At the beginning of this month, we sheared our sheep, one of my favorite times of the year, even though, as I’ve written before, it’s a time of uncertainty. Late winter weather is almost always our biggest uncertainty. An optimist might frame it like this: The one thing we can count on at shearing is … More Beautiful Weather
Last week, I spent a morning at the corrals, pushing calves through a cute. The last time I’d had a ranchwork day, it had been a crisp, fall day and the season had felt vibrant, but this morning, nearly a month later, the season had faded to gray. Out in the brisk wind, the generator … More In Praise of Gray
Fall always feels like renewal for me. In college, I loved that back-to-school feeling, a new schedule of classes, a pile of new textbooks. I was on fire for all the new things I would learn over the semester. That feeling of renewal has continued on the ranch, when the change in temperature brings a … More Season of Renewal
In the small, Eastern Washington town where I grew up, someone spray painted the words, “OZZY KNOWS LISTEN”* on an overpass. The words were already up there, in huge black letters by the time I learned to read, about 1984, and they stayed until our family moved away in 1991. I’ve been thinking about those … More Listening to Ozzy
Last week, we docked our sheep, one our favorite workdays of the year. It’s become a kind of unofficial reunion, as family making their way in Colorado, and other far flung locations, come out to pack lambs, let their kids run wild and eat street tacos. Former ranch hands show up as well. As we … More The OG Club
In the weeks leading up to the Solstice, the world has felt to me like a ball tossed in the air, hovering just for a moment before it falls back down. Something about these long days, when the sun wakes me before my alarm and the kids keep playing outside on their bikes when they … More A Solstice Pause
I am honored to have my essay, “Confessions of a Vegetarian Ranchwife,” included in After Happy Hour’s food themed issue. In this essay, I talk at great length about the thing I don’t want to talk about: my vegetarianism. I’ve employed many tactics to avoid the topic, including hiding it plain sight, put it in … More I Don’t Want to Talk about It
A few years ago, in an encouraging rejection letter, an editor said my piece was “post-card writing,” describing a particular time and place in a way that is accessible to the reader. It was something that they used to publish quite a lot of, but now rarely do. When I read his description, I thought, … More A Spring Postcard
As the pastures fill calves, I’m reflecting on the hardiness of this new life and the good instincts of their mothers. Do I say this every year? Probably. I’m saying it again. I saw the first calf on the feed grounds out North on a morning when the temperature hovered just a bit north of … More Calving and Resilience
Shearing, Kem and I believe, if it does not fall on a weekend or Spring Break, warrants a school holiday. It’s a day spent in a barn, which, I’ve insisted, is a necessary antidote to the daily grind of schedules and classrooms. Also, it’s one of the most important ranch work days we have, and, … More Child Labor
Vegetarian Ranchwife 