Our Life on the South Dakota Prairie ~ by Missy

  

Fall 2011

My husband Joe and I live in western South Dakota. The ranch that we live and work on has been in his family for over 65 years. Our children are the sixth generation to live on the creek that runs by our house. The prairie we live on is beautiful and fierce.

Fall 2011

Some would say we are isolated; but we do not feel that way. We feel like we are home. Sure, the nearest grocery store is an hour’s drive away and our nearest neighbor is a mile away. To us, that is a small price to pay to be able to do what we love.

Spring 2013

What we love is raising our herd of Black Angus cattle. We love to teach our kids how to care for our cows and calves. We love to watch calves be born, to see them take their first steps, to watch them run and kick and play in our pastures. We walk through them, feed them by hand, and pet them.

May 2013

We work hard all year to ensure that they and their mama cows stay safe, do not become ill, have plenty of fresh green grass to graze in summer and baled hay to eat in winter, plenty of healthy water to drink, plenty of room to roam the prairies while having shelter from storms and winds. And we take special care to do this in a way that is as stress-free as possible for them.

April 2013

This is no easy task. It means getting up in the night to walk out to the corral or the barn with a flashlight to see if any cows need assistance with their calves. It means doing this several times a night for several weeks in early spring no matter the weather – rain, sleet, snow, and wind. It means that my husband does not leave our ranch for weeks at a time so that he can check on calves hourly.

April 2013

It means working for weeks cutting hay, raking hay, baling hay, stacking hay, and moving hay in the summer. All while praying that it is enough hay when it is time to feed in the winter. Feeding means going out in the elements daily with a tractor to roll out half-ton-plus bales of hay on top of the snow-covered prairie.

 

Summer 2012

In the short time between these calving, haying, and feeding seasons; there is always work to be done. Fence-fixing, corral-building, barn-repairing, gate-building, tractor repairing, well digging, pipeline laying.

Fall 2013

 

Not to mention setting up water tanks, moving feeders, checking cattle, moving cattle, working cattle. This work might be done just a few yards from our house and barns, but much of it is done out in the pasture, miles away from our house and all other signs of civilization. All of this work is hard, back-breaking, physical work, done on a landscape that can be awe-inspiring, heart-warming, and romantic. The key word being ‘can.’

Fall 2012

This prairie can be gentle, it can be calm, it can be beautiful, it can be nourishing.

It can give, and it can take.

October 6, 2013

This lesson of give-and-take was played out in an especially painful way last week. We are used to wind, we are used to rain, we are used to snow, we are used to blizzards and for the most part, people who live in South Dakota are prepared for these things to happen. But there was no way that anyone could be prepared for what happened in western South Dakota on October 4, 2013. 

October 10, 2013

By Missy 
 (Joe's Wife)