Tag Archives: faith

Ranch Wife Musings | A Life Brim-Full of Life

Posted on by under Agriculture and Ranching, country life

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Genesis 2:8-9, 15) And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28-28)

Of all the occupations that exist, the only broad category that existed prior to the Fall was that of the cultivator, the farmer, the gardener. It was the original work God created for Adam and his wife to do, to be keepers of God’s Garden, stewards of His Creation, keepers of the fields and the trees, the livestock and other animals. They were to carefully and responsibly manage the world that God had made. To take care of it. To tend it. To cultivate it. To nurture it. And even after the Fall, this mandate was to continue to be carried out by everyone, but it is especially seen today in those who live and and work as the cultivators, the growers, the caretakers.

It is National Agriculture Day, and most people will zero in pretty quickly on the farming and ranching side of agriculture, and may have a pretty specific idea that comes to mind without thinking of just how gloriously broad this category is, encompassing or touching so many of our most basic needs! Where does your bread come from? The milk in your fridge? Meat? Eggs? Pet foods? Medicines and herbs? Wood to build homes, or wood to heat? In some way, shape, or form, agriculture is involved.

But this isn’t purely utilitarian. So much of the flavor and beauty of living has at its root in the growing and cultivating of life. Trees and shrubs for landscaping. Cut flowers for bouquets. Succulent fruits, nourishing vegetables. Cotton and linen and wool to make textiles for beautifying our homes, all rely on agriculture. Beauty is cultivated, and the abundance of life is made even more abundant.

In so many cases with farms and ranches and the working of livestock, it is generational work, one in which the oldest generation is teaching the youngest generation, where knowledge and skills and values and morals are being handed down, where the family unit truly is the center of the endeavor. It makes me think of God’s command to His people, all the way back in Deuteronomy, the command to “Honor your father and your mother….that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 5:16) One of the great joys living in the agricultural community is seeing families working with families, spouses working with spouses, and being able to live and experience that myself.

And this life! It is the satisfaction of taking a seed and watching it grow and bringing it to harvest. It is the joy of delivering fresher-than-fresh eggs to a neighbor, or serving a loaf of homemade bread to a friend. It is the heart-warming delight of watching a mother cow get her new calf to stand and nurse. It is the pain of seeing death. The uncertainty of dry dams and wildly fluctuating cattle prices. The trust that God will provide. It is a life of working alongside loved ones, to fellowship and break bread, where family upon family from the broader community come together, where names are known from one part of the state to another, simply by virtue of being a part of this community, the ranching community. It is a life and a livelihood richer and sweeter than I could have imagined before God married me to a rancher and into one of the kindest families I’ve ever met, into one of the strongest communities I’ve ever seen. This life is a constant reminder that all that we have is from God, and He has given us the job of stewarding it well. Taking what is and making the most of it, making it more, making it feed our families, our communities.

It is a life brimming full of life.

| Ordinary Joys |

Posted on by under country life

“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we’re so used to them we call them ordinary things.”

Hans Christian Andersen

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how easy it is to count our trials instead of our blessings. Rather than dwelling on what is “true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, excellent, and praiseworthy,” (Philippians 4:8) we focus in on everything that is exactly not those things. Rather than looking at the lilies of the field and the birds of the air and seeing God’s providence for them and so trusting in His providence for us (Matthew 6:26-30), we look at the ways we feel that God is giving us the short end of the stick.

May I never grow calloused to God’s simple blessings. Reminders of His kindness. Miracles found in the most mundane of places. Ordinary joys.

Ranch Wife Musings | Hard to Stop Smiling

Posted on by under country life

Calving season by turns is a season of contrasts, of deflating defeat and ecstatic elation. In spite of best efforts, everything goes wrong. Then, in spite of the worst efforts, everything goes amazingly right. In spite of best circumstances, everything goes wrong. In spite of worst circumstances, everything goes right. Sometimes it seems you just can’t win.

Last week was pretty hard on the psyche, as my father-in-law would say. We lost calves daily, in situations that seemed so avoidable but really were just the frustrating way nature works, sometimes with us, sometimes against us. Cold and snow and frigid overnight temperatures were definitely fighting against us.

