Tag: ranch life
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My Annual Lucille Ball Moment in Twine
A couple of ideal-looking baling twine balls. Examples courtesy of my Hubs. This column was originally published December 26, 2013 Cutting twine on a round bale and gathering it into a wad may seem like a task any idiot can do, but at the start of a new winter cow-feeding season I have all sorts…
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A Day for Celebrating Gratitudes
Thanksgiving may be a day set aside once a year for being thankful and celebrating it with family and food, but I try to be thankful regularly by keeping a gratitude journal. This is a gratitude journal I received one year for Christmas from a girlfriend whose name is also Amy. This is the “instructions”…
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A Chilly Day for Comforting Chili on the Kirk Ranch
This past Monday morning was a rude awakening, not just to freezing rain early in the morning that turned to sticky snow but plummeting temperatures. I had just spent a week at a writer’s retreat in Florida and thankfully, got home late Sunday night before the snow rolled in. The next morning it was…
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South Dakota Farm and Ranch Life in Poetry
Anytime I discover something that becomes a part of my favorite things list, I want to share it with others. I met farmer and cattleman Bruce Roseland of North Central South Dakota at the South Dakota Festival of Books back in September in Sioux Falls. Bruce writes free verse poetry about everyday things that pertain to…
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Atlas’ 1st Anniversary
A year ago today, winter storm Atlas began with rain, then turned to rapidly piling snow overnight. I was not at home, but rather attending the annual Women in Ag conference for our area 30 miles away along with many other farm and ranch women. My family was home and rode out the storm mildly. Our…
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Wrestle Like a Girl–Cowgirl Style
This past weekend we held our branding and after processing the whole day with my husband Art several different times, we determined that this year’s branding was probably the best we’ve ever had, or at least that we can remember having. For starters, we had excellent weather. Myles helping bring in the herd for sorting….
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Bringing People Together, Sharing a Meal, & Benefitting Ranchers Affected by Storm Atlas
A Senior Project Success: When our son Myles said he was thinking about putting on a steak feed to benefit the Rancher Relief Fund for his Senior Project (a fairly new requirement for South Dakota high school graduates), I was very proud that he came up with that particular idea all on his…
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Calf Daycare
This is a pretty common scene in the morning at feeding time one cow with a passel of calves. Even though it may look to some people that this cow had all those calves, she’s actually just the babysitter. All the mothers of these calves went to feed. Art and I joke about this scene when we…
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The Tack Room “Museum”
The last week in February we started calving and had a bad cold snap. Calving was just starting for us, and it was while Art and I were regrouping in the tack room recording some eartag numbers of new pairs in the barn, digging out last year’s record book to make some calving season comparisons,…
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“Amy’s Hereford”
A while back I wrote a column about Amy’s Hereford. During calving season last year we got a cute little Hereford heifer calf in our calf crop. Since she arrived I’ve kind of fussed over the little gal and my fascination with her got to be a joke whenever we’d see her. If we spotted her while…