You probably know the song. It happens to be one of my favorite songs, and in another life I enjoyed singing the role of Maria in two different community theatre productions of Sound of Music. There’s a fun fact for the day!
But does it really get much prettier than this?
The roses have burst into bloom over the last week, and I don’t know that I’ve ever photographed them looking more fetching than during this stormy-day walk.
I think of the prayers. Months of prayers. More than that. Much more than that.
Prayers that went something like this: “God, you know what we need. You know what we need more than we do. You know what we need beyond the physical needs we can see. You always provide – Somehow, You always do. Thank you for Your provision. We also know that how You choose to provide is Your prerogative, and it isn’t always the way we would choose. Align our hearts with Yours. And please send rain. You know we need it. And help us to trust in Your provision.”
I think of the sick pit in the stomach last year at this time, seeing hayfields and pastures dry up, yet the comfort of knowing that God really is faithful. I remember the attempts at optimism, but the realization that last year just wasn’t going to be the year we hoped it would be. But God would provide. Somehow He would get us through. And He did, though it wasn’t always comfortable.
And then I remember the sense of anxiety as we came through the winter with very little snow, very little to dampen the dry ground. And then March passed. And April. And then we got some snow. And lost a lot of calves. And then May came, and weeks went by with very little moisture, but the pastures were trying to green up, and what managed to green up looked wonderful to eyes tired of the brown. But we could start to see that the grass was struggling, needing moisture that just hadn’t come yet.
And how many times I took my walk in the morning or the afternoon and prayed. Hard. As I walked through the pastures and up into the timber, the prayers just came.
And God opened the skies. How many prayers He must have heard! I know a lot of prayers were sent Heavenward.
We have enjoyed so many slow, steady rains over the last month! I enjoy keeping an eye on the weather radar, and a number of times small storm cells have originated directly over our ranch. How different from last spring and summer, watching storm after promising storm develop to our west and dissipate over us! Just this last weekend, we picked up another almost inch of rain.
Little gets better than these sweet springtime storms. Dark days and heavy skies and wonderful rolling thunder. Walls of rain sweeping across the fields. The sound of big drops on the shop roof, or the barn roof, or the roof of the chicken coop, or the cover of the greenhouse. Ribbons of rain streaming from stormy blue skies against the horizon. Sunshine scattering through shredding clouds, dancing on the prairie. Rainbows spanning the Heavens. It has been transformative.
We still haven’t run much water so our dams remain low, but the grass and the hayfields look wonderful and we hope to begin haying next week. The grass is tall and keeps getting taller, up to the top wire of the fences, tall enough to lose the dogs in it, tall enough to brush over our boots when we’re on horseback. Wildflowers have sprung with vigor – Yarrow and beardtongue and spiderwort and roses, just to name a few of the colorful bouquet. My perennial garden has taken off unbelievably. There are puddles everywhere, and every evening the pups are a matted mess of mud and sandy dirt, and every day I sweep up a sandbox from where they sleep in the mudroom. It is glorious!
Prayers upon prayers have been answered and we are so thankful. Prayer matters. God hears. So keep praying. Keep trusting. Keep looking ahead with faith. And then wait patiently. God is listening.
This time of the year is a highlight for many, and for good reason. After a long and often lonely winter, after the discouragements that can come after months of cold and dark and solitude, after dealing with the extremes of life and death during calving, branding season is a bright spot, a relief, a respite. Even a rough calving season can be followed by the best of branding seasons, and this has been a good one.
Some parts of the state and the country have modernized how they accomplish ranching tasks throughout the year, in ways that minimize the need for outside help. Even after my short time as a part of this community, I can understand the thought behind that, or how it might be necessary in some situations. Sometimes for whatever reason a whole community steps back from trading help and goes to a more independent model, so you don’t really have a choice but to follow suit. I get it. But what a loss!
Thankfully the majority of ranches in this community along Spring Creek, Battle Creek, and the Foothills, still participate in trading help, preserving a way of life that goes beyond the profession, preserving a way of life that necessitates the forming and maintaining of neighborly relationships, relationships that only serve to strengthen a community. Branding season is perhaps when this shines the most, and everyone not only reaps the benefits of having good neighbors, but of being a good neighbor.
Branding season is when you really see the importance of people stepping up and stepping in, sometimes last minute because life happens. Of communities working together and coming together in a way that has been lost from the culture at large but is still alive and well in the agricultural community.
It is a time when skills are taught, learned, honed, or re-learned. And no one ever qualifies out of all four of those categories. There is always something you can teach someone else, learn from someone else, do better at, or re-learn. Information is exchanged and even the most seasoned can glean from the hard-earned wisdom of others.