However, things started turning around over the weekend as temps began to warm, and we were excited Sunday morning to find a cow have not twins but triplets, a pretty rare occurrence. All were alive and full term. One had a birth defect, sadly, and nature took care of it pretty quickly, but the other two were lively little things. We snagged one from the cow to give to a different cow who lost a calf, so that was a win, since cows without calves aren’t kept around, and since most of the time twins can’t be raised by the same cow it was actually two wins.

Then yesterday, a tiny heifer started calving and wasn’t progressing. The calf was malpresented, with its head twisted to the side so it was basically being born upside down, which is not how things are supposed to work. We honestly weren’t overly optimistic – The heifer was tiny, and we had lost a cow and calf last week to a similar malpresentation. After a surprisingly successful pull, the calf was born without injury to the cow, but by all appearances the calf was dead. It’s tongue was horribly engorged, it wasn’t breathing, and its eyes had a deathly glassy look to them, with very little eye reflex. Efforts seemed fruitless, but after twenty or thirty minutes of viciously rubbing and drying the calf, encouraging airflow in the lungs, poking its nose, and eventually moving it roughly around (i.e. kicking it) to mimic mama’s rough licking and prodding, the calf was sitting up right, sneezing and shaking his ears. That’s a win. He wasn’t out of the woods, but what a neat save.

This morning, Brad woke me up to tell me the calf was standing. It took a little prodding, but the calf did it! That’s another win. Throughout the day, he’s been pretty spunky, is up and down and walking and appears to be nursing. Wins all around. He has some sort of umbilical defect which we’ll keep an eye on, so again not out of the woods, but again, what a neat save!

When you’re contending with cows and nature, you’re bound to lose a few rounds in spite of everything, and then win a few rounds, also in spite of everything.

This little guy makes it hard to stop smiling.

In Other’s Words | “A quiet and modest life”

Posted on by under Photography

“A quiet and modest life brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant unrest.” ~Albert Einstein

Ranch Wife Musings | Heartbreak and Hope

Posted on by under country life, Writing

The dead calf was lying covered in snow, and the maternal cow wouldn’t leave its side. The calf had been dead for a good 24 hours but the determined cow, who required doctoring, wouldn’t budge. We got a lariat around the calf and the good mother followed as the calf was dragged slowly behind the truck all the way up to the corrals where we could give her the antibiotics she needed.

The knot in my stomach became a lump in my throat, watching that poor cow following pathetically behind her dead calf, her animal mind not understanding the situation, her instincts everything they should have been. A frustrating contrast to mama cows who birth their calves in a snowstorm and then forget about them. It would be easier if the bereaved mamas just walked away, but the tenacity they show can be heartbreaking. It is such a defeating sight – A good mother cow who wants a calf and is deprived of that calf. This storm, a series of storms and multiple nights of snow, has been deadly.

As I followed at a distance on a four-wheeler, a glimmer of movement caught my eye. I looked up and the word, “Wow,” escaped involuntarily, getting past that lump in my throat. The sky! What a glorious blue, clear as clear can be, and the whole depth of its blueness sparkling and shimmering with swirling snow. Where was the snow cloud? It was a wonderful sight. I looked out over the hayfields, still and soft like a painting, covered deep with insulating and moisture-bringing snow, snow that resulted in the loss of multiple calves but will be life-sustaining as the year continues. The trees were white with snow and frost. There was enough snow that the road was almost indistinguishable from anything else, just continuous white. It was spectacular. A beautiful and encouraging sight it was, seeing the clouds break and the sky clear and the sun rain down its invigorating warmth. As we came up to the barn, the sound of water running off the roof was like healing music. Water! Life-giving water. Spring is just around the corner.

One of the many paradoxes of life, the intermingling of heartbreak and hope.

Ranch Wife Musings | Why the Little Things Matter

Posted on by under country life, Writing

Ranching isn’t for the faint of heart. The best of the beauty of life can be tangled up with gut-wrenching sadness. The beauty of a maternal cow with a healthy calf and the light in her eyes can quickly be marred by the heartrending sight of a mother cow refusing to leave the side of her dead calf, or the lost look in the eyes of a mama who finally walked away. A successful save can happen one minute and a tragic outcome can happen the next. But, frankly, truly living life with your eyes and heart wide open isn’t for the faint of heart, regardless of occupation. Ranching is just one manifestation of that.

