Life and Death Magnified on the Ranch

There’s something about raising animals, about raising crops, about an industry that requires your heart, your sweat, and your love that has a way of working itself through countless hours into your being.  It drives with a force that compels the rancher to rise time and time again, stumbling into the bitter, biting cold of a blizzard to drag calves into the barn on a sled; even the warmth of your home and your bath where warm waters and tireless hours breathe life into chilled calves.  There is the struggle of pulling a breech calf from his mother, the devastation of a stillborn calf, or the ache of loading your favorite cow on the trailer when she comes up open.  

There’s joy in the first blades of green grass, watching the calves play tag, the drying up of the knee-deep mud, in the fawns laying waiting for the mothers in the Timothy and Brome.  There’s sorrow in the down bull with a broken leg.  There’s struggle in the hard work, in the long hours, in the sacrifice, and there’s satisfaction in a pen of heavy calves.  There’s companionship in the neighbors who share your passion and your hardships.  Ranching has a way of allowing the highs and the lows to shine, of making one step back and consider the value of life itself. 

I’ve watched countless families rally together in a community that reaches statewide when a family herd is destroyed due to Brucellosis outbreak.  I’ve watched the country rally together to support ranchers who lost entire herds after unseasonable blizzards buried South Dakota in tremendous amounts of freezing rain followed by snow.  I’ve attended funerals in small-town churches where attendees listen to services from the steps and even from the parking lots.  I experienced endless visitors after the birth of a child in a place where we had no relatives.  I’ve enjoyed the company of friends who are like family at home-cooked holiday meals prepared after a long day’s work.  I’ve watched animals born and have been the hand that ended their life.  I’ve learned life-altering lessons from longtime students of rangelands and cattle; I have cried and held the hands of their loved ones when they lost their life to an accident while doing the work that they love.  I’ve taken a part in unnoticed success and rejoiced in a job well done.  I’ve rejoiced in a tight fence and a fresh-cut field.  I’ve celebrated endings and beginnings:  The last calf born, the last calf through the chute, the last calf on the truck, the last hay bale stacked in the hay yard.  I’ve

made mistakes that were forgiven and some that had greater
consequences. 

The struggles and sacrifices of this way of life have a way of breeding strong individuals who let their work make them, and not break them.  Some become complacent, perhaps beaten down by the emotions that surround the mundane while others become compassionate, lifelong students.  I’m glad to have known so many of the latter.  I’m thankful to know some of the faces of ranching, the hearts, hands, and feet of the livestock industry and more about the cost of life and what we leave behind. 

Chicken Farming Failures and Attack Roosters

A new ranch in the deserts of Montana, and a nice, little hen house coupled with the country's devastating loss of egg layers and a spike in the price of eggs at the grocery store were all of the encouragement that I needed to try my hand at "chicken farming" and purchase 10 fluffy, little chics of a mixed variety from the feed store.  The ranch toddler only attempted to strangle a few of these little "gals" after we got them set up in their heated house constructed from a box that the ranch husband's saddle arrived in.  Success.  A week later, a few of the fancier varieties arrived, and we brought home 10 more, figuring that some would surely die of.  Surely they did. One Top Hat down (not due to strangulation).

Eventually these little birds moved from their box in the garage, narrowly escaping attack by barn cat before their move into the hen house.  Soon, they would completely shed their fluffy feathers for the adult variety, and the random crow could be heard from the house.  Being the secretive little birds that they are, it took weeks before we could actually pinpoint from which of the pompous poultry ensued such melodious cacophony.  The ranch husband and I took bets.  I lost.  But then, not a week later, realized that I had in fact won.  We had two roosters show their faces.  Figuring those odds weren't terrible, with one bird down, and two that wouldn't be very productive in the egg laying department, we built the chickens a yard attached to their little house.  We named one of these unfortunate birds, "Dennis".  A tan colored Top Hat with a strange affinity for hopping everywhere he went, we labeled him the banty rooster.   The ranch toddler thoroughly enjoyed coming to feed and water the birds, yelling "I catch! I catch!", and ensuring that they all got adequate daily exercise.  When I would actually catch one for her, she wanted me to put it down almost immediately.

At about this time, a small Aracauna laid us our first green egg.  The fruits of our labor!  The ranch toddler held it in awe, declaring, "awesome!", and then smashed it against a rock.  That is, after all what I do with eggs, isn't it?  We also surmised that the extra large, feathery Barred Rock (dubbed Chanticleer)  was most likely a rooster along with the most hideous, Velociraptor-look-alike Feather Footed Fancy (although to this day, I still have yet to see the ugly thing crow or mount a hen…).  That makes one dead and four roosters.  Odds aren't looking quite so good.  At this time, we decided to upgrade the henhouse into motel chicken with the addition of a roost and some egg laying boxes.  A far cry from the cat crate, and sack of feed that they were currently roosting on, the chickens immediately took to their roost contently.  Or, so I thought.

