Northeast Wyoming is experiencing another round with old man winter, this time in form
of snowstorm they are calling Ezekiel.
Ezekiel is forecast to deliver anywhere from 7 to 14 inches of snow, white out conditions
and winds as high as 60 to 70 miles an hour across the area.
This storm is supposed to last until Sunday night and I can guarantee you we will be digging
out by Monday.
Normally, I would be cursing a storm like this, especially on a holiday weekend, but
its actually pretty good timing, considering what we have going on and planned for todays
video.
I’ll get to that but first let me tell you about our email.
I read every email that comes into us, I may not get to answer every one, but I do read
them.
Sometimes I don’t answer an email because I have a video coming up that might answer
someones question, or at least I have a video in my mind.
I searched my email today, for the terms, “ how to” and “rancher”, over the
past couple of years I have received thousands of emails, with the question, how do I become
a rancher, or sometimes cattle farmer?
So today I set out to answer that question.
I figured if thousands are email me to ask me, there there are many more who are not
asking the question, but are thinking it and you all deserve an answer.
Theres and old joke, well I’m not sure if it’s a joke but it goes, how to I become
a farmer?
The answer, marry a farmers daughter.
Which is kind of what I did in a round about way.
Of course when Erin and I got married we had no intentions of having anything to do with
her step fathers ranch, in fact, her mom and Gilbert got married while she was in college,
so she had little to nothing to do with the ranch up until the day we moved here.
So, for me, it was just dumb luck, and really when we came here, neither of us thought we
would be here longer than a few months, just long enough to help family get back on its
feet.
But life finds a way, and the best thing about everyone’s journey is that its going to
be different.
We all have different goals, and the path to reach those goals, for some may be harder,
and for others, it may be as easy as taking a phone call.
So when I set out to make a video to answer the question, how do I become a rancher.
I knew I could’nt do it in just one video.
So today marks the beginning of a series of videos, all about how to become a rancher
or cattle farmer.
Every couple weeks a new segment will be released and we are going to be taking a look at the
different kinds of ranches, from hobby farms, to feed lots, cow calf operations, to backgrounders.
We are also going to explore the types of land, and how much is required and how different
regions can drastically change your ranch, we are going to look at the animals, the equipment
and probably most importantly the financing.
I also encourage you to comment and send me the questions you would like this series to
answer for you and I will do my best.
Make sure that you subscribe, and follow along, hit the bell button and turn on your notifications
and come along with us as we explore the ranch life and escape the ordinary.
So when we start taking a look at ranching, I think that before you spend a dime, or too
much of your time even, you need to know what you are getting into.
You need to know what to expect.
This is a question I didn’t ask, and if I had, I might not have ever came here, but
what I want to do is take a look at some of the difficulties of ranching, but also look
at what you have to gain, and trust me, its not in the pocketbook.
So lets head out to feed these cows this morning, the weather may be a great crap sandwich,
but the cows still need to eat, and it takes us right into my first point.
No matter where you ranch, the weather will always beat you down.
I call it the great equalizer, but its one of those things that you can’t let it know
you are afraid of it.
Multiple aspects of your ranch will count on you, no matter what the weather is doing.
The weather will always be your biggest challenge.
It doesn’t matter if its rain, or snow, hurricanes or drought.
The weather will put you on your knees occasionally.
Just like here, most people don’t enjoy working outside once winter comes around.
Construction work shuts down and we rarely see anyone working outside that doesn’t
have to.
Unfortunately as a rancher, there is no getting around the weather.
If you have animals, you are going to have to make sure they are taken care of, they
are your responsibility.
It can be a miserable job, but someone has to do it and on your ranch, you are the only
one to do it.
For some people that is a wonderful thought, the isolation of the ranch life, being out
in the middle of nowhere, where you cell phone doesn’t even have a signal, and if it does,
you can pretend it doesn’t.