I’m thankful for those old ways. Old ways of learning skills and trading knowledge, of sharing work and life and fellowship. Thankful for neighbors and friends – old to my husband and his family, new to me. Thankful for this way of life.
What a great day we had on Saturday! A beautiful early morning gather, great help, perfect weather, not a smitch of dust, no (serious) injuries, healthy calves, and a hearty meal afterwards. I didn’t have a lot of time to take pictures, but managed to snag a few.
It sure is neat to see so many different people give of their time to help out and make things go smoothly. Some of these relationships go back generations. I have been told that the way our community functions is pretty unique, and I have witnessed and experienced myself how giving and gracious people are, helping without strings attached. There is the understanding that everyone does pitch in to help with this branding or that branding or that day of working cows, but people aren’t keeping records to see who showed up and who didn’t. It is pretty amazing. We have some great neighbors and friends! The line of pickups and trailers parked outside the branding corrals speaks volumes. I sure feel blessed to be a part of this family and this community!
Another branding in the books! It was a good day at the Perli Gates, branding calves and working cows, and after the rain we had this weekend with the multiple postponed brandings, it is good to see neighbors and get some of the spring work going and done!
Some people say the word “good” and to them it means “good, but not great.” I say the word “good,” and to me it means just what it says. Not as a comparison but as a statement of fact.
And it really doesn’t get much better.
Good neighbors.
Good horses.
Good dogs.
Good work to do.
Good fellowship over coffee and again over supper.
There is so much to be thankful for when you can work alongside husband and family, work alongside neighbors who all look out for one another and get the work finished without any injuries, and then give thanks to God for a good day over a hearty meal at the end of it all. The branding rounds will continue the rest of this week and we’ll see many of the same neighbors as everyone pitches and gives of their time to get the work done.
The grass has greened up intensely over the last few days as the temps have warmed, and the views of Harney Peak and the Hills were gorgeous on the way home. We polished the day off with a few rounds of stick chasing, and finding the first lilac blooms.
It was a good day. Just plain good.
There is sure an extra dose of sass in this fluffy little black-and-white body.
Over the last couple of weeks, calving has come to an end and the pre-branding work, which included long days gathering cows and sorting pairs and tagging and vaccinating, occupied much of our time. The pups would accompany us, but would find themselves locked in the aluminum trailer while we were riding out to gather or working in the corrals, to keep them out of the way and prevent any “self-deployment,” as we call their tendency to, well, self-deploy. Sometimes they apparently think the cows just need a little wake-up, or maybe even need to be shuffled to the next hill. So we lock them up and have the delightful pleasure of listening to the two pups howling inside that tin-can of a trailer. I imagine the echo is pretty inspirational.
One of those mornings, we were horseback in the corral about 100 yards from the trailer, and I caught a glimpse of a little black dog on the back of the flatbed pickup. At first I figured it was Dave’s pup, Cooper, who hadn’t been locked up and likes to sit on top of the pickup cab, but it didn’t take long to see that it was in fact my pup, Josie. She had somehow managed to climb out one of the trailer windows and then jump up onto the flatbed, both of which were rather impressive feats. She then rummaged around in the coffee break bag and stole an apple and put teeth marks in the other. She was happy as a clam and didn’t show a bit of remorse. Her conscience was not pricked. I had introduced her to apples, and she apparently likes them well enough to self-deploy on them as well.
A couple days later, she gave us quite a good scare while we were working pairs. When we took coffee break, which generally happens at an appropriate lull which generally happens around 10am, Josie climbed out of the trailer looking rather lethargic, kind of slinking around and trembling. It was abnormal enough I started looking all over her for possible snake fang marks, or wondering if she had managed to get herself kicked or stepped on by one of the horses. I didn’t find anything, but she kind of moaned when I pressed her little belly and, even more abnormally, she showed no interest when I was eating an apple or a beef stick. She loves to share, but not that time. At one point she was curled up in my lap, with her head bobbing and eyes closing, still shaking and shivering. It was bizarre. Brad said later he almost had me take the ATV back to the house and get her to the vet. Anyway, a couple hours later she was just fine, right as rain. All I can figure is that the dramatic little thing got her feelings hurt when she ended up locked in the trailer by herself for what must have been a tortuous hour. Horror of horrors. It was quite the convincing performance. She got a lot of mileage out of that. Thank goodness I didn’t take her to the vet. That would have been embarrassing.
Oh, Josie. I really don’t know what I’d do without her.
Song Dog Journal 