Category Archives: Photography

A lingering look at life

Ranch Wife Musings | The Need to be Needed

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, Photography

Originally published in the Custer County Chronicle on May 21, 2025

The month of May goes by in a whirlwind of fun and hard work, and there is much rejoicing when the last cow calves and the last calf is branded. The nonstop chaos of calving and branding is followed by the shortest of lulls, before the summer settles into its routine. A thousand prayers for rain have been followed up by a thousand thanks, as we’ve emptied the rain gauge not of tenths or hundredths of an inch, but inches. Whole inches. Inches of slow rain that was actually able to soak into the ground where it will do the most good. We aren’t likely to get a hay crop this year, or not much of one, but we should be able to grow grass, and that is huge.

One season blends and blurs into the next, but it is this spring season that is the highlight for many. After months of winter solitude, branding season feels like a family reunion but without the drama, with all the hugs and handshakes, laughter and jokes, stories and community gossip, finding out all the goings on and the comings up, the graduations and babies and engagements and lives well-lived.

And it is in the chaos of spring work that the ranching community shines as exactly that – a community. We branded our main herd on Saturday, an endeavor that is humbling in its scope, humbling in how many people it takes to actually get the job done, humbling to see how many are willing to help in any way they can. Brandings are like that.

As I handed out hot coffee at our mid-morning break, I was able to study the faces, some smiling, some serious, and all the different walks of life they represent. There are the cowboy ranchers, the true-blue, western-through-and-through, how-my-grandpa-did-it type. There are the dirt bikes and four-wheelers, we-can-do-this-faster type. There are the button-front shirt and cowboy-hat-wearing crowd, and the sweatshirt and ballcap wearing crowd. There are the ones with spurs jingling on costly boots, and those wearing comfortable and well-worn tennis shoes. There are the tobacco chewing ones and the straighter-than-straight-laced ones. There are the beer drinkers and the tea totallers. The coffee drinkers and the water drinkers. There are the ones who know cows as well as they know their kids, and ones who know horses and ropes but cows, not so much. There are those who grew up doing this, and those who learned along the way, and those who simply show up for the work, for the fun and the challenge and the sense of community.

And with all the differences, all the variety, the work is seamless. The fellowship is sweet. And none of those categories matter to anyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re wrestling or roping, branding or cutting, vaccinating or watching the gate, everyone jumps in to get the work done. Although some who come do get help in return with their brandings or cow work, the only repayment many want is a good meal at the end – and we do a good meal, if I do say so myself – and the satisfaction of a job well done, stories swapped, laughs shared, and for them that is plenty. And they’d do it again in a heartbeat.

What is it about agriculture, ranching in particular, that invites this? Or creates this? What is it about ranch work that brings out the best in so many, and fosters an enthusiasm for someone else’s work? When I look at other sectors of society, I’m puzzled and even disenchanted. Even sectors of society where lip service is paid to the importance of community are lacking significantly in this department. I see organizations struggling to recruit involvement from more than the barest percentage of people, and their lack of community reflects this.

I think one factor, maybe the most important factor, is need. Genuine need. Acknowledged need. Ranching families know that they can’t do it alone. They don’t have the luxury to hand-pick those who agree with them or look just like them or never irritate or annoy. They need this neighbor and that neighbor, even the neighbor who might think differently about this issue or that issue, or the neighbor who does things differently, or the neighbor who occasionally pushes some buttons and grates on some nerves. And that neighbor needs them right back.

Could it be that we need to be needed? And we need to need others? It might be that simple.

Our culture tells us, all of us, that we’re good on our own, autonomy is the ultimate state, blaze your own trail, follow your own heart, chase your dreams with no thought to anyone else, and you don’t need anyone but yourself. And too many people have bought into this in one way or another. Connections become optional. Connections become a matter of convenience or personal preference.

