The chicks are growing like weeds. The garden is in and doing well. The horses are enjoying the green grass. The cows are having babies.
Now the work really begins :)
Summer is coming. For most parents that means the end of yet another school year and the wonderful days of summer. Fun days filled with parent/child time, vacations and relaxing. For me? It means that the time has come again to start working hard on the ranch. Not that any other season is easy. They all come with a long list of things to be done but summer is a busy one for me. Filled with long, hot days of manual labor. Mowing, baleling and hauling endless bales of hay. Unforseen equipment malfunctions that throw a wrench in production. Fire danger as the temps hit triple digits.
THEN...I come home to the animals, the house, cooking, laundry and everything else that goes along with being mom :) Not that I would ever trade it, mind you. Ranch work, for me, is wonderful. I enjoy the summer hay, the fall prep, the winter harvest and the spring scramble. Ranching is in my blood. Hell, I even went to school to learn MORE about the business that my family has been in for so many generations. Overkill? Maybe, but as the bearer of the torch for my generation of family rancher it is what I needed to do.
The problem? My family ranch has NEVER been run by a woman before. Why now? There is no choice :) There are no men in my generation. Yeah, I have a husband but my family is very hard core about the ranch ONLY being managed by blood relations.
Don't get me wrong. There is nothing in the world that I would enjoy more than to wake each and every morning on my family homestead and know that I am responsible for anything that does or doesnot happen on the property. It has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. So I embrace the long, hot, dry hours that will chap my face and burn my skin. I welcome the blisters and the pain.
I'm just another country girl trying to make my make in what has been for so long a man
Now the work really begins :)
Summer is coming. For most parents that means the end of yet another school year and the wonderful days of summer. Fun days filled with parent/child time, vacations and relaxing. For me? It means that the time has come again to start working hard on the ranch. Not that any other season is easy. They all come with a long list of things to be done but summer is a busy one for me. Filled with long, hot days of manual labor. Mowing, baleling and hauling endless bales of hay. Unforseen equipment malfunctions that throw a wrench in production. Fire danger as the temps hit triple digits.
THEN...I come home to the animals, the house, cooking, laundry and everything else that goes along with being mom :) Not that I would ever trade it, mind you. Ranch work, for me, is wonderful. I enjoy the summer hay, the fall prep, the winter harvest and the spring scramble. Ranching is in my blood. Hell, I even went to school to learn MORE about the business that my family has been in for so many generations. Overkill? Maybe, but as the bearer of the torch for my generation of family rancher it is what I needed to do.
The problem? My family ranch has NEVER been run by a woman before. Why now? There is no choice :) There are no men in my generation. Yeah, I have a husband but my family is very hard core about the ranch ONLY being managed by blood relations.
Don't get me wrong. There is nothing in the world that I would enjoy more than to wake each and every morning on my family homestead and know that I am responsible for anything that does or doesnot happen on the property. It has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. So I embrace the long, hot, dry hours that will chap my face and burn my skin. I welcome the blisters and the pain.
I'm just another country girl trying to make my make in what has been for so long a man