Merry Christmas From the Ranch

December 13, 2020 by Sariah

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We got our Christmas tree last weekend and we have been enjoying it every night. We cut our tree down this year instead of going to a tree lot in town. It is a pinon pine and it is perfectly imperfect.

This week I have been thinking of all the Christmas trees we’ve had over the years. We’ve had a real Christmas tree each year since we’ve been married. This is our 29^th Christmas together. A Christmas tree evolves each year like your family. Somethings change, like lights and kids getting older. Some things never change, like the tree topper and the magic a lit-up Christmas tree creates.

Trees of Christmas Past

One year we had a tree so prickly I could hardly put anything on it! It was given to us while we were in college and the price (free) was right, so we didn’t complain. Also, it was so poky that Jasper, who was almost 2 at the time, didn’t want anything to do with it. Bonus.

Another year I did all red lights and rocking horses. It was the year I lost my brother in a drowning accident. There wasn’t any particular connection to rocking horses and my brother. Someone gave me an ornament with a rocking horse on it after he passed away, so I decided it would be the theme for our tree that year. I’ve never done another themed tree since then, so it really was a special tree.

We had a ponderosa pine one year and that tree lasted FOREVER. I wanted to see how long I could keep it in the house. I remember putting Valentine’s hearts on it!

One year we took our Christmas tree down and hauled it out Christmas afternoon. It was so dry it was a fire hazard and needles were everywhere.

We’ve tried the big lights, colored lights, red lights, and white lights. The big lights almost caught a few things on fire and an old tree skirt shows proof of that. I’ve learned how to wrap lights so the tree will glow. It takes more time, but it looks amazing when it’s done.

One time we bought a tree, put it in the house, and let it warm up for a day before we decorated it. It was dry and dead the next day! We threw it out and got another one. It was an expensive tree that year.

Our Russian Christmas Tree

We worked in Russia for a year and a half and we were able to be there during Christmas. That was a memorable experience since Russians don’t celebrate Christmas. They focus more on the new year and celebrating Grandfather Frost.

A week before Christmas we still didn’t have a tree and the kids were dying. Joseph, Sage, and Sophie took matters into their own hands and walked probably a mile behind the ranch, in the snow and cold to look for a tree to cut down and drag home. They came home frozen and the tree they cut down was TOO big. It was like a very large, wide, tall Charlie Brown tree. That was disappointing for them after all the work they did. A few days later we went for a drive to find a tree. We found one, cut it down, and shoved it in our van. (Picture a military green Scooby Doo van.) It was still a Charlie Brown tree but we could fit it in the house.

We had all homemade ornaments on our Russian tree. We could only drape two strings of lights on the tree because the light strands didn’t plug into each other like we were used to. Santa still found us in Russia with our homely tree and normal Russian life carried on outside our door.

Christmas Tree Problems

I save ornaments for my kids so they each have their bag of special ornaments to hang on the tree. They would hang them at their eye level in one clump. I rearranged them after they went to bed and they never seemed to notice. No, I’m not a Monica Gellar.

We had one ornament of Jasper’s that would “hide” (it seemed) in the tree each year. We always found it at the last minute when the tree was about to be thrown out. I gave Jasper his ornaments when he got married. He can deal with the yearly elusive ornament now.

Tinsel was the thing to scatter on your tree when I was a kid. (I don’t know how my mom dealt with that mess.) We always found some piece of tinsel in July.

I’ve never had a flocked tree. Jeffrey remembers one of his grandmothers having a flocked tree each year. He said that if she didn’t like how the flocked tree looked, she would send it back and get another tree.

The tree topper is the one thing that hasn’t changed on our tree. We have a star and it lights up. I remember buying it at a Woolworth’s after Christmas sale. It has lasted ALL these years and through a lot of moves. It’s still exciting for me to see how it looks lit-up on top of the tree with the rest of the lights.

Make Memories

Our trees have changed over the years and we enjoy them every year and the memories we make with them. Our Christmas trees never look perfect, but they have always been perfect for us. Remember, under the Christmas tree is where childhood magic and memories happen.

Make it memorable, not perfect.

Here are some links to games that we play during the holidays. They are memorable and fun to play while you enjoy your Christmas tree. The adults, teens, and kids in our family recommend them.

Pushin’ Up

July 1, 2020 by Sariah 2 Comments

Have you ever heard a rancher say they’re pushin’ up? Or maybe they say something like –

“Have you pushed up?”

“When are you pushin’ up?”

“I’m starting to push up next week.”

“I pushed up last week.”

What are they talking about? Does it have anything to do with pushin’ up daisies? No, it doesn’t.

