Ranch Wife's Slant

Cowboys, kids, and ranch life

Category: Ranch Slants

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • He Is Risen!

    Happy Easter! These three crosses are located in the northeast corner of the Pringle Cemetery. I’ve always enjoyed their presence and seeing them whenever we drive by the cemetery on the back road into Pringle. They’re situated on a hill overlooking the rest of cemetery. Pringle’s cemetery is small and tucked behind our town about…

  • Life’s Instruction Manual

    It always irritates me whenever I come across quotations that say something about how life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. Life and knowing how to live does come with an instruction manual: it’s called the BIBLE. It’s not only the only manual a human will ever need in order to know how to live…

  • Running Away From Writer’s Block

    Having to produce a column every week and come up with something interesting to blog about can sometimes cause my brain to get stuck in a mental mud hole. I may have a wisp of an idea that I can’t seem to stir up enough humor or personal experiences to elaborate on my topic. Other…

  • Taking Up a New Role: Guest Speaker

    The last couple of months have been busy ones for me either preparing material for, or giving guest speaking presentations. In January, I trekked close to home to Spearfish and gave an hour long breakout session presentation to young couples attending the SD Young Farmers and Ranchers conference titled Communication: In and Out of the…

  • Another Use for Duct Tape

    Now that calving has begun, (as of last week) my husband and I started the process of every day, looking over the herd and making an educated guess as to which cows are most likely to calve soon. There are various signs to look for such as a cow looking bagged up (her milk is…

  • Levi’s Lost Calf

    Last weekend at the South Dakota Young Farmers and Ranchers conference I finally met journalist, blogger, author, and rancher, Amanda Radke from Mitchell, SD in person. She and I were both speakers at the conference and we had an opportunity to visit a little bit. I have read her articles in the Tri-State Livestock News…

  • A Space of Our Own

    A kitchen is a woman’s domain. A shop is a man’s shop. These places are designed to fix stuff; preferably supper or equipment depending on whose space we’re talking about but stranger things have been fixed in my husband’s shop and my kitchen. Over time, these work spaces get furnished with the necessary and sometimes…

  • Learning in Style

    How stylish one wants to look while doing ranch work is totally up to the individual. Correctly understanding what’s expected is far more important on our ranch. Learning through one’s style to comprehend instructions and process information is helpful in fulfilling job expectations but our ranch utilizes all three learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic/tactile…