Dark chocolate. Madison Avenue connotations wrap us in glowing, warm feelings of love, acceptance and decadence. Good dark chocolate, the kind that has just the right amount of rich bitterness mixed with sweet, is hard to find. Once, in Peru, my family and I found the darkest chocolate I’ve ever savored. It was too bitter for them, but I rolled it around on my tongue until it dissolved completely. Then I popped a dark chocolate coca leaf in my mouth -- for medicinal purposes only, of course. We were high in the Andes so the coca leaves helped with altitude sickness. Or maybe it was the dark c ..read more

I decided to finally sell my wool, after storing it in my barn for three years. I planned to haul it to Billings and bring back seed for my cover crop as a back-haul. The wool buyer said the market is soft and doesn’t look like it will change. Like a $3 loaf of bread has about 10 cents of wheat in it, a $150 wool sweater has about $2 of wool in it. But fine white wool like mine brings enough to pay the shearing crew and I’m tired of working around a barn full of wool. So I loaded 6 tons of wool on my 21-foot flatbed trailer. Then I looked at the stress on the pickup and the trailer tires. My ..read more

My daughter, Abby, has played singles tennis for seven years, loving every swing, serve and rally. She works out and runs during the off-season, playing when the weather allows, too. Tennis, like so many aspects of life, takes skill along with mental toughness. Out there alone on the court, it is easy to beat yourself up by obsessing about a mistake you just made, doubting your true skill. It’s a form of Imposter Syndrome, when that inner enemy harps on mistakes to prove you are not as good as you know you are. The tennis court is not the only court where an inner voice makes the difference b ..read more

So many misunderstandings about ranching circulate throughout the media that each of us has a duty to explain how and why we raise livestock so we can debunk a few of those misunderstandings. Yet stretching beyond my insulated daily life makes me uncomfortable. Some of my friends regularly stretch beyond the people they know. One friend hosts visitors for weeks at a time. Another friend speaks to large crowds about topics that range from artificial intelligence to religious beliefs. A third friend posts on social media every single day as a part of her successful marketing plan. I don’t know ..read more

Jake, the sheep shearing crew boss, called me on Saturday evening, hoping to arrive at my barn on Monday morning. I already had a big day of commitments on Monday so we settled on Tuesday morning instead. As I scrambled to round up help, Jake dialed the other sheep producers in the area, coordinating shearing dates with them, too. We both juggle many moving aspects of raising sheep. Jake travels across Montana, Wyoming and even Hawaii with a crew that varies depending on the size of the flocks he will shear that week. Each shearer is an independent contractor. He gets paid per sheep and pays ..read more

Ranchers play a high-stakes poker game with Nature with every calf that hits the ground. Every rancher draws a different hand and each of us tries to improve our odds in different ways. I choose to allow my cows to calve on the prairie. I like calves to land on clean grass where the risk of scours is lower. When my cows can keep their newborns separate from the herd, they don’t get so anxious or riled up. They prefer privacy during these intimate moments. The weekend forecast predicted cold wind and the possibility of 8 inches of snow so I brought the cows from a distant pasture to the Home P ..read more

My daughter, Abby, has heard Robert Burns’ adage “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” She lived that adage last Sunday. Saturday night, she went to her senior prom, exuding glamour in a beautiful dress. When she came home, she described her entire evening as surreal. Her Sunday plan was to sleep in, do laundry and homework and revel in the afterglow of the prom. Mice and men didn’t change her plans, but a milk cow and her mother did. Instead of reliving the glamour, she found herself slogging through the muck of a corral, covered in the fluids of life. My first meeting on the ..read more

My driveway presents a conundrum that results in an unparalleled feat of national – or at least personal -- security. Criminals seek easier targets. Enemies cower at my gate. Friends offer to buy coffee in town. Few dare to run the gauntlet. My driveway dips down and then back up for a half mile, with flat stretches in between. It wends its way through my Home Pasture, where the only critical target is the bridge that spans a steep-banked creek. Otherwise, a driver could wander anywhere through the pasture. However, I want the grass to grow so I barricade the driveway with old fenceposts from ..read more

When I bought the original Conrad Mercantile almost three years ago, I didn’t have a solid plan for using the entire space. After all, I didn’t really need a plan. The current retail tenants paid my bills and left a little cash left over for repairs and maintenance. I could let that 100-year-old building just be what it was. But it had been so much more. It had been built as the hub of a burgeoning town back in 1920, where everything from local dairy products, meat and vegetables to hardware, farm equipment and household necessities were sold. The store employed many clerks and the bank in th ..read more

I walked across the prairie the other day, the first time in a long time. I’ve been outside, of course, feeding on the tractor, putting salt out with the pickup, but not walking with the land. The wind was calm, the sky a silent grey. I meandered along the hillside, feeling the power and the patience of the land fill my soul. The land accepts what is, good or bad. It reacts without malfeasance, giving all it can to the bugs that feed the plants that feed the cows and sheep and birds and deer that feed me, body and soul. The land reflects the seasons as they must come, just as they must come i ..read more