I thought when I retired from the weekly work grind, life would be fun and easy. I was in for a rude awakening. I’ve never worked so hard in my life. I don’t know how Dale did it all alone. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t change my life for anything, I’m truly blessed. Some days are more grueling than others. Our daily routine consists of broken fences or, loose cattle who’ve found piece of weak fence and decided the grass was greener than what’s in their pasture. Even better, our neighbors bull like our girls better than his own (when nature calls, he thinks he needs to answer) causing conflicts with our bull. We’ve had stray cattle tear down our fence line so not only do we have to find out who’s cattle they are but fix the fence as well and some time it’s our cows on the run. Rule #1: Don’t chase cows, call them with cubes (that’s cow food for you rookies).
City folks think ranch life is easy, I got news for you, this ain’t no resort. Our days are filled with lots of fun filled events like feeding and animal health management, vaccinations, worming, pregnancy testing, fly management which includes fly tags in their ears and or fly pour on medications, DNA testing, lots of other fun stuff that you don’t even want to know about. We’ve been pooped on, pee’d on, kicked, run over and pushed around by a scared cow. I learned real quick that our cows don’t care how pretty I look before I feed them. The hair is pulled up in a ponytail and I go for long periods of time without a trim unless I do it myself. I tried to let Dale help me trim my hair once; word of advice, not wise to let a one eyed half blind man close to you with a pair of scissors. Thank goodness it was in the back of my head so, the only person who could see it was you. Yep, lesson learned, his heart was in the right place. I did let him help me get a hook out of my hand once, minor surgery. I always wanted to be a ranchers wife because when you see that your favorite cow has had a calf and it is health and nursing his mother I thank God I am a rancher. Come back and I’ll share some fun stories……
God Bless, keep looking up cause that’s where it all is.
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