Tag Archives: country life

Ranch Wife Musings | These are Good Days

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life

These green days are good days.

These days are for earlier mornings up-and-at-’em, for before-sunrise coffee with my man, starting the day the right way.

These days are for chores in the early light and heading down the driveway with horses loaded on the trailer to help neighbors for a half a day, or however long it takes.

These days are for building and deepening relationships…between spouses, among family, and within the broader community.

These days are for all the growing things, from the calves in the pasture to the flowers in the garden to the wildflowers in the field.

These days are for hours in the saddle. Hours in the dirt. For some bumps and bruises and getting covered in dust and the smoke from the branding iron.

These days are for hard work, good work, wholesome work.

These days are for the sweetness of the fresh air, for the warmth of the sunlight, for the freedom of the open sky.

These days are for crawling into bed wonderfully tired, with muscles you forgot about a little sore and waking up maybe a little more sore.

These days are good days.

Lindblom Branding 2023 | Family and Community

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

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!

Perli Gates Branding 2023 | Just Good

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

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.

Ranch Wife Musings | Tend Your Own Garden

Posted on by under country life, gardening, gratitude, Writing

As spring has emerged, it has been a delight to watch leaf after leaf poke up from the ground and begin to grow. Day by day, I can see changes as my perennials have doubled in size, and it is sheer joy to see plants that I tended faithfully last summer grow with even greater vigor this year, spreading out and sending up new shoots! My one lupine seedling that survived the summer heat is now a huge plant, and I can’t wait to see what the flowers are like when it blooms this year!

 

But what would happen if, instead of delighting in my own garden, I compare what I have to my neighbor’s? What if, instead of seeing the beauty in what I’ve successfully grown, I resent what my neighbor can grow that I cannot, or what she has spent years cultivating that I only planted last year? Do this for long enough or with great enough intensity, and your own garden with all its beauty and its potential, will wilt and die. 

Isn’t life like that? What we have at any given time is usually what we’ve cultivated over the last months or years of our lives. Sometimes what we try to cultivate just doesn’t grow, or it doesn’t flourish and we finally realize it’s time to uproot that thing and put our efforts elsewhere. Then, sometimes, we look at our neighbor and the life she is living and we imagine that our life should look just like that. We’re angry that it doesn’t and we begin to resent her. But the crazy thing is, so often what she has that we are resenting isn’t even what we tried to grow, if we’re honest with ourselves! I’m sure all of us have been there. 

Jealousy kills. It’s like spraying herbicide onto your neighbor’s garden out of spite, and killing your own garden with the drift instead. We need to learn to rejoice in the life that we’ve been given, the garden that God is allowing us to cultivate. Quit staring at your neighbor’s garden, quit envying what she has that you don’t have. Quit comparing, and quit telling yourself that you deserve her life. God has given you a beautiful life!

Tend your own garden. And find joy in the beauty that’s there.

Ranch Wife Musings | The Best Rain

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

It slowly, sweetly rained for the better part of 36 hours, filling every bucket and pan and tub that was out in the yard, making the corral blessedly muddy and every little slope a running stream. Each and every step was a splash and splatter of water and mud and the pups endlessly tracked into the kitchen, and further into the house if I wasn’t quick enough. It was the best rain. The kind that comes when we need it most. The best.

The longer the winter, the sweeter the spring. The harder the work, the better the rest. The hotter the day, the greater the refreshment of the evening coolness. The longer the loneliness, the sweeter “I love you.”

The greater the need, the greater the relief when the need is met.

So rain, any rain when it is needed desperately, is the best rain. And the longer it comes, the better it gets. I love to see it streaming down the windowpanes, a sight we haven’t seen in so long, running in rivulets down the driveway and making ruts and mud and such a mess, such a wonderful, beautiful mess! It came slow enough that the thirsty ground was able to drink it almost all up, and any that is left will put water in our dams.

I see relief in the landscape, the animals, the trees and grasses and other plants. The calves looked happier, playing in the rain rather than choking on dust. Cheerful little ducks bounce around in the puddles along our driveway. Cows are glad not to be walking a mile to get to water, and the dogs are just always happy. In a matter of 24 hours, the grass was greener, taller, thicker, and it seems that the alfalfa began to spring up in that short time as well. The fruit trees and the perennial garden look better and better, and the ponderosas are rich and dark, with none of the sickly, yellowish cast they had in the later part of the winter. I can’t wait to see what everything looks like in a week, after we get a little heat and sun on the watered ground!

The rain tapered off yesterday, but we have still had periods of mist and light showers, and the dampness is refreshing and glorious. An answer to so many prayers.

Yes, indeed. It was the best rain.

Oh, Josie

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

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.