What does it take to be a rancher? Well, in my opinion, not a whole lot. It probably takes about two or three things, maybe more: a truck, barbwire, some more barbwire, hay, and A LOT more hay. So like I said, ranching is not super hard. The only hard parts are the heat and running cattle all over the place.
I myself have never liked ranching a whole lot due to doing it my entire life, so in my case, it's really not even ranching anymore. It's just an everyday occurrence. Now, what goes into ranching? Well, you got your cattle to either slaughter for some meat to feed your family or several families; you have your hogs to breed and to either sell off or butcher; you got your horses, chickens, goats, and even llamas if you're really weird. But you're probably asking, "Drake, what are you trying to get at here?" Well, I will take you through a short day of ranching.
We've already gotten through the simple things, not we get into the tedious things, the crap that just doesn't go away after the first day, the stuff that either just sits there for 2 years to be fixed or is fixed 10 times a day, gosh it makes me angry just thinking about, but I digress. To start the day, we get up at the ripe time of 5 in the morning. Why get up at this time, you ask? Well, if you get up at 8 and get done feeding by 1 or 2 you'll already have wasted half your day. After getting up and having breakfast, we head over to the ranch, feed the less tedious animals first, and then on to the cows and horses.
Photo By Double Diamond Instagram
After were done with all the feeding "For Now". We now run the entire fence line of the 90 acres to see if any of the barbwire is down. if you run into any downed barbwire fence, it can be some of the most heart-retching stuff because putting the fence back up is one thing, but building it is another, so after we fix the downed fence we take another long stroll down the fence line and if your me you take the nice side by side and try to fly down the fence line instead of walk. Because if you think about it what do you think is easier. So, after we get done running the fence and find no other broken or downed fence, we head over to the stalls to see if any water main or line is broken because, on the ranch, water is the most precious thing you have, especially in the middle of the desert. As we head over to the stalls, we find one cow, or in ranching terms, "One Head of Cattle," wandering about trying to stack on an unsuspecting hay bale left on the ground. Now we get the cattle dog and run it back into the pasture while also trying not to get run over by a 1000-pound animal after your dog accidentally pushes it towards you.
So after we were done with that, we headed over to the stall to check everything deciding everything was good. After that, we head over to the camper where our old friend Jim Parker lives in an old camper we call the Bum Shack. We go up to mister Parker and ask what the plan is for the day, and he says some of my favorite words, "We're heading out to build some more fence." So we saddle up the side by side and take off to build some more fence. Now I'm not going to get into the big parts of all this to save some time, but after we get the fence done, we come back to the ranch with about 4 hours of work put in, and then after all this, I hop back in the side by side after leaving Jim and head back over to animals to feed the animals one last time for the day.
Photo By Double Diamond Instagram
Now, you guys already know quite a bit about what I do while feeding, so I'll probably leave off here. You probably couldn't help but feel like there was something missing in this blog about all that I did at the ranch today, the reason for that is that I sadly did not have enough time to run through all that I do in a day. I do hope you liked a little taste of what we, as ranchers, do in our daily lives. And to answer your question that's been on your mind throughout this entire blog, "Yes," ranching is not that easy; I say it's not that hard because, like I've said before, I have been doing this since I was born, so of course, it comes easier to me. Anyways to cap it off thanks for tuning in guys especially for reading my little blog.
I have done the ranch chores and it is very daunting. Getting at 5am was not what I remember. I was getting up at 4am to be out the door at 4:30 to be tending to the orchard. The checking the sprinklers to make sure they are not clog. Feeding the horses and maintaining the farm equipment. I miss the farm life. I feel a little jealous of your life.
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