The next
morning, I opened the door to the hen house to find two new tiny eggs laid on the ground.  Hoping that after being placed in the actual laying boxes, the hens might "get the picture", I placed them  in there, fed and watered the chickens.   On my way out the door, I heard a ruckus and felt the attack of a kung-fu rooster on my calf.  After chasing the offending rooster (Chanticleer) around the yard two or three times, I finally caught the bast…. bird, and punted him football style across the house (please don't report me to PETA.)  I vowed that one more strike, and he was chicken soup.  He has yet to repeat his offense.

This leads us to our final quota.  After finding a pile of feathers by the horse pens, it was easy to surmise that the Campine fell victim to some unknown killer.  Not a huge loss, they're mostly "ornamental" anyway, right?  Then, there is one bird whose gender is still unknown.  It looks somewhat like an oversized hen, but is developing longer tail feathers, and has a thicker comb.  What do I know?  I'm no chicken farmer.  We will call this one a transgender.  That leaves us with 2 dead, 4 roosters, 1 transgender, and 1 attack rooster.  Chicken farming failure…at least we bought spares.

Strange Beginnings

That first summer, I still had a year left of school and a planned internship in southern Arizona working for the US Fish and Wildlife Service that I had hoped would turn into a full time position after graduation.  No time for a significant other who certainly did not fit into my life plans.  The ranch hand and I had discussed his interest in endeavors in the northwestern parts of the country, and so, when an opportunity arose during a festive birthday celebration and gathering, we (that very same compadre who introduced us, a wild northern NM woman and friend, and myself) took it upon ourselves to design this cowboy a resume and send it off via the "intronet".  Long story short, he got the job, I got the internship, and we "parted" ways, only to speak for hours upon end on the telephone.  Great way to "save" time and myself a relationship, right?

Ranching in central Montana was a tough adjustment for a New Mexico cowboy.  He went from long days burning both ends of the candle horseback to turning wrenches and baling hay from a tractor cab.  He often took to running laps to the fence line and back to the tractor to burn off steam.  In those first few months, he may (or may not) have packed on an extra 40 pounds, while his horse may have gained close to 200.   Hay that year took over a month to put up, followed by months of hauling it in off of the fields.  

A year down the road, with a job offer on the table, and a dinner conversation ringing in my memory during which I told the ranch hand's oldest brother that we would either continue our relationship based on my job in the southwest, or we would discontinue things altogether.  I would not be moving to Montana.  Yeah right.  End of May, I convinced my dearest friend, and possibly the only person who could survive a road trip of that magnitude with two dogs, a filly, and a freshly weaned colt to make the trek across the country and turned down the job with US Fish and Wildlife Service.

 Excited to get a foot in the door in the ranching industry and to work alongside a New Mexico cowboy, with a grand plan of getting a few years of experience under my belt and then applying to Texas A&M's Kingsville Ranch Management program.  Thus would begin six months of so much experience (thought not what I had intended or thought), so much gained, and so much that was let go of.     

“If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.” ― Iyanla Vanzant

"Forget college, I think I'll just move to Montana and go work on a ranch," said my teenage self.  "I won't ever get married," was a statement my brother so kindly reminded me of at our wedding.  "I don't want kids," I always said.  "I'll marry a 'Smith' when I grow up," were the words of a frustrated young girl teased by her last name (which so happened to be shared with a tasty, salted snack).  

Fast forward so many (unstated) years to a college career that eventually led to a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and a respectable job with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  Somewhere along that journey, despite my best efforts to remain single, a "fateful" road trip with a class mate and compadre ensued.  During a Thanksgiving vacation when most students were visiting family, we made the trek across the deserts of New Mexico to a dusty, windy, pile or dirt out in the desert that someone decided to call a "ranch" where a few hundred wiley, mismatched cattle worked too hard to make a living.  It was there we were greeted through the truck window by a gruff cowboy with few manners who resembled Josh Lucas and drove a red 80's model Chevy far too fast down an ungroomed dirt road to his single wide trailer that was suitable for the sole purpose of arsen.  

This eventually leads us to where we are today:  Still together, though sharing a common last name (with far too many consonants and far too few vowels), with a sassy, smart, sweet, redheaded toddler, far too many dogs, a few too many horses, and a barn cat running cattle for an outfit in big sky country, and living "the dream".  The stories that ensue are a collection of memories and adventures that I've been wanting to write down, and possibly share with some of you who might find them amusing.  I'm sure that there will be a continuing stream of things that are worth talking about as soon as a person has had the time to get back up, dust their pants off, take a shower, grab a bite and "get over it".