Blogs

For the last 20 years of my grandpa’s life, he wrote cowboy poetry and performed all over the Intermountain West. This is one of my favorites, and it is perfect for reciting around Christmas.

Home to me is the early morning bang and echo of horseshoes on old trailer floorboards. It’s the half-eager, half-asleep complaint of the 8-year-old who can’t find his spurs as he clambers into the pickup.

For most of the years I spent seeing the Northwest through the windshield of a hay truck, that hay was loaded one bale at a time via a hay elevator. And usually unloaded the same way.

It’s almost time. Any day now you’ll start receiving Christmas letters from friends and family. You’ll inwardly groan when it’s more than half-a-typed-page long and will automatically start skimming the highlights.

We weaned our calves in October. It’s a transition period for the farm, a literal metamorphism as the juvenile animals prove themselves to be an independent entity. They were weaned, branded and weighed, and they entered the record as the baseline of our future herd. We are always hopeful that these animals will thrive, but like anything, there is no guarantee no matter how well we attempt to manage the variables.

There’s a lot I like about fall. You know, the typical stuff like gathering cows off the mountain, beautiful fall colors and mornings cool enough to slow the flies down and keep the gnats at bay for the first part of the day.