Tips for Ranch Women

Here in southwestern Colorado, the Southwest Cowbelles organize and distribute a popular (and complimentary!) calendar every year. It features wonderful archived photos of ranching in the early 1900’s as agriculture was just starting to expand in the region.

The Southwest Cowbelles produce a popular calendar each year.

This feature, written by Cowbelle Julie Carter, caught our eye. Thanks, ladies! Keep up the good work.

10 Ranch Women Facts

1. Always load your horse last in the trailer so it is the first one unloaded. By the time he’s got his horse unloaded, you will have your cinch pulled and be mounted up ready to go – lessening the chance of him riding off without you with your horse trying to follow while you are still trying to get your foot in the stirrup.
2. Never – and I repeat never – ever believe the phrase “We’ll be right back,” when he has asked you to help him do something out on the ranch. The echoing words, “this will only take a little while” have filtered through generations of ranch wives and still today should invoke sincere distrust in the woman who hears them.
3. Always know there is NO romantic intention when he pleadingly asks you to take a ride in the pickup with him around the ranch while he checks waters and looks at cattle. What that sweet request means is he wants someone to open and close the gates.
4. He will always expect you to quickly be able to find one stray in a four-section brush-covered pasture, but he will never be able to find the mayonnaise jar in the four-square feet of refrigerator.
5. Count every head of everything you see – cattle especially, but sometimes horses, deer, quail, or whatever moves. Count it in the gate, out the gate or on the horizon. The first time you don’t count is when he will have expected that you did. That blank, eyelash-batting look you give him when he asks “How many?” will not be acceptable.
6. Know that you will never be able to ride a horse or drive a pickup to suit him. Given the choice of jobs, choose throwing the feed off the back of the pickup. If he is on the back and you are driving, the opportunity for constant criticism of speed, ability and your eyesight will be utilized to the full extent. “How in the @#$* could you not see that hole?”
7. Never let yourself be on foot in the alley when he is sorting cattle horseback. When he has shoved 20 head of running, bucking, kicking yearlings at you and then hollers “Hold ‘em, hold ‘em” at the top of his lungs, don’t think that you really can do it without loss of life or limb. Contrary to what he will lead you to believe, walking back to the house is always an option that has been used throughout time.
8. Don’t expect him to correctly close the snap-on tops on the plastic refrigerator containers, but know he will expect you to always close every gate. His reasoning, the cows will get out; the food will not.
9. Always praise him when he helps in the kitchen – the very same way he does when you help with the ranch work – or not.
10. Know that when you step out of the house you move from the “wife” department to “hired hand” status. Although the word “hired” indicates there will be a paycheck, that you will never see, rest assured you will have job security. The price is just right. And most of the time you will be “the best help he has” even if it because you are the ONLY help he has.

Julie Carter