Pushin’ up refers to moving cows to a new grazing allotment where the feed is better. Cows graze in areas called allotments and they can only stay in those allotments for a certain number of days as designated by the Bureau of Land Management. When we push up, it is typically to a higher elevation where the feed is still green and not as dried out as the low country. It could be up a mountain or it could be to another allotment on the high desert where the water sources are better.

Little groups of cows are gathered into larger groups. Cowboys line the cows out and push them in the right direction to help them find the gate to the new allotment. It can take a few days to gather and find all the cows, line them out, and push them up.

Let me explain this differently.

Imagine you have 100s of kids and they are scattered in Costco. Your job is to get them out the door by 5pm so they can have better food than the food samples. You spend all afternoon gathering them and another adult takes the lead so they know where to find the door. Gathering them and getting them moving in the right direction takes all day. Finally, you push them through the door at 4pm, counting them as they go out. You realize you are short a few kids, so you go back inside to find them, gather them, and send them in the right direction so they can make it out the door. This time they are all accounted for and they are pretty happy with the new food they get to eat.

It takes some time to push up. Day by day it gets done.

The next time you hear a rancher say, “I’m pushin’ up this week,” you’ll know exactly what he is talking about – finding all his kids in Costco and getting them out the door to have better food.

Jasper is on another ranch that has cows and calves. We only have yearlings right now. His push looks a little different that ours.

For all the Meals I’ve Cooked

June 24, 2020 by Sariah

Ranch wives cook a lot. I will have extra people at my table (besides my family) about three times a week, on average. Maybe someone stops in to talk and they stay for dinner. Maybe we have to start the day earlier than normal and Jeffrey invites another cowboy to join us for breakfast.

Cowboys who come and help another ranch for just the day are called day workers. The ranching tradition is to feed your day workers. I will usually do a lunch for them and sometimes dinner.

Meal planning for potential extra visitors and having a good idea of what you can whip up on short notice is helpful.

This poem is for the ladies who cook meals for crews and random ranch visitors. The ranch house kitchen is the diner, deli, and bakery.

You may not get a trophy for all the meals you cook, but this poem is dedicated to you.

For-all-the-meals-Ive-cooked

Why the Name Every Day on the Ranch?

May 24, 2020 by Sariah

The seed was planted.

How and why did we decide on the name Every Day on the Ranch for our blog?

Last spring, I remember sitting on the edge of my bed one evening looking through pictures on my phone. We had been getting ready and setting up for cow camp. Cow camp set up involves many trips up the mountain to haul horses and gear to camp, set up branding traps in several locations and take propane tanks to each of the traps. We set up tipis and a wall tent. We hauled up all the camp supplies, food, and water and the set up preparation could go on and on. I had taken some pictures each day while we were setting up our camp. As I looked through the pictures that night, I thought, “Something is happening every day at the ranch. What we do as a family is not a common thing. I should share our life as a ranching family.”

The seed sprouted.

As I thought more about blogging and sharing on social media I realized I needed to tweak the name I thought I would use. I didn’t like how every day AT the ranch (everydayattheranch) looked when it was one word and it wasn’t clear. I decided every day ON the ranch (everydayontheranch) was better and was clear and it felt right. I searched to see if anyone had claimed the name Every Day on the Ranch. It didn’t show up on any of the searches, so I claimed it as ours on several social media platforms.

The fall of 2019 I started learning about blogging, again. Over ten years ago I had a private family blog. A lot has changed in the blogging world since that time. By January of 2020 I learned enough new information to get to a point where I liked what I had created with the blog, but I didn’t hit publish.

In January 2020, I started posting on our Instagram page. This gave me the chance to post pictures and share things about our life to see if I was ready to blog. A few months have gone by and I feel like we are ready to go beyond the Instagram posts and do more and share more. It was time to hit “publish” on the blog. Content is created every day because of the things we do in our normal, daily ranch life. I need to transfer it all into picture and word form to share on the blog. But, I have been busy because…something is happening every day on the ranch.

The seedling has become a plant and it is growing.

Thanks for joining us on the start of this journey.

Our Family

November 11, 2019 by Sariah

We are Jeffrey and Sariah.

Our children are: Jasper, Justin, Joseph, Sage, Sophie, Saylor and Jimmy.

L to R back row – Joseph, Justin holding Jimmy, Jasper
L to R front row – Sophie, Saylor, Sage
PC: A. Walters

Our son, Jasper, got married in May of 2018 and his wife, Aspen, is a great addition to our family – she loves Nevada and the desert! Last September they welcome a little boy, Jubal, into their family. They live on another large Nevada ranch that is about two and a half hours from town.

We live on a ranch in the high desert of northern Nevada. Our lifestyle is becoming more uncommon and rare. We ranch, we have a large family, we homeschool, we work with our kids, and we live about 40 minutes from town. We want to share our lifestyle with you!