Because sometimes things do go wrong, sometimes tragically and horribly wrong. Calves die in the cold. We have a year, or three, of hardly any moisture. Freak accidents happen, leaving everyone bewildered and shaken. You are up for hours in the middle of the night with a cow, only to lose her calf and maybe even her. Faithful dogs die. Other loved animals die. Friends die. Hearts break. We suffer sickness or injury. Relationships aren’t what they should be. Vehicles break down and financial hardships threaten one’s sense of security. I could list off any number of tragic circumstances, big or small, that everyone can relate to, to a certain extent.

But it makes me think. Why is it so easy to list off the bad stuff? Why are we so slow to see all the goodness in life? Is it really because there is so much bad? Or is it rather, as I suspect, that what we see has an awful lot to do with what we are looking for?

We are really good, to a sad and destructive fault, at waiting for moments of big triumph or of obvious good to celebrate. Frankly, that sets us up for never celebrating at all! We go about our day oblivious to, sometimes willfully, the beauty and the joy and the blessings that really, really do outweigh the bad, fixating instead, like a cat toying with a mouse, on every little thing (or big thing) that goes wrong and drowning in the frustration and the heartache. Because there is frustration and heartache.

But what about the twenty cows that calved without incident, providentially missing the worst of storms and cold?

Or the baby calf on the warmer that was a successful save?

Or the calf we found before it could get chilled down, the calf that is now happily dried off and nursing in the calving shed?

What about the tiny blessings of animals to love and be loved by?

Or the bigger blessings of family, or friends, or spouse?

What about the blessing of working alongside family members?

What about the community we live and work in, faithful friends and neighbors?

What about the few inches of snow and the gift of moisture?

We should be reveling in gratitude from the moment we wake up! Giving thanks for another sunrise. Giving thanks for a new day. We should be giving thanks over the simple and exquisite pleasure of a cup of coffee, whether it starts the day or warms cold hands halfway through the morning.

Yet all too often our daily habit is to sit and stare fixedly at every little thing that goes wrong, until that’s all we see, and then sink down in devastation at those bigger trials that God had the audacity to allow! (As our minds think, imagining that God owes us anything at all!)

Oftentimes God’s blessings are intertwined with reminders that we still do live in a world of hardship, and that we don’t call our own shots. We aren’t masters of our own destiny. We don’t decide our fate. Those are lies of the devil. Instead, and so much better, we rest in the hands of a God who loves us! Rather than kicking against the trouble He does allow, we are much better to sit back and give thanks for the good that He lavishes instead, for “every good and perfect gift” that He gives. And He has liberally rained little blessings in our lives to remind us of how kind He is.

So I want to train my heart and mind to see and appreciate and, yes, to rejoice in those little things. Things that maybe only mean anything to me.

Like the warmth of a kitten purring on my shoulder. Or irresistible puppy snuggles. The aroma of fresh bread, and the tart-sweet of plum butter from this summer.

Because it doesn’t start with being more thankful for the big things. That really takes no effort. It starts in our gratitude for and joy in the littlest things. And that takes time. And effort. And sometimes sacrifice. We have to slow down long enough to see them.

Things like the first handful of tomato seedlings that have sprouted.

The beautiful calves that have been born.

Frost-clad ponderosas.

Baskets of eggs.

Flurries of activity at the bird feeder.

Like enough clothing to go for a winter walk.

Like the winsome eyes of a border collie pup.

Like the pleasure of sharing a home-cooked meal.

Like the comfort of a hug. Like groceries in my fridge. Like propane to heat the house.

Like good mama cows with the best of the instincts God gives to His creatures.

Like coffee.

Like a hand to hold.

Because sometimes life is hard. Because sometimes, without a heart tuned to see the littlest joys and littlest pleasures and littlest graces, we’d be overwhelmed by “what ifs” and “whys” and pain and sadness. Because there is plenty of that sort of thing. But there is also plenty of joy. And that’s why I write about it. To remind myself, and hopefully to share that joy with other people as well.

Life isn’t made up of big events. It is made up of millions of small ones, good and bad. We can choose to focus on the good, or we can blind ourselves to the good by focusing on the bad, like throwing dirt in our eyes. We’re not pretending the bad doesn’t exist, anymore than we pretend there isn’t dirt. We’re just keeping it out of our eyes.

And those joys, those blessings, those graces, multiply and overflow and crowd out the discontent, the frustration or anger, because gratitude to God creates more gratitude to God. Joy in life begets more joy in life. A heart tuned to God’s goodness and His gifts will see His goodness and gifts where other people might not.

That’s why the little things matter.