The Most Important Job on the Ranch

February 17, 2015

It’s late February and the first cool day in about two weeks.  We woke up to fog so thick we couldn't see through it.  To set in that middle-of-the-winter feel, all three of my babies woke up with coughs and runny noses.  I wanted to go out and check calves that might be sick too, but my babies needed me.  While I gathered Kleenex and pedialyte, I settled them down on the couch, myself in between them with the baby in my arms, and my husband pulled on his coveralls and snow cap.

Running the Ranch
From inside I saw the farm ‘Hoe (an old Tahoe we use as a ranch truck) pull away from the house.  I saw him cross the fence, drive around far faster than is safe, and return, tracking in mud... again.  I might have been preparing gourmet chicken noodle soup straight from the Cambell’s can or taking temperatures by hand in lieu of a lost thermometer, but at the time, I definitely wasn’t getting in or out of the truck to open gates or putting on and taking off a Carhartt jacket.  

After his fresh air break and my still sitting in my PJs, my husband and I turned over the child-care to Disney for the 90 minutes that Shrek runs (and Sleeping Beauty, and Dumbo...).  We spent the time doing recording-keeping which I loathe far more than wearing snot and puke on my bathrobe.  I sat like the naughty kid in math class aggressively punching in numbers and damn near crying when accounts didn't reconcile.

I keep telling myself that running the business is part of running the business, and the whole point of running the business is for our kids' futures.  So it only makes sense that keeping the books, and caring for our kids is just as important as checking the herd, but there was part of me that despite saying it, couldn’t feel it.

After hours of staring at a computer screen and pouring over bank records like a pastey white-collar cubicle-dweller, I wanted nothing more than to feed and check the place over in the evening.  Like a tricky genie heard my request, I did indeed get to feed; I had a hungry baby at my boob in no time while again my husband had the pleasure of driving off into the sunset, to check heifers, calves, and water tanks.

 
Hunkering Down

As I looked out at the black-freckled landscape that I thought I was neglecting, I set my gaze on a mama with her calf.  There they sat, one in another.  The cow licked the head of her calf, the calf responding with a calmness that would melt any mother’s heart.  They sitting so close together that she could have been holding it made it look like the cover of a greeting card. Many times after calving and after the first feeding, we will see the cows hunker down for the day--sometimes all night too-- with their new calves. With the compassion only a mother can feel, she forgos food, water, the safety of the herd, even the leisure of standing up, all to care for her calf. The rest of the herd moseyed up to the trees and into the cornfield for the night, but there she sat.  There they sat.

When Wyatt came back in, he found me right where I’d started-- nestled between two toddlers with a baby on my lap.  I wiped another runny nose and hugged them a little closer.  Coming back in, he found me doing the most important job on the ranch.