Ranch Wife's Slant

Cowboys, kids, and ranch life

Author: Amy

  • My Morning View Over Coffee

      I love it out here first thing in the morning. It’s kind of a sanctuary where I like to come and absorb nature while I have my coffee. The air is fresh and crisp and damp. I like the way it smells; earthy, sweet, and damp.    Every morning, usually around 6 or 6:30 a.m., I head…

  • Meet #1594

    This is our newest bull that replaces one that went MIA last fall out on our Forest Service lease. After we moved cows back home up by Pringle last fall, we spent a lot of time checking the tanks, salt spots and popular herd hangouts hoping to find our missing bull but we nor did the…

  • A Reputation That Stacks Up

    Our ranch takes pride in what we do. As ranchers we have a reputation to uphold which you might’ve guessed has to do with hay. There was a time when the Kirk family’s reputation was based on haystacks but with the convenience of baling equipment, my husband believes our reputation is now built on the…

  • Roast Beef and Colby-Jack Biscuits

    After our branding a couple of weeks ago, I had some leftover roast beef that I decided to make the next night’s supper out of instead of freezing like I do with a lot of the leftover meat and potatoes from our branding day dinner. I am always on the hunt for unique and new…

  • Kirk Branding Day 2012

    Last Saturday we had a great day to have our branding. My son lives for brandings every weekend and usually gets a buddy or two to come down to help at ours. We got a heavy rain about 4 a.m. prior so the branding corral was pretty muddy but the calf wrestlers didn’t seem to…

  • My Branding Day Checklists

    We’re gearing up for our branding and one of the things I do to prepare for it is make lists to organize my time. Cooking a meal for a large crowd is a lot of work and takes time. I organize my days prior by creating lists I can refer to. I like to enjoy…

  • Ask a Professional

    When you want accurate answers to questions about such things as your health, financial investments, or automotive problems for example, you go directly to the people who can answer your questions best with facts to back them up. It’s their job to know all there is to know about their profession and you rely on…

  • The PVFD

    If I were to give you a drive by tour of Pringle, I would most definitely show you the Pringle Fire Hall. Our community might be small (pop. 125), but we do have a great fire department. Like most rural fire departments, ours is volunteer, and they’re a great group of guys. I’m sentimental about…

  • Family Reading

    Reading to my kids is something that I still haven’t outgrown, even though they have. As my kids got older and started school, I couldn’t give up the reading time I shared with them. When they were small, I read a lot of illustrated children’s books to them. Once they learned to read and began…

  • Ag United and South Dakota’s True Environmentalists

    Agriculture faces increasing scrutiny from people and organizations that are far-removed from the land and the sources of their food. Our food doesn’t come from a grocery store they’re just the distributors of it. Food comes from crops grown by hard working farming and ranching families. A lot of criticism is stemmed from lack of…