I do kind of have these moments
where I feel like it's cruel ... to ask this of them to do this every year. Maybe I'm hard on myself
when I say that I'm not a rancher. I kind of have this image in my mind of what a rancher looks like. I guess I look at some of the other ranchers or families that ranch that have been doing it for a long time ... I mean I am ... I guess my title is
I'm a ranch manager ... ... so I guess I'm a rancher, yeah. I am envious of the
fourth-generation knowledge and just that attachment to a
place that gives you this knowledge of how the environment works. There's this amazing rhythm on ranches. It's not just the seasons but it's where the cattle are grazing and I sense that is really ingrained
in some of the old-timers. I don't know that it's necessary, but I guess I'm a little envious of that. Steer. Did you have a hard time coming out? That's a kind of a big calf. He's a pretty good size. That says 85. I don't know that he weighs that much. I don't think so. I'd say he's between 65 and 70. Yeah. The first year that I worked here we were in the bar. It was all guys and I was the
only girl standing this group and the one guy made some comment
after I'd been talking for a minute that I must have the owners of
this ranch fooled ... I must have talked my way
into this position and I've definitely gotten little jabs
like that quite a bit. I wore a skirt one time to a meeting and a guy said,
"You don't like a very ranchy today." And I wanted to say, "---- you." There's like a look,
and if you don't have that look then you must not be legit. I grew up in downtown Salt Lake City. My dad is a total animal person, but my mom - like watching her
pet something is painful. Like you feel sorry for the animal. I think what got me here
was definitely like this instinctual part of me that
was drawn to being around animals and wanting to - to care for them. I've cried more over wanting a horse
and wanting to be around horses I think than over anything in my entire life You've bought a 22-foot mecati and a pair of slobber straps and you want to put them on your snaffle bit. Take one end of the mecati thread it through the left side then to the right side going from the inside to the outside that gives you your rein and your tail and you can stick this around the saddle horn. Some people are surprised sometimes that I am the boss of two men and spend my days surrounded by,
most of the time, all men And find myself kicking dirt
in social situations that are very, very different to the ones
that I experienced growing up People wonder how I, you know, have been able to adjust. I like left and never went back. So, I don't know. Like with the politics situation recently I was just explaining to a friend
a conversation that I had with a neighbor and she was just like,
"I just can't even ... I can't even relate to what that would be like to sit across the table from somebody like that. I feel a sense of calm being
out with the cows. I also regularly feel a
large sense of responsibility. Sometimes my actions or my level of care is the difference between life and death for some of these new calves being born. One in particular ... the calf was really off to a rough start and I sat up with it for most of the night. Had it in the bathtub ... only for it to die in the morning and Those ... those experiences are really hard. Death is always hard. Oh! There it went. All right momma you gotta move. If she doesn't get up here shortly
I'll probably go over 'cause the baby can suffocate
if she doesn't lick off the bag off of its face Oh Just doesn't get old watching it and the resiliency that they have and their ability to just, off instincts, figure it out so quickly. At the end of the day as much as I still am like, "Well, maybe I'm not a rancher yet ..." Almost all the other ranches in
this valley are cow-calf operations, so they're in the business of raising and selling calves. And I - I think I'm confident enough to say that I think I do it just as good if not
better than a lot of them. So, if you were to put a
job description together for a rancher I think I would check most of the
boxes successfully, I guess. As much as I'm comfortable here
and I see myself here I still sometimes I'm like,
"Whoa, like I'm here." And, you know, is this forever?
