Wrangler Dani

Writer, editor, wife, adoptive mama and cowgirl living in beautiful Central Oregon.

‘Til the Cows Come Home…

“We’re taking the cows to auction Monday.”

“What?!”

Mom’s voice kept going, but I didn’t hear her. The price of hay, the work involved – all sensible reasons to sell what has become a very small herd, but I still feel crushed. I feel like that door that I’ve been struggling to keep cracked open has slammed shut, and I’m left outside, watching the wind swirl dust-eddies over a beloved landscape and turning my back on an old, sacred place in my rough-and-tumble heart.

Jessica (my favorite) and I, Christmas 2007
Jessica (my favorite) and I - Dec. 2007

I’m a cowgirl, a ranch girl, a wide-open-spaces girl. Sometimes it’s harder to see, hiding in my shorts and flip-flops and love of Espresso and tanning. I think I had this crazy idea that I still had a way back home, back to dust on my jeans and the familiar scents of alfalfa and old leather – if only everything stayed the same. But my horses were gone last summer, and now that our tiny cow herd is headed out as well, I feel… adrift.

It’s not so much these cows, in particular, that breaks my heart. While several of them had long and illustrious 4-H careers, and I will definitely miss the loppy-jawed cud-chewing and soft, pettable hair and big brown eyes of my personal favorite – I’m enough of a country girl to know that they are livestock, here for our use and stewardship, and it’s only right and sensible that we let them go when common-sense dictates.

What bothers me is the proverbial slamming of the cracked-open door. The realization that I’ve made choices and built a life, and it has nothing to do with ranches and horses and cows and old leather. Now I know that there’s not some Black Cowboy of Doom who’s now relegated me the white-bread boredom of Surburbia, just because my folks finally sold off the last of the cows. But there’s still a little dreamer in me, who fears the fencing in of the free land and the selling of the herds, who relishes long, dusty summer days and perfect starry winter nights, navigated through on corral poles, with long talks, and on horseback, tearing up mountain trails.

I’ll miss them, our little herd. I’ll miss knowing that they’re there, with their misty breath on winter mornings and their tiny calves in the spring. But then again, life has to go on… and that’s what second chances are for.

8 comments found

  1. This is lovely, Dani Lin. Makes me miss my grandparents’ farm, with its own little herd…and I understand what you mean about being afraid you can’t go back.

  2. You’ll always miss them and one day you’ll have another – or help someone else with theirs. They’re in your blood – a “disease” we’re born with and never get over.

  3. Although there were no cows involved, I know what you’re feeling. I felt it when my grandparents moved out of a home in Ohio that had been in the family for generations, the only constant place I’d ever known amidst all of my own moving with my parents. It was too much for them to manage so they sold it and moved into an assisted living community. That was a few years ago and it still hurts.

    I know the people who live there are taking good care of the place but it’s not the same.

    I know that I couldn’t have moved back to that little town now for several reasons but that doesn’t make it any easier.

    And I know that it’s “just a house” but that doesn’t make it any easier.

  4. I found you from the problogger contest and I’m so glad I did! that was a really nicely written post (and like another commenter it reminded me very much of when my grandma sold her house many years ago, that house is still the center of my childhood memories and I drive by it whenever I go back to my hometown!)

    Take care!

  5. Very well written indeed! Your scenery brings back memories I had thought long lost.
    As a kid, I didn’t think life got any better than when a newborn calf tried suckling my fingers. Tried that with a new puppy once, and never again. Them lil buggers got [i]sharp[/i] teeth!

    than you so much for sharing this with us. I only hope that you continue to write, as you obviously have a talent for it.

    Bliss and Blessings your way

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