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.