Real, genuine need erases so many of those devastating societal luxuries, where connections are based on pet interests and shared hobbies, curating one’s community like a museum curator curating art. When we handpick our community, we tend to reap surface-level connections, clique-like interactions based on emotions and how well we slept and what we ate for breakfast.

But, when community is picked for you, by proximity and history and shared needs, something much deeper forms and something much more lasting is reaped, something that extends beyond brandings and cow work, something that forms the family-like structure of a resilient community.

We need to be needed. And we need to need others.

Ranch Wife Musings | A baby milk cow named Marigold

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life, Pets/Domestic/Farm Animals

Originally published in the Custer County Chronicle on March 26, 2025

“So, will your column be about a certain baby milk cow named Marigold?”

Brad has a way of poking fun through the most innocent of questions. And he knew the answer a week ago, when Marigold was born. Of course the column would feature the newest addition to Laura’s dairy operation. Silly question.

Posey calved last Wednesday, producing the prettiest little Jersey x Brown Swiss heifer, all golden brown, and rosy pink wherever her skin shows through parted hair, like along her back or the little spot on her nose. Some calves are sort of knock-kneed when they’re born, or their proportions are just a tick off. Not Marigold. She has the sweetest, brown-rimmed doe eyes, the curliest eyelashes, the floppiest ears all pink inside, and the straightest, slenderest white legs with dainty little deer-like hooves. And she’s happy! So happy. She comes literally skipping into the shed when I’m milking in the morning, prancing around merrily until she decides to nap, quite the contrast to Posey’s calf last year, a big bull calf, who just wandered around headbutting everything and knocking stuff over. This delicate critter is rather captivating.

I’ve spent a shameless amount of time sitting down on the stoop of the shed, soaking in all the springtime pleasantness and the satisfaction of seeing that beautiful little baby milk cow skip around the corrals or curl up in a puddle of sunshine. The last 9 months were spent hoping that the sexed Jersey semen would do its job, and I am basking in the exceptional outcome. And she is perfect. For me, any baby cow is cute, even the funny looking ones or the less proportionate ones. But you know a calf is particularly cute when a seasoned rancher is willing to say so. I felt very gratified and validated when it took no coaxing to get such an admission from my husband or my father-in-law.

But it isn’t just about Marigold, as much joy as she brings me. It is about community. Connection. It is about generational relationships that I feel so blessed and fortunate and humbled to have married into. And those complex topics are represented by the simple existence of this little baby milk cow.

Her mother, Posey, was a gift to me from Brad a year and a half ago, purchased from dear friends and neighbors that Brad practically grew up with. She was born on their ranch, and her mother was their long-time nurse cow, raising who knows how many bum calves. This same neighbor’s brother, the dad of one of Brad’s best childhood friends, AI’ed Posey for me last year as a belated wedding present. What a gift!

We are not islands unto ourselves, as the saying goes. Our modern, industrialized, efficient, corporatized society creates the sense of islands, isolated groups and individuals seemingly disconnected from their neighbors. We’ve created a society where we rely most heavily on people we never will know, where person is separated from person by space and perspective and interests in ways that only deepen the sense of isolation. And technology, as much benefit as it brings, as much potential for good as it has, in many ways has driven this divide, as we are no longer forced to rely on those closest to us.

But peer into the inner workings of the agricultural community and you’ll see something very different. I’m continually amazed and blessed by the interconnectedness, and it begins within the four walls of each home. I rely on Brad. He relies on me. We rely on our families. They rely on us. We all rely on our neighbors. They in turn rely on us. And on it goes.

It is especially apparent going into branding season, where the all-hands-on-deck, neighbor-helping-neighbor work is accomplished to the benefit of the whole community, as everyone sees to it that everyone’s work gets done, but it shows up more subtly as well. As the stories fly, the community gets wonderfully smaller. The excellent cattle dog that you find out was out of So-and-so’s dog. The roping horse you’re told was trained by this person. The truck bought from that person. The chaps made by this person. The saddle crafted by that person. The branding stove made by So-and-so. The barn built by So-and-so. Adventures, mishaps, and memories shared across generations, binding family to family and neighbor to neighbor.