Some people live to be alone, with just their thoughts, but others need that human contact
almost constantly.
If you check your phone because you haven’t gotten a text in the last ten minutes, that
might be you.
There are days where I can not see another person all day long, only when I come home
at night and get a chance to sit down with family will I know what I was missing.
Having a family can be hard on a ranch, I speak from experience on this one, and the
stress of knowing that, if you work the ranch yourself, that its all on your shoulders can
be incredibly hard.
Hopefully you are lucky you have a some help.
Someone who is willing to help you from time to time, and take on their own ventures to
help support the ranch.
Of course always Remember the phrase, I’m sorry for the things I said while we were
working cattle.
You will be saying that a lot.
No one told me what to expect from the ranch life, but the amazing thing is that at some
point you realize its not just a job that you have, it’s a lifestyle and while the
possibilities are endless, you are also going to have to make sacrifices and deal with a
number of things that the average person may never have to see in their lives.
Everybody now days works long hours, but your day will never quite end, even when it feels
like it has.
Your phone may ring in the middle of the night and you find yourself half asleep, talking
to a sheriffs deputy who is telling you that there are bunch of cows out on the road and
when you hang up the phone, adrenaline hits your system like a rifle blast, and you are
out the door before you realize that you aren’t sure what road they are on, or if they are
even your cows.
Someday, you are going to have come home and tell your family that the first cow that you
had on the ranch, has died.
Hopefully before you found her suffering, but more than likely, you are going to have
to look her in the eye as you end it for her.
Theres stress on how to pay the bills, there is tedious and monetinous tasks that seem
to take forever, and there’s the fact that you are going to watch friends take weekend
vacations, riding in the mountains, snowmobiling, or travel from here to there.
You however, are going to be stuck on the ranch, because even though you have neighbors
who you know would be happy to feed for you, you aren’t going to ask them to do it, expect
once or twice a year.
And when you take that vacation, the whole time you are gone, you are going to be wondering
what is happening back home, and worrying about your gardens, you horses or your cattle.
Because you can be in Hawaii, and find yourself missing a snowstorm, wanting to see the cows,
the ranch, and missing your life, your ranch life.
Its not just a job, and its not just a ranch, its land that you hope you will be able to
pass down to further generations, land that you can use to support your family in a way
that very few ever get to.
Land that your kids will grow up on, and their kids will thrive on, long after you are gone.
You might be a cattle farmer or rancher right now watching this, or you might be someone
who lives in the city, working a cubicle and wants out.
You might be a cop on patrol, or even door to door salesman.
But I can tell you this, ranching and farming is something that I rarely see people choose
to do.
You may ask me how do I become a rancher, when the real question might be as simple
as how to I find my ranch.
Because if you are meant to be a rancher or farmer, its out there waiting for you.
You may not know it, but when it grabs you and chooses you, picks you to take care of
it, its then that you know why you sacrifice to do it.
There are a bunch of romantic notions about being someone who takes care of land.
We all have heard the term being a good steward of the land, but really a steward is just
someone who’s job it is to manage or look after the land or property of another person.
Who is that other person?
For me, it’s the future, the kids, their kids.
When I have to go out and work on a day like today, that’s what keeps me going.
None of it is bad, the death, the stress, or the weather.
You want to ranch?
No matter the scale you want to do it on, its about hard work, physically and emotionally,
its about taking care of the land and animals first, a place where your word is often the
only thing you have that is worth a damn and it’s a level of compassion that you rarely
find anywhere else.
It’s a special calling, and one that might be calling you.
Next up in our series, we will take a look at the types of ranching you can do and trust
me, not every ranch is thousands of acres, and you’d be surprised to find out that
some of the most successful ranches, are actually the smallest.
Again subscribe so that you don’t miss a thing and I really look forward to taking
this journey with you.
Comment with your questions, help others out in answering them and we will see you soon,
until then have a great week and thanks for joining us in our Wyoming life.