deep down inside that there is still a little boy inside that wants something exciting for Christmas too! Should I resort to filling his stocking with tractors too? I mean, there should be something besides socks in there, right? Anyone else in this boat with me?

Actually, this year… I got a list. Well, sort of a list. It was a list of all things that he likes. Not quite what I was hoping for but its definitely a start. Ya know, for those moments that nothing comes to mind as I’m staring at the shelves with an empty cart. (More likely when I am searching amazon with an empty cart and nothing coming to mind…) I thought I would share The List for any others that sometimes need a jump start for a cowboy. This list is certainly not totally encompassing and lets be honest, shopping from this list could really empty out the penny jar. But, in the case where a girl just doesn’t know what to get her cowboy, this might just get you through.

A cowboy hat– They can never have enough. Ever. Just when I think he is good, its time for a new one. And there are so many kinds you can have and they need to have them ALL.

Horse tack- Sometimes I feel bad getting him tack because that seems like work stuff. I try to be a little more original than that. So that’s when I get maybe a little fancier bit. Make it seem like more than just ‘work stuff.’

Clothes- The Rancher can go through work shirts and jeans like candy. Barbed wire, pocket knives, oil stains, poop… It is all hard on his clothes and a wardrobe upgrade is always welcome.

Boots- He teases me about how many shoes I have, but does he really need so many boots? Yes, he really does and there is always room for more!

Tools- Whether it is a new Leatherman or knife or wrenches or whatever, more is certainly merrier. Because tools get lost all. the. time!

Cowboy gear- What cowboy doesn’t want a new pair of chaps or a new work coat or wild rag or gloves? It may seem like a boring gift but they will put a smile on their face for sure!

Gun- Guns and ammo are always good. Yep.

Then there is always the list like- a new custom saddle, a new truck, a new trailer, a new horse…. the dreamer list. If you can shop the dreamer list you have made their Christmas for sure! I haven’t made that yep but someday… maybe…

Now that I have shared a few ideas to get you through some cowboy Christmas shopping, what are you getting your cowboys? What do you want for Christmas? Merry Christmas, Friends!

Thankful for the Moments

November 25, 2017 by Allison

Happy Thanksgiving! Wasn’t it a terrific day yesterday? A day full of eating and family and eating and sleeping and eating and fun! Actually, I don’t think I got an-after-lunch-nap but that’s ok.

I like my Thanksgivings best when its steeped in tradition and intentional. We can eat a turkey any day and we can over-indulge whenever we want, but to be really be Thanksgiving, this day has to be more than that.

My mom has a tradition every Thanksgiving. Its simple. Its easy. But it helps me keep Thanksgiving more than just a day about eating.

Every year my mom pulls out her hand drawn thankful turkey and carefully puts it on the wall. To begin with he looks a little sad, so bare because he doesn’t have any feathers yet. But as the days surrounding Thanksgiving pass, he is filled with colorful feathers inscribed with the blessings that we are most grateful for. Some of them say “family.” Some of them say “God.” Some of them say “my blankie.” And some of them even say, “my hot wife!” They aren’t elaborate or fancy, but they are true, heartfelt things we are grateful for.

For this first time ever, I struggled to know what to write. Not because I wasn’t grateful, but because I was so grateful for so many things I just didn’t know what to pick. We have been blessed with a beautiful home in a place that we get do what we love to do. We are constantly surrounded by good friends and family. We have so many opportunities to learn, to serve, and to grow. And while our year was so full, it was so full of blessings! I just didn’t know what to write.

As I sat there trying to decide what to put on my empty thankful feather I began to think back through this year and all the things we had done and I began to realize that what I treasure most are the moments. Those special moments you breath in deep because you know just how fleeting they can be. Those moments you pause to take it all in so you can remember the sounds and smells that wrap around you. Those moments that seem to make a place deep within your soul.

Those moments came as I stood with my kids as the heavy snowflakes drifted down from a peaceful winter storm while we were building a snowman. They came as we worked in the garden, planting, weeding and watering lending to our eventual harvest. It was in the quiet that I had those special moments when I rocked my growing baby before bed. More came as we worked together as a family to fill our yard with new grass. Some of those moments were spent late at night as we talked and laughed with our brothers and sisters.

There are so many things in this life that I wish we could have or that I could give to my family. We fill our lives with things or with moments and if I had to choose what my kids filled their lives with, it would be these moments. More than anything, I hope that they hang on to them. That they cherish them. Because all of the things that they have will slip away, but these moments are for them to keep forever.

There was no better thing for me to be thankful and to put on my feather than “the moments.” What are you thankful for in this season of gratitude? There are no wrong answers because being grateful is so much more important than what we are grateful for. If you haven’t, take a minute and look through your life and find those things that bless your life.

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends!

From a very grateful Rancher’s Wife

The Idaho Rancher’s Wife Braves the Stage

November 17, 2017 by Allison

True to my word, here I am, telling you about my experience speaking at the ICA Annual Convention. I’m still in shock that people wanted to hear from me and ask questions about what I do. I’m also a little in shock that I am posting twice in one week! Maybe this can become a regular thing….

Tuesday I was part of a panel to speak on different forms of advocacy and just briefly describe the how’s and why’s of doing it. Speaking out about ranching and trying to connect with people is become really important these days. It is easy to become disconnected from the things that keep our world running whether it is knowing where our food is coming from or how the plumbing in our homes work.

While I was there to talk about how I reach out through blogging, there was another woman, Cheyenne Smith, there to speak on how she is apart of the ranching and beef conversation through twitter. I was really impressed how she wants people to care about us as ranchers and as people providing food for families. By sharing the tidbits from her everyday life, she helps people really see what ranching is like. If you are tweeter (is that even a thing?), go find her @JLazySAngus. Not only does she have great insight to ranching, but she has a great network to be a part of.

The other presenter on our panel was Matt Brechwald and how he goes about advocating really impressed me. A little back story… After college, he ended up living and working in the city. Eventually, he realized that he was not happy with where is life was taking him. So, he and his wife found some land that they could relocate to and start their own ranching experience. In order to make ends meet, he used his skills, machinery, and tools from the ranch to create a side job. As he was out working one day, he realized what an awesome thing he had been able to do and how he needed to share that. He started doing podcasts, highlighting his journey to what he was doing and how others could do it too. To find more about his story and his podcasts you can go to his site at www.offincome.com.

It was really a great experience sharing the mic with these people and helping to share the importance of advocacy, why we love it and how others can do it too. I’ll admit, I was so nervous to begin with. And through most of it… In fact, there was one point that the moderator asked me a question and I was in the middle of answering it with one of my stories. And all the sudden I realized I couldn’t remember what I had been saying and couldn’t even remember where I was going with it. Haha… You can laugh at me… I am! Once we were done with our two 25 minute session I was finally relaxed enough that I felt ready to start. Pretty unfortunate that it was all over, huh?

You are probably thinking that I am last person that should be telling other people to get out there blogging because I struggle in this realm myself. I can be inconsistent and unreliable, and that is a hard pill to swallow. But yesterday I realized that what I do have is that I keep coming back to it. This experience may have been more important to me that for anyone else because it reminded me why I do this. And maybe now I have recommitted myself with new a new drive and hope for what I can do here in this space to reach out and advocate for something I believe in so strongly!