Lucky you!
A friend and I have been talking… She’s interested in this whole blogging thing… So I suggested she write a guest post and see how it feels… Say hello to Joy!…
Hi Red Dirt fans!
I am a friend/neighbor/and fellow ranch wife with Carol, we were also classmates as First Responders. I have loved Carol’s blog from the time that she started and marveled at her wonderful eye for capturing the country and life that we love out here. She offered me the chance to try my hand at blogging on her site, now that is cool!
I grew up riding the badlands with Carol’s family, we shared a ‘common BLM allotment’ along with a few other families. Our families also attended many of the same brandings in the summer.
In this neck of the woods, back in the 60’s, many of us ranch girls didn’t know that we were supposed to be ‘girlie’ and we took particular pride in being able to wrestle as many and as big of calves as the guys, in return they reminded us that they could still pick us up and dump us in the stock tank or creek at the end of the day, whichever was handiest to that particular branding.
Life was and is good in Red Dirt country. It was a close knit community then and is still that way today. There are still many of the families living in that area that I grew up with. I found a great ranch guy from farther down the creek and I moved away from Red Dirt country and our little piece of heaven.
I spent my early married days running after our 7 kids, playing in Ten Sleep creek with them in the summer, cooking and sewing and generally finding motherhood a great place to spend my time and talents. But kids grow up and my heart started yearning for days on a horse in the quiet mountains and plains that surround us.
Living on a ranch made it easy for my husband to fufill my heart’s desire…………. in spades!
Now with the kids raised, I delight in the days of packing a lunch box or supplies for a couple of days and heading into the hills to move cows, brand, preg test, fence, scatter salt, wean, or whatever needs attending to out there. There is healing in the days spent mostly alone on a good horse with a good dog gathering and moving cattle.
That brings me to the tie in with my photo. This is Rimrock Sadie (a tri-colored English Shepherd) and YES she came from Carol, thank you Carol, and Hershey, our son’s Hanging Tree pup. This was a year ago, but as you see, they know how to to settle down and wait comfortably while we are working cattle in the corrals.
(doesn’t she look just like Dally???????)
I must end with raves for this wonderful little English Shepherd. She is completely confident in her role of “Pretty, Pretty Princess, most loved dog in the world”. She is gracious in accepting her subjects’ adorations, and will take time to encourage additional displays of adoration if her subjects forget to pay the proper amount of homage to her. She is a working princess who works well with Hershey in spite of their vastly different styles of working cattle. Her constant good cheer brings a special delight to our days.
Oh, she does remind the other family dogs that she is Princess and they are lesser dogs, she has all but Hershey convinced.
I feel especially blessed to have been raised a rancher’s daughter and to have been able to continue to be steward of land and livestock as a ranching wife and mother to four of the next generation of ranching stewards.
Thank you, Carol, for encouraging me to share my ‘voice’. This wasn’t all that scary after all!
Joy
Great Job, Joy, THANKS!
Find me here!
Love your voice, Joy! I liked it all, but especially the bit about not knowing you were supposed to be “girlie.” I was like that as a kid, but no one ever managed to throw me in the water tank.. lol