Ranch Wife's Slant

Cowboys, kids, and ranch life

Month: May 2011

  • Cheat Nights

    At our house, when the cook that’d be me gets a night off, we call it cheat night. I’m not entirely sure how the nickname stuck but I think it had something to do with me commenting once that I was going to cheat on cooking supper and everyone was going to have a bowl…

  • Raising Country Kids

    Kids raised in the city get street smart. Kids raised in the country get to work. One of the first things my husband and I did to raise our kids in the country was train them for the outside world. Potty training for the outdoors was necessary since a lot of our kids’ time would…

  • Weekend Cereal

    Like most households, my family looks forward to weekends. It means they get to have weekend cereal! I dubbed sugar-coated cereals weekend cereals a long time ago when I made it a rule one summer that my kids couldn’t eat sugar cereal for breakfast every day. I’ve always felt like the first meal of the…

  • Generating Column Topics

    When I sit down to start drafting my column, I don’t always have a topic figured out. I typically free write to generate ideas but sometimes I get stuck. When that happens I’ll brainstorm instead. I have different formats to do this. Having a variety of different breakthrough techniques to pick from shakes up my…

  • BEEF Magazine’s May 2011 Issue Features Value Cuts of Beef

    I was overly excited when I received the May 2011 issue of BEEF Magazine in our mailbox last week and saw the cover. The magazine’s featured topic focused on value cut meats. The front cover pictured a scrumptious skillet dish of pan-fried steak, onions, jalapeños, and colored bell peppers called Samba steak stir fry using…

  • My Husband’s Nightstand

    My husband is a creature of habit. I’m more of a creature of chaos. I admire his penchant for routine. If only that kind of habit would stick with me. Every night he empties his personal belongings on his nightstand. Mine are usually forgotten as soon as I walk in the door. He’s very consistent…

  • The Ranch Wife Chronicles: A Fellow South Dakota Ranch Wife’s Blog

    At the Women In Ag conference this past fall I met a new friend Robyn, who lives in the opposite direction from where I live, and since we met we’ve stayed in contact through technology. Robyn and her husband live on a ranch in a more remote location than I do, yet she and I…

  • Branding 2011

    The day of our branding was a déjà vu experience. It was a blustery Saturday with 40 mile an hour winds and bouts of snow spit-balling riders helping us as we rode out and faced the blasts of wind to gather our herd and push them toward the barn. It was definitely not a cowboy hat-wearing…

  • What Happens To Kids Who Don’t Get TV Time

    When you deprive a child of television, they’ll end up doing stuff like this with their time:   This is an example of what my son can do with free time, camouflage duct tape and black electrical tape when there’s no television programming to watch. Evidently holding his water bottle in his hand isn’t as…

  • Roast Beef: The Ultimate in Lazy Cooking

    Roast beef is one of my favorite cuts of beef because it’s the easiest meat to cook and make meals out of. I usually have our meat processor make 4-5 pound roasts out of our butcher critter for us. I like that I can squeeze three meals out of one roast without much fuss to…