Throwing a Hail Mary

I am proud to be a cattle rancher, like my parents and my father's family before. I can't imagine living anywhere or doing anything else.

But if I'm honest, I wasn't always in love with this life. As a kid, I got tired of never being able to leave the ranch for more than a few days at a time. I got tired of getting up on cold winter mornings and putting on what felt like forty layers of clothes in a usually failed attempt to stay warm, just to go feed the cows and horses.

I was bummed that I didn't get to play soccer as a little kid, and that my summers were spent driving an old grain truck with no A/C to help haul bales off the fields, while my friends spent their summers at the lake or the mall. I got tired of eating ground beef all.the.time. I saw cattle as a huge strain on finances, friendships, and marriages.

I never imagined myself coming back home, at least not until I was old enough to realize there is nothing else I'd rather do.

I look at things now, and am so proud of this life. It's never been easy, and sometimes I still question why we love it so much. But when I stop and think about what else we would be doing if not this, I don't think I could bear the idea of not having cattle or horses out my back door.

We keep throwing Hail Mary's every day, praying that God allows us another chance to keep raising cattle and kids and crops on this land.

This life is worth the callused hands and half-empty checkbooks. It is worth the blood and sweat and tears. It is worth the long hours and short nights. It has always been worth the sacrifices. It will always be worth fighting for.

God makes things possible, not easy.

 Richelle