Kicking off 30 Days of Ranch Life Memories

Welcome to 30 days of Ranch Life Memories.  Thanks to Holly Spangler for the challenge to blog for 30 days about a rural topic. Holly is compiling a list of five things daily about rural life.  Visit her blog:  My Generation I just hope I can remember 30 stories from my days on Nebraska ranches.

Thanks to my great parents I had a pretty good upbringing. We did move around fairly often, but some of my fondest memories are from the two Hereford ranches my dad worked on as a herdsman back in the 70s and 80s --Iodence Herefords at Hemingford and Cox Ranch north of Mullen.  It seems like for the longest time I thought every kid got to ride in a feed pickup with their dad or be with their dad while making fence or just run around on the gravel road.  Those were a little more carefree times. I didn't know what a latch key kid was; we never lead to lock our doors. I thought it was normal to ride a bus that was a four-wheel drive suburban or a little bit later in life to go to a one-room school.  Yes, life was simple.  And life was good.

Since my blog is a place I share my random thoughts and life experiences I thought it would be good to get some of my childhood  ranch memories on paper, so to speak.

And speaking of putting the pen to the paper, I think I always knew I would be involved in communications and travel.  My first words were bye-bye and at my first 4-H meeting I was  elected reporter of the Sandhills Hillbillies 4-H club.  I remember how excited I was to record the happenings of each monthly meeting and submit my report to the Hooker County Tribune.  Think about most 8-year-olds writing --penmanship was not pretty, but later in the year, I started using my mom's typewriter.  I don't think that was very pretty either.  But  there was nothing  more exciting than to see my byline in the news as reporter.  I'm sure the older kids knew there was monthly work and were glad to see  the little kid get excited about writing.

I'll probably talk about 4-H a lot I  the next month because it seems that youth projects and rural living eventually lead to 4-H projects and ultimately careers. 

Today has been just a preview, and I'm excited to share more ranch life memories with you in the next month. 

The 30-day Challenge

I’ve been a little absent from this blog lately – I did a great job capturing my trip to Israel this April – and am thankful to have the blog to go back and visit.  But then May hit.  I turned 40. Resigned from a 15-year stint at American Angus Association. Listed my house. And moved to Illinois to start the next chapter.  And with that new chapter came a lot of newness:  commute, job, renovated farm house, state fair and a crazy life, including Stan and Holly.  But I’ll catch you all up on that later.

The 30-day challenge is posed by my friend and one of the greatest writers I know, Holly Spangler.  Each November, she blogs daily with a theme in mind, and encourages others to do so too.  Holly is a great writer and captures rural Illinois and farm life for so many readers in the Prairie Farmer, and she has inspired me to take this as a way to get back to my “Thoughts on Life” blog.

So, for 30 days, starting Nov. 1, I’ll be recounting my Ranch Life Memories – a blog that discusses growing up on cow-calf operations in Nebraska – both in the Sandhills and in the Panhandle.  Yes, those were the “good ole days” and it will be nice to take a walk down memory lane during one of my favorite months of the year.

Please come back to visit, and  I’ll try to enlighten you a little how I got my start in the beef industry  running around barefoot in the corrals and wrangling cats and cows.  This is going to be fun!