Ranch Wife's Slant

Cowboys, kids, and ranch life

Month: August 2009

  • Amy’s Unsolved Mysteries

    Those tangled bunches of miniature-sized sunflower looking blooms (I don’t know what they’re really called) I see growing along the highway right now are a sweet little treat for my eyes every time I drive someplace. They’re also one of those unsolved mysteries that need an answer but we’ll get to that in a minute….

  • Just Leave Me in the Dark

    I’m left in the dark at our place a lot, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m comfortable there. Once my husband and I started a family, we outgrew our tiny two-bedroom home and my father in-law agreed to switch houses with us. After moving into the home where my husband grew up, the sodium yard…

  • Livin’ on the Edge

    Ranch work isn’t as life threatening as say, working on an Alaskan king crab fishing boat but the way my husband and I go about getting our work done could be considered dangerous. We’ve become somewhat desensitized to the risks we take. We put the thought of consequences we could suffer later out of our…

  • Surviving the Fair

    I survived: the projects, being the 4-H project Nazi; critiquing and scrutinizing the quality of my kids’ projects, the big push to finish due to the time crunch, and resisting requests to let them drop a project in the end. I survived getting my kids through Achievement Days! I can’t believe how much better my…

  • A Barrel Horse

    I dreamed of being a barrel racer as a kid but should’ve considered saddle bronc riding instead. I got a lot more practice in on that kind of horse event. The horses of my youth weren’t papered, fancy, or always the soundest, and they each had at least one character flaw but every family member…

  • Seein’ Stars

    The story I’ve been putting together for next week is about sodium yard lights, er, the absence thereof. I thought it was such a co-inkydink (our slang term for coincidence) that I wrote about that particular topic the same time my family and I all slept outside and watched for shooting stars organically, as in…

  • The Hail Blizzard That Rock and Rolled

    A few weeks ago we had a hail storm blow in; literally. The strong winds mixed with hail had me spooked thinking tornado (which is unusual around here) because the wind was blowing so strongly. We had a downpour of heavy rain but the hail was devastating. It’s hard to tell how big the hail…

  • Ranch Life Suits A Gemini

    Horoscopes seems hokey to me, but I find ranching and my Gemini characteristics perfectly suited for each other. Both are chock full of the unexpected and our unpredictable lifestyle is well-matched to my mercurial nature and penchant for adventure. Work on a ranch takes place outside and requires a lot of physical activity a Gemini’s…

  • A Wellspring of Troubles

    Prior to the two weeks we had relatives visiting that wanted to stay at the Ranger Station (the house where my husband and I used to live), we had some dirty work to do. The old waterline needed replaced. A couple of years ago, we had renters that said they kept running out of water…