Definition of a Ranchwife (part one)

Okay, so I said that a ranchwife is like a housewife plus thousands of acres, hundreds of cattle, nine horses, chickens, dogs, cats.... but being a Lutheran the question must be asked, "What does this mean?"

Here is an example from the past couple of days. (part two will be preparing for the spring storm)

Tuesday: The Rancher had to go to Casper to shoe horses. Right now we are heifer calving and irrigating. These things do not stop for the day because one is away. For those who do not know, "heifers" are the bovine equivalent to "girls". When "girls" grow up they become "women", and when "heifers" grow up they become "cows". A heifer has grown up when she has her first calf. So, for better or worse we have stocked our new ranch with about 100 first time mamas and about half that many "grandma cows" who are likely on their last calf, about 13 years old. First time mamas don't always do things like they are supposed to so it takes a bit of babysitting sometimes. So with The Rancher in town I had one calf in the corral who needed assistance entering the world the day before and the stress of the event had left him kindof "dumb" and not very vigorous. He wouldn't get up and nurse on his own so we were trying to get him to nurse from a bottle. We had let the new momma out to get a drink of water and she seemed to have forgotten that she had had a baby. The Biggest Cowgirl and I spent way too much time trying to teach this little guy something that should have been instinct. Later in the day I saddled my horse and went off to find the absent mama and bring her back. We locked them into a smaller pen, and hooray! instinct kicked in... guess that instinct is stronger when it's the real thing instead of a bottle and a couple of humans!

So we still had irrigating to do. We decided to walk rather than use the fuel for the old pickup truck. While I was setting an irrigation tarp the three cowgirls decided it was warm enough to get wet... really wet. After I threatened to make them do their own laundry from now on I saw the fun they were having and decided to take a picture instead.

We had a great walk! And if you are wondering what subjects we covered for school that day... biology, hydrology, physics, P.E. Not bad for pre-school, kindergarten, and second grade!

We also took these pictures from the top of the hill above the house....

The horse barn is the red building to the right, the house sits in the trees to the left. These are the heifers waiting it out to calve....

This hill formation is called a "hog-back"....

This is looking south to the higher pont of the ranch. Yes the skyline is within our boundaries.