Bookeeping #2 - My Ranch, Too

My Ranch, Too by Mary Budd Flitner

I have some bias in my praise of the book, given my grandmother wrote it, but it is genuine. My Ranch, Too is a complement to my family history. It is a series of family and personal diaries organized and written by Mary B. Flitner throughout her and her family’s journey to and in Wyoming. Through hardships of all kinds, my grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents, uncles, aunt, and mom have managed to survive a running ranch for over a hundred years. Making me a seventh generation Wyomingite, something I was not always proud of, but am now. 

Through detailed stories of frigid cattle drives, to friendship lost, and family loved - and hard to love - the book offers a diversity in its contents. There is much more that goes into running a ranch than livestock management. It takes a team, risk, hard work, long days, and a familiarity with things not going your way. Values that have been instilled in me throughout my youth - values I am grateful for. 

I have had the opportunity to work on this ranch a few times throughout my life. Most recently the past few months, living in my grandparents’ home. My grandma expressed an urge for me to reread her book since it had been a few years, and I agreed. I had two-ish weeks and 200 pages if I wanted to finish it; and for someone who is a slow reader and hard to sit still, that was a challenge. But instead, I found challenge in getting up from reading the book. Though I have read it before, having worked on the ranch for a couple summers and part of a winter since then, I had a new appreciation for its stories. Furthermore, this was the first, and might be the last time in my life, where I am able to read a book, living in the house of its author. Before work, I would read during breakfast, a little during lunch, and would sit by the fire, next to my grandmother, to end each night. All while reading her book, all with her right next to me.

After working through freezing temperatures during calving season, reading a chapter recalling “a winter of 50 below” had given me a new found intimacy with the contents of the book. It became tangible, understood. Witnessing the first breaths of life and the choking grip of death described in the book became a reality. My reality. It is a beautiful thing to share an experience with someone; to truly understand; to find interest in their interest; and to share that with my own grandmother, above all. 

Regardless of your interest in ranch lifestyle, I believe My Ranch, Too can be of value to anyone who decides to pick it up. Woven into experiences, endured and enjoyed through generations of ranching, are lessons of significance and malleability that can be of use on all aspects of life. I took away pride from the book. Not only pride in my family’s history, but pride in myself, my passions, and my time. My grandma titled the book, My Ranch, Too, with this pride in use. In a culture ruled by men, she held pride in herself, her knowledge, and her position - and ran a ranch fueled by that. 

Takeaways will vary person to person, but will prove to be of use. Live through education and experience, not just one or the other. 

Cowpoke by Colter Wall