Any self-respecting ranch blog should mention a game we played over the
holidays. It’s called The Game of Things.
Each card is a prompt: “things that are bumpy,” “things you never told your
parents,” “things you don’t want to find under the couch,” etc. Then everyone
writes a secret response and we try to guess who wrote what. We laughed a lot. One prompt said, “things you don’t want to hear in the middle of the night.”
Three of us answered, “the cows are out.” Interestingly it was from three women, one
from each generation, Anita, me and Anna. Hmmmm.
I love the clean slate of a new year. What will 2020
hold? Last year, 2019, was a big year for our family. Seth got married, Anna
got engaged and finished her master's degree, Callie’s restorative exercise business took off. Mark and I took on
interests on and off the ranch. These years are precious – as is every year, but
turning 60 in 2019 brought the passage of time into focus for me and I’m more stingy
of how I spend it. Well, maybe stingy is a poor way to describe it. Let’s
say I’m more “generous” to the efforts I value the most, and more “mindful” of the
rest.
Winter is the only chance we get to dig into our ranch
finances. We’re trying to figure costs per cow right now. A large whiteboard
leans against the piano in our living room with expense categories on the left
and dollars on the right. The board stares at us as we linger over coffee in
the morning. I’m very visual, and looking at the figures over a few days helps me grasp the total picture. Plus,
these costs aren't straightforward. They take focused thinking to analyze.
We’ve been moving and sorting cows and calves, getting them
set up for winter feeding. We fed our first load of hay on New Year’s Day. Of course
we’d rather graze year round, but there’s something comforting about knowing feed for the herd comes from the stackyard for awhile. The chores don't change much from day
to day until calving starts. Unless we get severe weather and Mark needs to
push snow, this time of year gives us some mental bandwidth to consider other
ranch parameters.
Anna brought a friend to visit the ranch who was taking her
Christmas break from the military. Taylor flies helicopters which sounds pretty
exciting, but she thought a ranch stay might be an interesting interlude. After
feeding three loads of hay one morning, the young women stopped by the corral to give Penny a pet. Penny was born prematurely and we had to help her stand and nurse for several weeks. She didn't have enough hair to keep her warm so she wore a second hand sweater. She's all grown up now with a calf of
her own, but she’s still as gentle as can be. We call her “Old Pen.”
When we feed, Mark shows me cows that I’ve featured
in my blog. I’ve forgotten them but he remembers each one. The one that calved early
as a heifer over to the Pease place in 2013, number X14, stands out because she’s
always in the lead and likes to scratch on the big bales on the truck as we
enter the feed ground. V7 is a Hereford that I blogged about when Mark was
tagging calves one spring. Apparently I engraved the tag on the wrong side
because it’s backwards now. You can tell who she is, just get behind her!
The rhythm of a ranch goes on. Past the first snowfall and
the last snowfall. Past Christmas festivities, and on into future planning. Cows
that cycle through our herd bearing calves year after year and then aging out. A brand new year reminds me of what Gary says about ranching, "it’s a good life if you don’t weaken.”
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| 101 year old barn |
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| Taylor and "Old Pen" |
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| Too funny |
"The rhythm of the ranch goes on." Perfect. The rhythm does go on. Your writing inspires me to write!
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