Women in Ranching
Herding to reduce depredation
Hilary and Andrew Anderson manage cattle and range using a combination of progressive range management practices, electric fencing, low-stress range riding and herding in southeast Montana. By the mid-2000s, they…
Read More...Springing from farm to wild and back again
This May marks my 5th anniversary of walking first irrigation water down this land. Today is the first year I’ve truly heard the spring call of a pair of sandhill…
Read More...The Importance of Family
The importance of family, of daughters and sisters and brothers, and the parents who love them and support their knowledge and skill-building, runs throughout this story.
Read More...Eat what your animals eat – curly dock
I cooked up some eggs with curly dock this morning. I wanted to share why I’m feeling grateful this spring for the plant, also called yellow dock or Rumex crispus, that many consider it a weed. It is such a welcome fresh green to break up the anonymous kale, cabbage and bagged spinach of winter, that I think it is worth celebrating.
Read More...Getting started with birding
It takes practice to get good at bird identification, but it’s never too late to start! The COVID-19 induced pause plus the start of spring creates the perfect opportunity to get into birding. Even if you can’t go anywhere that’s ok – there are birds right out your window. Here are some resources to help you learn!
Read More...A lens on the seasons on Lonetree Ranch
Hello from Southwest Wyoming! I would say it is my favorite time of year, but I think I say that at the change of each season. This past year we…
Read More...Women in Ranching to host weekly community check-in calls
In response to recommendations to limit in-person interactions from the CDC and pandemic experts, our Women in Ranching program director Amber Smith will be hosting weekly video conference calls on Zoom, every Wednesday at 12pm (noon) MST, for connection, comfort, and community.
Read More...Science from the saddle: The importance of story
Last summer, I fell into an irrigation ditch, lost a bale off the flatbed, and broke a fence. I started off very slow when fixing fence, slow on my horse,…
Read More...A new kind of cowgirl
When I first moved back to my family ranch ten years ago, fresh out of college, I was plagued with insecurities. I had been around ranching all my life, the oldest of two daughters, and my parents were very egalitarian and encouraged us girls to do anything. Anything that is, but raise cattle. I could fumble through a fence repair, and obviously I could drive a stick shift, but I felt as though I would never learn everything I needed to from my dad.
Read More...Keeping it in the family: My start down the path of succession planning
Last summer, I told my colleagues that I would be taking a sabbatical from work to develop a succession plan for my family ranch, a 300-head cow-calf operation in southern Arizona. “Succession plan” was such a nebulous term that I felt like I needed dedicated time just to figure out what it meant before I could create one. It was overdue. In 2013, one week before my son’s birth, my father had an accident while riding that could have easily killed him, and nearly did.
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