Ranch Wife 101 Guidelines..................

Here are the ranch wife 101 guidelines that I said I was going to share with all of you. If you have ever wondered what it would be like to own and operate a ranch with your spouse, please read these. To live AND WORK with your husband on a daily basis is definitely a challenge, but it's a challenge I have chosen to accept and one I really love.

These guidelines are passed on from one ranch wife to another and passed down from generation to generation. I hope you enjoy them and get kick out of them like I did. ENJOY!

1. Always load your horse last in the trailer so it is the first one unloaded. By the time he's got his horse unloaded, you will have your cinch pulled and be mounted up ready to go - lessening the chance of him riding off without you with your horse trying to follow while you are still trying to get your foot in the stirrup.

2. Never - and I repeat never - ever believe the phrase, "We'll be right back," when he has asked you to help him do something out on the ranch. The echoing words, "this will only take a little while" have filtered through generations of ranch wives and still today should invoke sincere distrust in the woman who hears them.

3. Always know there is NO romantic intention when he pleadingly asks you to take a ride in the pickup with him around the ranch while he checks, waters, and looks at the cattle. What that sweet request really means is he wants someone to open and close the gates.

4. He will always expect you to quickly be able to find one stray in a four-section brush-covered pasture, but he will never be able to find the mayonnaise jar in four-square feet of refrigerator.

5. Count every head of everything you see - cattle especially, but sometimes horses, deer, quail or whatever moves. Count it in the gate, out the gate or on the horizon. The first time you don't count is when he will have expected that you did. That blank eyelash batting look you give him when he asks, "how man?" will not be acceptable.

6. Know that you will never be able to ride a horse or drive a pickup to suit him. Given the choice of jobs, choose throwing the feed off the back of the pickup. If he is on the back and you are driving, the opportunity for constant criticism of speed, ability and your eyesight will be utilized to the bull extent. "How in the @#$% could you NOT see that hole?"

7. Never let yourself be on foot in the alley when he is sorting cattle horseback. When he has shoved 20 head of running, bucking, kicking yearlings at you and then hollers "HOLD'EM, HOLD'EM" at the top of his lungs, don't think that you really can do it without loss of life or limb.

8. Don't expect him to correctly close the snap-on tops on the plastic refrigerator containers, but know he will expect you to always close every gate. His reasoning, the cows will get out; the food will not.

9. Always praise him when he helps in the kitchen - the very same way he does when you help with the ranch work.........OR NOT!

10. Know that when you step out of the house you move from the "wife" department to the "hired hand" status. Although the word "hired" indicates there will be a paycheck that you will never see, rest assured you will have job security. The price is just right. And most of the time you will be "the.....best help he has" even if it is because you are the ONLY help he has.

So, I know by now that you probably think that I am exagerating just a little bit, but I'm not. Come spend the day with me, or any ranch wife for that matter and you will quickly know that all 10 of these guidelines are SO true.

I hope you enjoyed reading these quidelines as much as I enjoyed sharing them with you. I also hope that you found some humor in some of them, as they really are quite funny. I'm sure that almost all of you can relate to some of them in some way or another.

With all of that said I still feel like I am the luckiest wife, mother, daughter, woman and person ever. I get to live in the house where I was born and raised, live on and operate the ranch my great great grandpa homesteaded in 1884, the same ranch my dad ran his whole life, work with my husband, mom, dad and grandma everyday, be a stay at home mommy and raise my son in a setting that is absolutely beautiful, all while doing something I believe in and something I totally love......RANCHING!

Have a great night everyone! I will see you all tomorrow......same time, same place!!!