Tag Archives: South Dakota rancher

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 | When the Irons Cool

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

Originally printed in the Custer County Chronicle on May 29, 2024

It is an exhilarating feeling, riding out in the cool of the morning with husband and family and neighbors, hearing a chorus familiar voices sing out gently in friendly conversation, the soft plodding of the horses’ hooves on soft earth, the occasional metallic ringing as a shod hoof strikes stone, watching the rolling hills fall away, the row of pickups and trailers get smaller behind us, seeing the cow herd stretched out over the entirety of a pasture. It is an exhilarating feeling, as we get further and further onto the prairie or into the breaks, and one by one, or two by two, riders are left behind until the herd is more or less encircled, and the gather begins.

It is an exhilarating feeling, to be behind a growing, moving, shifting bunch of cows, a bunch that gets joined to another, and another, until the whole herd is gathered, encircled by five or thirty horses and riders. The lowing of the cattle intensifies as they mill around, looking for their calves, and eventually the cattle trickle away from the pressure of the riders. The branding pens get nearer and nearer, and the net is pulled tighter and tighter. Instead of riders every 50 or 100 yards, it is riders every 50 or 100 feet, then every 5 or 10 feet, and then shoulder to shoulder for the last push to pen the herd.

The cattle bawl at a fever pitch, like the deafening hum of a riled-up hornet nest, as mamas and babies are sorted and separated, the calves penned for branding, and cows released back to pasture. The perturbed mothers stand at the fence bawling for the calves, the calves bawl back, and the branding stove roars to life. Soon it is an ordered chaos of activity, as each member of a branding crew is assigned a role or finds a role, and the branding settles into a rhythm, like a well-oiled machine, a rhythm of ropers and wrestlers and branders, the soft hiss of ropes dancing, the smell of smoke and burnt hair, the clank as irons are drawn out of the fire, and the crackle of red-hot iron on hide. Glints and flickers of flame, clouds of shifting smoke, dust and flinging mud. Laughter and shouts and snippets of conversation punctuate the noise, and the steady rhythm is occasionally interrupted by the sudden leaping to action of half a dozen wrestlers when a calf puts up a stiff fight. And bit by bit, little by little, but faster than you’d think, the roping pens empty, the deafening bawling of the cows dies away as they head out briskly to pasture with their calves at their sides, without so much as a backward glance. With a suddenness of quiet that is jarring yet a relief, the branding stove is shut off. In the hours that follow the rush of the work, a meal is enjoyed and stories are shared and reminiscences are savored.

There is something bittersweet about the last big branding of the season, the last time the stove roars to life, the last time it cools. Ranching, for much of the year, is a pretty solitary profession. Families hunker down in the wintertime keeping animals fed and watered, and take to the pastures in the summertime with the odd jobs that are the summer routine. Fall work throws neighbors together in small groups here and there before calves are weaned and sold, but it is nothing like the community reunion of branding season. For a solid month, branding follows branding and neighbor helps neighbor, in a celebratory frenzy of work and camaraderie.

It is when the irons cool that there is really time to reflect on that, that partnership with one another for the grand and gritty task ahead, in partnerships that go back decades and generations. No one is keeping a score card, no one is counting hours helped here or there, but everyone is pitching in because there is work to do and that is what a true community does.

This is a foreign concept to many modern-day Americans. We no longer live where we work, or work where we live, to give a nod to the author Wendell Berry. We have separated work from life, and we have lost the vitality of community that results from living where we work in close proximity to others who also live where they work.

No matter how the American culture has shifted in favor of convenience and economy and minimizing human inputs and nickeling and diming every transaction, ranching is still done the old way. And the old way requires people. Flesh and blood people. People who are willing to show up with what skill they have or the willingness to learn a new one. To give of their time without keeping a record of how or whether it was returned to them, and with this spirit the work all somehow gets done.

We aren’t made to live in isolation. We are made to need one another and to be needed, and the ranching life gives a taste of this. Even in my relatively short time as a rancher’s wife, I look forward to seeing the familiar faces, working shoulder to shoulder with family and neighbors, each week of the season sprinkled with these all-hands-on-deck, all-day events. It is the one time of year when the community is reminded in a real and tangible way of how much we need each other. We aren’t doing this alone.  

The branding stove has been put away and the persistent smell of smoke and burnt hide no longer sticks to our clothing. It is a relief to have calving and branding over with for the season, and for summer work and rhythms to be settling into place. We’ll bump into neighbors over fences or at the county fair or other gatherings. But the energy and shared experiences of branding season will leave their impressions long after the irons have cooled.

Ranch Wife Musings | Prayers and Rain and Sunshine

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

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.

Photo Roundup | May 14 – 20

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

Looking over pictures from the last couple of weeks, the beauty of answered prayers is just impressed on my mind.

And how many answered prayers! Recent and distant, present and past, big and small.

I think of how dry and drought-stricken we were a year ago. How many promising storms we watched build and dissipate without leaving us a drop of rain. I remember how short and stubbly the pastures were, how the grass headed out in June when it was barely six inches tall. I remember the dust we kicked up on the trail, the cracks in the earth. I remember the feelings of uncertainty and seeing the lines of care deepen on the faces that I love.

But God is a God who sees, hears, and provides. He listens. I look at these photographs and see green – so much of it! I see answered prayers.

He has provided rain. Good grass and hayfields that promise a yield. Healthy livestock. Good neighbors.

Then my mind wanders a little father back, to the life I was living two short years ago. The loneliness and unexplainable longings, the dreams and hopes and desires that had gotten snuffed out with the cares of life. My love of writing. My love of photography. My love of the outdoors and hard work. The desire to fit in somewhere. To belong somewhere. To belong to someone.

Then I look at these photographs that I took in the span of a single week and I see answered prayer after answered prayer.

God has provided a community. Belonging. Family. Friends. So much beauty to enjoy. Good work to do. A loving husband to walk alongside.

God is so good. All the time.

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!