Ranching in the Moment

Dear Reader,

After my family and I got home from vacation last month, I have been in survival mode.  Go to work, come home and do chores. Wake up and get ready for work. Catch up on things on the weekend, start over on Monday. No one likes to live like this; I understand that everyone has a busy life to some degree, but in seasons of life like this, I find it hard to enjoy the little moments. I want everything to be perfect when I am soaking up those moments, but I just end up going from one task to the next and not just sitting down and doing the thing that isn’t a priority, but still just needs to be done.

It’s one of those vicious cycles where I don’t feel like I can work on my blog because my room isn’t clean, but I can’t clean my room because I need to do chores outside. Or I want and need to ride my horse, but that gets put on the back burner because there are other more important or practical things that need to be done before I can ride. I can’t truly enjoy the ride if the house is a mess (at least that is what my brain tells me).

But in an act of desperation, I decided that enough was enough. To that to give my bank account a break, and to take better care of my health, I needed start packing my lunches. (I am not sure if this was technically a cheaper option for one person, but it was definitely a healthier one.) I crammed shopping into my lunch break and stuffed my purchases into the minifridge in the office. When I got my groceries home after work, and with feeding and dinner done, I made a meatloaf for the first time. Making meatloaf I know isn’t that hard, but I was kind of proud of my little loaf of meat. (I will say it is easier to mix and shape the ingredients in a bowl instead of saving time and dishes by mixing everything in the pan that you are going to bake in). But it wasn’t just the fact that I bit the bullet and made my lunches ahead in a messy kitchen. I learned to enjoy the not so perfect small moments in that night. I convinced my youngest sister to make the instant mashed potatoes to put in my lunches. I am not sure why it tastes better when she makes them, but ever since she was old enough to help in the kitchen, she has been the designated mashed potato cook. Even though I normally would have been stressed out to be in a small, not so clean kitchen after eight at night trying to work around another person, I actually enjoyed the little moment of my not so little sister helping me make my lunches and approve my lunch choices.

The other Friday night, I spent the evening stripping a stall, which means I had to take out all of the shavings and other stuff, so that I could put new shavings down. Kind of like changing out cat litter, but on a much larger scale! It’s not a hated chore (most of the time), but it’s still a bigger endeavor that is just hard manual labor. When I started this project at 7:15 in the evening I didn’t think it would take more than half an hour, but 11 wheelbarrow loads and 1 hour, later I had definitely overestimated the time it would take me to do this project. But I wasn’t even upset (even if my dad made fun of me for being dressed like a farmer). There is something about manual labor that makes me feel accomplished and kind of resets my mood. It wasn’t how I was necessarily planning or wanting to spend my Friday night, but when I got in at 9 pm after finishing all of my evening chores and my younger siblings asked for a ride to town to buy ice cream, I realized that maybe this was a better way of spending my Friday evening than I could have planned. There is something wild about buying ice cream at 9:30 pm at Dollar General and being silly with your siblings that makes you feel content with your little friends. I am not a fan of going to Dollar General, after dark, so go figure.

The following Saturday morning, I woke up late, which was my choice, and I unexpectedly ended up helping with horses and chores outside. Since part of our business is training horses, Saturdays can turn into visitation days where the owners of horses come to see their progress and visit. Even though I was waiting for the perfect moment to wear it, like when I worked cows, I decided to debut my new flat brimmed straw hat that I brought all the way home from South Dakota. It had been sitting in a hat box in my room for a month, so I decided to just go for it and wear it while I washed out the Gypsy Vanner’s feathers.  He thankfully didn’t get slobber all over my hat (Gypsy Vanners have long hair by their feet called feathers) and this particular Gypsy Vanner’s love language was physical touch with his nose.)

The summer heat can really get to you no matter where you live, but in the south, especially in Florida, it can get depressing with the heat, the rain and mud, and the humidity, and unless you are at the beach it just feels like you are surviving until it decides to cool down. Much like the winter in other places I would guess. But even when you are surviving you have to choose to live in the little ways that you can, even if that’s laughing in a messy kitchen with your little sister and giving horses baths in a cowboy hat.