So, I look at my rosy-golden little calf and her mama and I see a distilled-down representation of community. I see the gift of a husband to his wife in Posey. I see the connection of friend to friend, neighbor to neighbor, in Marigold herself. I see family integration and affection represented by a nurse cow who generates no pasture bill and who raises whatever calf needs a mama, regardless of its brand, in a small way benefitting everyone.

Lots of thoughts prompted by a critter so tiny.

So, I will continue to shamelessly sit and watch the sweet interactions of a mama cow and her baby, listening to the noisy nursing sounds, watching that little white-splotched tail whip back and forth, watching the bony little head thump the shapely udder, watching the merry creature skipping around in play. And be thankful for the community I get to call my own.

Ranch Wife Musings | Milk Cow Philosophizing

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life, Photography

Originally printed in the Custer County Chronicle on July 24, 2024

The joke really was on me. I have dreamed of having a dairy animal for years, and to my credit I was up front with my now husband about this well before we got married. I knew he hated goats, for the two reasons (as near as I can tell) that his grandfather hated goats, and that they climb on cars. “I promise,” I said solemnly, multiple times, actually, “I promise you will never – never ­– come home and find a goat. I make no such promise about a milk cow.” And I very faithfully kept my word, even though on multiple occasions I regretted ever making that promise.

Well, one day, a year and a half into our marriage, I got home from to find Brad gone, his horse trailer gone, and all of the horses standing innocently in the corral. I knew where Brad was—He was preg testing a neighbor’s cows, the same neighbor that had offered to let me buy his nurse cow, Posey, who had never been hand milked. My suspicions were confirmed about two nerve-wracking hours later when Brad rattled up in his pickup and unloaded a peeved and horned Brown Swiss cow from the trailer. There she was, larger than life.

Like it or not, I was now the owner of a milk cow.

The learning curve was steep, and a comedy of errors. Have you ever wondered how they milk almonds to get almond milk? That’s what it felt like. Two fingers were all that could fit on her dainty little appendages, and do you want to know how much milks out in one squirt that way? Not very much. Like a half a teaspoon. If I did my math right (not necessarily something writers are inherently great at), there are 1,536 half-teaspoons in a gallon, which was about what she was giving at weaning time, when I acquired her. That’s a lot of squirts.

And to make matters worse, she wasn’t overly thrilled at the new arrangement. One morning, just when I thought things were settling into something of a routine and milking had definitely become easier, that darn cow lifted her tied-back leg in a mostly-failed kick, jarring me so half of the milk in my pail went all over me. This was early in my milking career and I had worked hard for that milk, let me tell you. I probably yelled at her, re-situated myself on the overturned bucket that serves as a milking stool, and started milking again. Then there was the telltale twitch and up came that hoof again. I was too slow for a good reaction, so instead I just tumbled right off the bucket into the dirty hay and jumped to my feet.

If I was a cussing person, I would have cussed, but I’m not, so I didn’t. With more irritation than authority, I yelled, “No!” And kicked her. Hard. Right on the back leg, the one she had kicked with. She looked mildly surprised, mostly just bored, and went back to munching her grain. I kicked her one more time for good measure, probably threatening to send her to the sale barn on the next shipment of culls, and sat back down.

Long story short, I learned she can mule-kick even with a leg tied back, and I learned how irritating it is when you kick a cow’s rear and she just looks at you in complete boredom, and she didn’t go to the sale barn. A reformed cow came to the milking barn the next morning and meekly submitted to our routine.

