Ranch Wife Tips: Cow Working

Hello, my name is Shania (Nia) Drinkwine-Wagenaar. I live on a cattle/wheat ranch in Eastern Oregon with my husband. If there's one thing I've learned from ranching with my husband, it's to let it go and enjoy the time being spent together. Life's just too short to get upset when the cow runs by or that calf gets turned around in the ally. I've been around all kinds of ranch folks, working as a vet tech years ago. It's much easier to give each other grace when things out of one's control or accidents happen, rather than be mad at each other the rest of the day. I choose to build my husband up, and help him when things go wrong. Not only in hopes of setting a better example for our kids watching, but also making it a better day because of it. Take the extra 5 minutes to sort that cow back out, or run the calves back to get turned around. Things happen, why get so mad when they do? I've seen my father in law throw sorting sticks, and bigger fits than our 2yr old when things don't go as planned. It completely ruins the day and makes all of us dread going to work cattle with him. Life's too short, so sort the cow back out and run the calves back through!

"Let it go and enjoy the time being spent together"

This could apply to so many things, but especially ranching and working cows. Lets talk about cow working with family. The advice above is so incredibly important because how we treat our family matters. Cows come and go, but family is long term and the legacy we leave behind effects the attitudes of future generations. Working cows with your family usually creates opportunity for several stories and jokes. It can be a stressful, funny, exhausting and intense activity to do with your family. I personally have trouble at times with my temper when working cows and things aren't going how I like. My current driving force is that I want my son to grow up enjoying working cows as a family and not have it be a super stress filled event. There is always going to be someone observing your behavior when you least expect it. In addition to this, how we treat our livestock matters. I have found that 9/10 times that you stay calm while working cows, the cows stay calmer and work quieter. Paraphrasing Shania, it is so easy to become upset and ruin the day for others. I don't mean to imply that if you loose it you are this awful person. Rather for myself and hopefully you as well, we can all be a little bit more aware of how we are treating one another during our daily cow work.

Ranch Wife Tip Summed Up: How we treat our family matters more than if the cows sort well.

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