Aww, the smell of fresh coffee brewing can bring this girl right out of a deep sleep any day on the ranch. My husband, Jim, and I have made a deal, that whoever is the first one up makes coffee and brings the other his or her\u00a0coffee in bed. Well, I guess I gave it away that Jim gets up before me. More times than not, that is the case. Our deal works out well. We usually meet up every morning in the winter by our dear fireside and in the summer on the front porch. We always\u00a0enjoy the beginning of our day together. Our days are not run on a\u00a0schedule, and we are not slave to a time clock. We go to work happily, always\u00a0ready to face the tasks that the day may bring.
\nThe idea of being ‘your own boss’ is a romantic notion to most, but being self employed makes you productive. We answer to ourselves and\u00a0to one\u00a0another, then\u00a0live with the consequences if the\u00a0work goes undone.
\nOn any given day of the week the cows must be fed and the livestock water levels\u00a0checked. One such day as we were\u00a0going about\u00a0that day’s agenda,\u00a0our eyes were drawn to a far reaching shadow\u00a0just when a mighty golden eagle, atop of the windmill tower, swooped down and made a low pass right in front of our pickup windshield. Wow! Was that ever thrilling!
\nAnother time, I recall, I was closing a wire cross-fence gate when out of nowhere a charging buffalo jumped the gate I had just barely shut.\u00a0That female barreled by just a few feet within\u00a0my\u00a0feed truck\u00a0door. Thank God for His watching over me, because\u00a0I had left the door open; that was my saving grace. Wow! Talk about\u00a0getting your heart rate up!
\nOn occasion, the\u00a0cattle need gathered and moved to different pastures. One such July evening, my son, Tyler, and I were caught in a driving cold rainstorm. We finished the job, even though the rain was coming down so hard we were covered in welts left by the hard pelting raindrops. Soaked through to the skin, we were so cold we were unable to talk because of our chattering teeth.\u00a0After we were able to\u00a0reach the shelter of\u00a0our pickup\u00a0and trailer, let me tell you, we cranked that heater up to ‘HIGH’ as we headed\u00a0for the house\u00a0that July evening. I couldn’t wait, so I proceeded to pull off\u00a0those wet boots, pour out\u00a0that\u00a0ice cold\u00a0water,\u00a0all the while with\u00a0Tyler\u00a0shivering, almost uncontrollably, as he\u00a0drove\u00a0dodging deep\u00a0mud holes and fording the draws that had become rivers. I know how that rider felt in Frederick Remington’s rendition of the stampede.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet\u00a0another\u00a0recollection of our ranch life together\u00a0was a time when\u00a0Jim and I were gathering cows.\u00a0 I had left the comfort of the caking pickup to follow two of the last cows in order\u00a0to shut the gate behind them while Jim closed the trap gate. All of a sudden that last cow got the notion to turn, come at me in a dead run with her head down low preparing to send me airborne. What was I to do but stand my ground and pray that she would not toss me. At the last second, she chickened out, did an about face and jumped the gate that Jim had just closed. Wow! That was too close for my comfort.
\nThen there are those middle of the night phone calls from the Sheriff. They\u00a0always seem to occur\u00a0on the coldest winter nights. I can’t tell you how many times we have received such calls telling us that someone just\u00a0drove through our fence along the highway. We appreciate those helpful phone\u00a0calls. Boy,\u00a0I wish I had a hundred dollars for every time someone run through theUniverse fence, and\u00a0no one\u00a0called. Jim and Tyler hate to stretch wire in the cold, because\u00a0wire doesn’t stretch- it breaks.
\n‘Fixin’ fence on a hot summer day at the backside of the pasture is not so bad, and I am no stranger to wire stretchers and dogs or to the\u00a0‘double wrapped’ method of wiring barbed wire on old brittle cedar posts that won’t hold a staple. The grand sweep of a majestic high plains sunset as a backdrop to the fence stretching off to the far horizon is an artist dream. The little creatures that one sees out\u00a0on the range,\u00a0like a baby Horned Toad that is no bigger than my thumbnail is\u00a0just\u00a0one of God’s creatures that is\u00a0a sight to behold as is two big adult males fighting for territorial rights.
\nBeing a self-employed rancher is a lot of work and requires\u00a0every member\u00a0of our family to work together\u00a0in order to\u00a0accomplish all that needs to be\u00a0done. Sometimes, the task at hand is beyond our means, so we must work long and\u00a0hard hours. Some days\u00a0we\u00a0may not accomplish much if anything at all. On the days when much is accomplished, it is extremely gratifying knowing that we have given it our best. Tomorrow is always another day and a new beginning here on the ranch. Living here on the ranch, we feel\u00a0so close to God. Our appreciation of\u00a0All He created\u00a0allows our family to enjoy that\u00a0which\u00a0others rarely have\u00a0the chance to\u00a0experience. Ranch life suits my family. We feel we\u00a0are blessed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aww, the smell of fresh coffee brewing can bring this girl right out of a deep sleep any day on the ranch. My husband, Jim, and I have made a deal, that whoever is the first one up makes coffee and brings the other his or her\u00a0coffee in bed. Well, I guess I gave it away that Jim gets up before me. More times than not, that is the case. Our deal works out well. We usually meet up every morning in the winter by our dear fireside and in the summer on the front porch. We always\u00a0enjoy the beginning of our day together. Our days are not run on a\u00a0schedule, and we are not slave to a time clock. We go to work happily, always\u00a0ready to face the tasks that the day may bring.
\nThe idea of being ‘your own boss’ is a romantic notion to most, but being self [ …<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[123,135,128,134,124,125,126,127,13,118,132,122,129,131,120,133,119,138,136,137,130,121],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-living-the-life","tag-buffalo","tag-caking-pickup","tag-check-water","tag-chickened-out","tag-coffee-in-bed","tag-dear-fireside","tag-feed","tag-feed-cattle","tag-fence","tag-frederick-remingtons-rendition-of-the-stampede","tag-gods-creation","tag-golden-eagle","tag-heater-in-july","tag-high-plains-sunset","tag-horned-toad","tag-hot-summer-day","tag-poured-water-out-of-my-boots","tag-saving-grace","tag-sheriff","tag-stampede","tag-teeth-chattering","tag-wire-stretchers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ranchpaintings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ranchpaintings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ranchpaintings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ranchpaintings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ranchpaintings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ranchpaintings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176,"href":"https:\/\/ranchpaintings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions\/176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ranchpaintings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ranchpaintings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ranchpaintings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}