After this, though it hasn’t been entirely smooth sailing (what is, with livestock?), milking became one of my favorite parts of the day. It was quiet. Peaceful. Productive. The little milking machine that was so helpful at first eventually got sidelined in favor of the tactile task of hand-milking. The sound of the milk hissing and foaming into the bucket, the comfortable bovine smell, the cats expectantly waiting. I enjoyed watching her calf, who arrived in April, wander around the barn licking the walls and head butting the scoop shovel, stealing my gloves and tormenting the cats. It was just pleasant.

And besides, the payoff was singularly enjoyable: fresh milk and rich cream for my coffee, and the yellowest butter you ever did see. A lot of work, yes; a time commitment, yes, but so worth it. Posey is currently employed solely as a nurse cow, since we found a bum calf to put on her, but I look forward to fresh milk again in the fall when we wean. We all benefitted – Brad and I, the cats, the chickens, friends and neighbors and family. All from one cow.

I think about the cultural shift we have seen over the last 100 years, the industrialization, the urbanization, a shift away from the land, a shift away from family, a shift from self-sufficiency and community-sufficiency, towards a national and global model of economics. As individuals in a culture, we no longer raise our own meat, or grow our own vegetables, or sew our own clothes, or build our own homes. We are divorced from those processes. We have mechanized ourselves out of jobs, and mechanized ourselves out of a true appreciation for the food that we eat or the clothes that we wear.

Author Wendell Berry, in his book The Unsettling of America, talks about the societal effects of automating and mechanizing, specifically as it relates to agriculture, but with broader implications as well. When efficiency is the god of our society and a machine can accomplish a task with greater efficiency than a man, we then place more value on the machine than the man, and more value on efficiency than on the good of family and community. Automating doesn’t elevate the worker or the work, but ultimately degrades it. In our technology-driven, technology-ridden culture, it isn’t feasible or reasonable to want to de-automate everything, and convenience and efficiency do have their places. But what have we lost in the process?

I wonder.

Wringing Sunlight

Posted on by under Photography, the homestead, Writing

Originally printed in the July/August 2024 issue of Down Country Roads Magazine

The sun-drenched days are already growing shorter, and before too long the shadows will lengthen a bit and remind us that summertime doesn’t last forever. But it is still the season to wring out every drop of sunlight from each blessed day, drinking in the warmth and the light that is so scarce at other times of the year. 

Wringing it out, wringing it out, soaking it in and wringing it out.

Wringing it out, like savoring those early morning sunrises.  The cool freshness of the day’s beginning, stirring the curtains and bringing the outside in. A woodsy ramble when the grass is still damp. The first breath of heat when the sun is yea-high. Garden puttering, throwing water, pulling weeds, up to the elbows in productivity and partnership with earth and sun. The snap of towels hanging on the line to dry, or my husband’s snap-front shirts. The heat of sun on uncovered head, the quiet, rhythmic work of laundry day. The cool of grass under bare feet. Digging my toes into good, black dirt. The low drone of bees busy in the flowers, the sweet singing of the crickets. The comical play-acting of the killdeer, the swift flight of the barn swallow, the bubbling up and overflowing melody of the bobolink in the hayfield, rivaling the meadowlark as the summertime songster, dipping and diving in the alfalfa, a little black-and-white-and-yellow speck of a songbird.

Oh, these days!

When the sun nears the evening sky and sinks low, the ridge to our west casts first the house, then the barn, then the hayfield, into its lengthening shadow which races to the horizon. Far to the east and a little to the south, Sheep Mountain Table gleams pink in the afterglow. The windows of the house get thrown open, bringing the coolness in, and nighttime falls, softly and sweetly, and the first of the summer stars appear in the pink and lavender sky.

We take the warm, sweet memories of these days with us into the shorter days of winter.

The sweetness, like the first of the sun-ripened, still-warm tomatoes, bursting in your mouth, fresh off the vine. The sweetness, like a cold glass of sun-brewed iced tea after a sweaty morning of work. The sweetness, like a pail of wild-harvested fruit and a glittering, gleaming row of jelly jars, still piping hot. The sweetness, like the sound of rain, gentle rain, sweet rain, and the low roll of thunder.

