Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Back to School

We’re on vacation. Well, not really. The weather is so mild it just feels like a vacation. Last year during January we were chaining up to feed in the morning and pushing snow most afternoons. The bales on the outside of the stack were frozen and had to be chopped apart by hand. This year the sun is out and the days are beautiful. Too beautiful if your summer depends on snowpack in the mountains, but we’ll worry about that in due time.   

A rancher deserves to hibernate for a few weeks in the dead of winter. It’s nice to get a break when the grass isn’t growing; the weeds aren’t rushing to set seed. No sprinkling the lawn. The garden is asleep. The canals are empty and the calves are nestled snugly inside the cows.

It’s the time of year when a rancher goes to school. We’ve been attending a few gatherings to sharpen our skills in range management and cattle handling, and we’ll meet with our beef marketing cooperative, Country Natural Beef, next week in the big city of Portland.

Today we attended a dog clinic taught by Jack Knox, originally from Scotland, and now living in Butler, Missouri. He taught his first clinic on the ranch when Seth was only 3 years old so his methods have influenced the way we handle dogs for over 20 years. Jack still speaks with a heavy Scot brogue and admonishes us, “let your dog work!” He says we're too busy trying to control our dogs. “Don’t look for what she does right, look for what she needs help with and help her. This is how you build trust in a dog.”

Jack is a master stockman. His voice, brogue or not, connects with the dogs immediately and they respond to him one by one throughout the two day clinic as we owner-handlers struggle to understand and emulate. I try, but sometimes the connection he has with the dogs is so deep, so enigmatic, I just sit back in wonder.

Jack emphasizes the livestock, which is great to hear if your livelihood comes from cows. Yes, the training is all about the dogs, but livestock are the reason. Keeping stock calm, using position rather than “bite” to guide them where we want them to go is the goal. Lots of people train to win dog trial competitions instead of training dogs to work livestock calmly. Jack says we can all be winners if we apply his principles.

According to Jack, the typical rancher gets about 30% out of his or her dog’s potential. What could we do with the other 70%? It’s fun to think about and with six ranch dogs in the clinic, we’ll have a fresh start at it in the spring. 


Leah with Dot doling out hay


Seth and Jack with Elsa and Dot


Learning to ride hay bales and building confidence





Wednesday, January 3, 2018

A Year at a Time

And so the New Year begins.

We’re feeding cows every morning and finding a kind of reassurance in it. We know how to do this. Spread the bales out so everyone gets their share, include lots of straw for energy when it’s cold, break the ice on the troughs so the cows get a good drink, then reload for morning. 

The New Year always brings up reflections of where we stand, where we’ve been and where we’re going. It’s time to take a breath and reevaluate our lives. Big questions like estate planning and how to provide for a multigenerational family business always come up this time of year.

Family businesses can be the most difficult to navigate. Is it really a business if you gather up the kids who’ve come home for the holidays and feed cows on Christmas morning?

I composed a set of questions to give to all the members of our family ranch. Easy questions – well most of them were easy. I meant them for personal reflection, but to hopefully share with our spouses or with other family members if we choose. What gives me joy as I go about my daily life? What did my parents do that I want to emulate? What role do I play on the ranch today and what are my fears regarding my role here in the future?

The last question was the tough one. Tough for all three generations. For each person or couple, much of the answer depends on what the other two generations decide. We’re intertwined in many ways so unraveling it is a challenge.

My hope is that whatever we do, we do with clear intention. I trust the intent of each one of us, and to be diligent in our actions to meet that intent is all we can really offer to one another. And that’s enough.


The cows are in two bunches, older and younger


the ranch in holiday dressing



lots of New Years since this was used



a practically perfect Christmas morning