Three not-so-great things about living on a ranch:

1. Mud and muck everywhere. Vehicles are muddy, clothes are mucky and kids are both.

2. Mother Nature. Frozen fingers & toes. Sunburns. Howling winds.

3. Working with family. When we have a bad day at work, we don’t get to leave it at the office.

Three oh-so-great things about living on a ranch:

1. Animals. Wild and domestic. Spending our days caring for them.

2. Mother Nature. High desert flat lands, mountain peaks, grassy valleys.

3. Working with family. Taking our kids to work with us. Teaching them to respect and care for the animals. Teaching them to respect and care for Mother Nature.

A friend of ours is running cattle on some of our pasture this winter. He needed to process his newly purchased cattle last weekend and we had just enough cowboys and cowgirls around the ranch to get the job done. It was an easy ride, perfect for the younger kids.

While we were riding, I was thinking about the processing we would be doing after we got to the corral. I was thinking about the recent flurry of media activity surrounding antibiotic use in livestock. But mostly, I was thinking about a friend’s son who was in the ICU fighting antibiotic resistant staph infection.

After penning the cows at the corral, it was my job to prepare the vaccines and syringes. We vaccinate our cattle against specific bovine diseases. We seldom use antibiotics, only when an animal is sick and then we consult with our veterinarian and follow his dosage instructions. That seems like an important distinction to me as a producer and as a mom.

As a mom, I choose to immunize my children in order to protect them from as many diseases as possible. I also choose to be discriminatory when giving my children antibiotics. I talk with our pediatrician about the necessity of the antibiotic and make the decision I believe is best for my child.

I use the same approach as a cattle producer: immunize/vaccinate the cattle against bovine diseases and use antibiotics only as necessary and as prescribed by our veterinarian.

Dr. Richard Raymond is a former undersecretary of agriculture for food safety and he wrote about this subject last week. I encourage you to click over and read his article. It is brief, clear and explains (so that I could understand!) which antibiotics are used for human medicine and which antibiotics are used for animal medicine.

Antibiotic usage is an emotionally charged debate for many people, myself included because I am a producer and a mom.

Happy New Year! Okay, I have to admit that the new year began a week ago, but my kids didn’t return to school until today. In other words, I was so busy enjoying Christmas Vacation that I am just now getting around to wishing all of you a Happy New Year.

I hope your holiday season was filled with family and friends. Ours was big and boisterous!

At Christmas dinner our table was overflowing with food, family and friends. By the end of the meal I considered it a success because there was enough prime rib and pie for everyone! (That’s my goal when we entertain guests: plenty of beef and desserts for people to have seconds!)

 We spent part of the kids’ vacation riding horses and sorting cattle. This may have been my favorite part of the holiday. It was a beautiful day which made for an enjoyable ride for all of us, especially the younger kids.

Speaking of the younger kids…Have I told you about sorting cattle? It’s a relatively simple process and a frequent event on the ranch. We gather all of the cattle in the field and trail them to a corner in the fence. We take up strategic positions around the cattle to contain them in a general area while one cowboy (or cowgirl) wades into the middle of the herd and starts sorting out different cattle.

 On this day we were sorting out a load of cattle to take to some pasture we have leased that’s about thirty miles north of our ranch. It takes some time to sort cattle and for those that are not actively sorting and are tasked with “holding the herd” this can become a somewhat boring job. Fortunately, there were fascinating cloud formations that entertained the youngest cowboys that day.

 The remainder of our vacation days were spent playing in the snow. We went to Wyoming to visit my parents which is always a treat. My Dad had the snowmobiles ready when we arrived. The kids all enjoyed zooming around on the snow.

I found myself being a passenger more than a driver, which was a bit of a switch!  This little boy got quite a kick out of driving his mother around.

Happy New Year!