And then, maybe best of all, is the intoxicating sweetness of the sun-warmed pines. Can you smell it? It brings back impressions of my earliest childhood, recalls some of my happiest memories in what would one day become my home. I remember piling out of our minivan, myself and my three sisters and parents, piling out at the end of a 1000-mile journey, piling out at the top of a sun-baked hill in the glorious middle of nowhere near Hermosa, piling out and breathing deep of that wonderous smell – The pines! And there at the end of a little gravel sidewalk was a house made of rough-cut lumber with my grandparents waiting for us, and a joyful two weeks of summer vacation ahead, to be filled with hikes and rambles and Grandma’s 24-hour dill pickles. Almost ten years ago, we came and never left. But my heart still skips a beat when I smell the piney, resiny breath of summertime.

We can do without the havoc-wreaking hail that summer brings, or the dry lightning that sparks a fire, but somehow those aren’t the things we remember in the deeps of January. We remember and yearn for the sunrises and the sunsets and the sunkissed faces. And we long to wring out the sunlight, wring it out and drink it deep.

So, take the ramble, taste the wild plums, listen to the meadowlark, watch the sunsets and hunt the wildflowers. Wring it out, every last drop of beautiful summertime sunlight. It is days like this that get us through the long, dark nights of winter.

Spangled Afternoon

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life, gratitude, Photography, Writing

Yesterday was wet. Just wet. Wonderfully so. We got a little actual rain, but most of the day was just heavy mist, and we basically were inside a cloud. We couldn’t see the highway down past the hayfield, and the tops of trees were obscured, and the drops settled, all silvery, on everything. It almost looked like frost, everything was so spangled.

Spiderwebs and blades of grass, mundane on other days but be-jeweled in the mist, drops of water hanging like jewels on the fine threads of the spiderwebs. Roses and rosebuds, and spiderwort, gathering the mist, holding it on leaves and petals and stamens. And then, if you looked closely enough, the whole world reflected upside down in the drops of water, the sky, the flowers, the grass. It was dazzling.

Right now, our society is weighed down with all sorts of mental ills, and the self-care “movement,” if you will, is thriving…It would appear that the best solution anyone can suggest for the chronic anxieties and depressions and just generally not getting along well with life is that people need to love themselves more. For as long as the self-care solution has been being promoted, it is obvious that that isn’t the problem. We don’t have a problem with people not loving themselves enough. The problem is that we as human creatures are tuned to love ourselves, and to love ourselves too much. We don’t need encouragement in that vein.

We need, rather, encouragement to look up from all of our – in the big scheme of things – petty problems and look to the Creator God who loves us. Sometimes we find reminders of that in the tiniest, most mundane yet spectacular ways. Like taking a walk in a cloud. Gazing on the littlest, least-important things that God clearly cares deeply about. And then realizing that if He cares about the flowers of the field, the birds of the air, the mists on the meadows, He must care that much more about His human creatures.

Just a Golden Evening

Posted on by under country life, Photography

We have had some stunning early summer weather this year, the kind that makes one loath to come inside at the end of the day. A few nights ago, the light was perfect so I took off with my camera and Josie, and who would follow but my three not-kittens-anymore, Elsa (the white one), Portia (the true yellow one), and Buttercup (the creamy looking one). They kept up on the whole walk. Just about all of my cats will accompany me on walks from time to time.

The shell-leafed penstemon was blooming everywhere, and I was tickled to discover a little patch of white irises. We don’t have wild white irises, so who knows how these got there, but they were lovely. Whether a bird planted them, or a homesteader’s wife years ago, who knows, but no one else knew about them when I asked Brad and my in-laws. It has been such a wonderfully wet spring, a lot of things that have bloomed that were somewhat dormant in previous years, so it may have been years since these white beauties bloomed.

Wonderful golden evening.