Wrangler Dani

We bought Treewater Ranch in late March, and the grass in the pastures was brown and dead, mere hints of what might spring up between these sturdy pole fences. After a few months, it was green and vibrant, long heads, loaded with seeds, drooped in the morning stillness and swayed in the afternoon breeze. Upon seeing this bounty, we promptly bought steers to eat the grass, and started the dangerous assumption that what had been, would be.

I’ve lived most of my cowgirl life on open range, where animals are hardy from miles of desert grazing, and although Adam is by nature a diligent farmer, neither of us had the experience to do much more than scratch our heads at our dwindling pasture and wonder what to do next. But, because grace is a growing thing, over some lean seasons and some fat summers, we’ve learned that grass doesn’t just grow, nor can you simply toss some livestock in a field and expect great returns. Water a patch of dirt enough and you’ll get weeds, maybe a few hardy wildflowers and certainly a thistle or two, but you won’t get healthy, vibrant, grass-fed-beef-making grass.

Grass that makes a rancher sigh with contentment comes with effort, with the rental of fertilizer trailers from ruddy-faced agriculturalists who shake your hand heartily and take your word for it that you’ll return it “soon”. It comes from coaxing life out of sputtering tractors, being careful not to overgraze even when the bounty of green is tempting and watching over the field with jealousy, cutting out thistles and killing invasive weeds as soon as they crop up.

This year we’re pretty proud of our grass. Adam has been faithful and steady, as he always is, and the pasture is responding with great songs of crickets and frogs and the gentle chewing of cud, stalks reaching toward heaven with all the luxuriance of youthful summertime.

I’m reminded that growing things appear out of the attending of classes on pasture grass management, which are staffed and attended by men in Carhartts and sweat-stained camouflage ball caps emblazoned with feed store logos. Growing things come from melting snow and carefully chosen seeds. It’s not as simple as it looks, even something that seems it’s always been there must be tended, protected, encouraged, fed.

So, I got another rejection letter this weekend. There it is, the truth I’ve been talking around as I opine about grasses, laid bare in all of its self-pitying glory.

Like pasture-grass, writing is a slow-and-steady sort of career, the kind that is akin to mountain climbing or marathon-running, and I am a walk-by-the-river-with-a-latte kind of girl. I hate rejection, I hate feeling passed over and left out, I hate the question that burns in the back of my mind: am I foolish to even ask? Should I have kept my mouth shut and my words to myself?

But ranchers don’t ask that question. They don’t wring their hands over dry years and bad grasses – they take their shovels to the field and get to work, stubbornly digging up bad seeds and planting new ones. They tend pastures because that’s what stewardship is, because they have a job to make things grow, to give their animals a safe place to eat and be and grow themselves.

I want to write with the conviction of a farmer, and better yet, put it into the world with pride, as I do the beef from our grass-fed steers. (I mean it – come over and we’ll grill a steak for you. I promise it will make you a believer, you’ll realize this is how beef was supposed to taste all along.) I don’t know if I’ll get published, just as the rancher doesn’t know if the snow or beef prices will fall. But I, like a rancher, do know that I have a responsibility, a job to steward and a story to care for. All I can do is keep tilling, keep irrigating, keep believing. The outcome, like green grass, is a divine mystery, unfathomable grace.

Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul….”