Just Ranching Along

Dear Reader,

Do you know what you are doing? Do you have your life figured out? Are you an expert in your field? Or are you like me and wonder how long it will take for people to catch on that you aren’t 100% sure about everything you do? Sometimes we can only do what comes to mind and hope it works. I have 24 years of experience on the ranch and four years of a college education in agriculture, and I still have to call my dad on the phone to check the dosage before I give an animal medicine, even though I have read the label 89 times and reworked my math a million times with the same answer. This question was brought to my attention when I saw a reel on social media. The joke of the reel was that the mom didn’t know what she was doing to manage ranch life and mom life, she was just doing it. Immediately I thought to myself, “So I’m not the only one just winging it and who isn’t a bottomless pit of ranching knowledge, even though I live it every day.”

Whenever I mention that my family ranches, or that I went to school for agriculture to people who are not in agriculture, I usually get bombarded with questions that I am happy to answer. But I feel like I am just giving the scripted textbook answer, even though some of those things I learned the hard way, with no book learning. Even with all of my experience and education, I still like people to double check behind me. It’s comforting to have someone double check the straps when I am about to haul a load, to advise on how to approach a certain project, to check my dosage on medicine, or to just explain to me the best way to move the cattle. Sadly, that’s not always the case; there is nothing worse than the sinking feeling of walking unsure into a situation and realizing that the person you thought would know more than you doesn’t. An even worse situation is knowing that the person who should know everything is wrong, but you’re not sure why they’re wrong or what the solution is. Sometimes it’s best to not show your doubts until you absolutely need to.

I’m the kind of person who likes to have all of the facts and time to think of all of the possible outcomes and worst-case scenarios. Is that mindset conducive to ranching? Umm, no, not really. Half of the decisions made while ranching are made on the fly with fingers crossed. Not the big decisions like what bull to buy or what kind of feed to put out. But the scary decisions like should I close this gate or not, did I tie that knot tight enough, can the truck make it through this pasture or not, should we move the cows to this pasture before the storm or wait it out. Those are the decisions that I hate having to make, but I make them all the time.

And then there is the rare occasion that I am 100% confident in what I need to do. Like what to do when a bottle calf is sick, how to treat a wound on a horse, or what is wrong with the truck (an even rarer occasion). The slight emergencies on a ranch that don’t happen every day, but they happen enough that they are more of an inconvenience than a huge problem. The answers in a way become textbook, even if every rancher has a different way to approach these problems.

But even though there are things that you are 100% confident that you know exactly what to do or what the answer is, you can still be 100% wrong. Riding in the car the other day with my cousin, she was comparing the new lyrics to a song from the new remake of The Little Mermaid compared to the lyrics of the original movie. She read a line that said “Bright young women, sick of swimming. Ready to stand” to which I commented “Why did they change it from “pregnant women”. She said “They orignal, that is the original lyric.” Dear Reader, I have thought that the lyrics to the song said “pregnant women” since I was six years old, and I would have bet my life on that. So, Dear Reader, be confident in what you know, but be humble enough to be corrected, and be brave enough to figuring it out until you get it.

Sincerely Yours,

The Rancher’s Daughter