The Country Column: What's vacation?

I saw an interesting photo on the Internet today. It was a picture of a couple lying on a beach, holding margaritas, and watching the sun go down. The caption on the photo read, “This could be us … if we didn’t own livestock.” It made me laugh a little because I thought to myself, “How true.”

Agriculture producer’s lives revolve around seasons: planting season, calving season, harvest season, hay season, breeding season … the list goes on and on. Vacation season always lands in the middle of one of those seasons and certainly does not take precedence. It doesn’t matter that school is out. It doesn’t matter that airfares to Florida are on sale or that the best time to visit Alaska is in July. What does matter is taking care of the land, livestock, and the business. Ranching is not just a job, it’s a lifestyle and only people working in this profession or being raised in this lifestyle will fully understand.

I remember taking a vacation to Colorado as a child with my siblings and my mother. Dad did not go because as best as he could plan his harvest season, the weather did not cooperate and harvest was late, rushed, and took 24 hours a day until it was done. Because my mother had planned this vacation so far in advance we went anyway, but my dad stayed home. Of course we missed him on the trip, but we understood.

Weddings also have a season that is scheduled around the land and livestock that usually goes something like: the last week in June, second week in August, mid-October, and the month of December (excluding Christmas and New Years). This of course depends on what you are growing or breeding, but you get the gist. For example, I got married the second week in August to not coincide with wheat harvest for all of my Kansas farming family.

This is not something to be upset or discouraged about because ranching families have a benefit that other families do not all have. They have the satisfaction of watching something grow - from birth to the end of life, seedling to harvest – and the joy in knowing they took care of that life with their two hands. What’s more than that, ranching families take care of the land, feed families from around the world, and instill a love for something greater than themselves to a new generation.

When vacations do come along, it’s a big deal; but on all those other days, you learn to enjoy the little things. Sprinklers in the yard can be a water park for the kids. BBQs can be an opportunity to try some new cuisine; and that scene I described earlier with the couple on the beach? Find a babysitter, a blender, a lawn chair and a Jimmy Buffet album and you’re practically there.