This fall, my cowboy and I went to the Oregon Coast for the first time. Since his family is from Georgia and Tennessee, we’d driven to see the Atlantic Coast once or twice. Yet we’d never experienced the ruggedness of the Oregon Coast.

I’ve always felt inferior to my hubby’s sense of direction. He can be dropped into any pasture, in any state, and know exactly where he is and how to get out. I understand that the sun is our guiding light, but when I say he has an uncanny ability, I mean it. His natural intuition is phenomenal. 

When the kids were little and we needed a babysitter to go on a date, it took effort. After we finally found a night that worked for someone to come, inevitably something happened. An irrigation ditch flooded. We got snowed in. The kids got sick. The dog got hurt. Usually, though, the cows got out.

A few years ago, during an August hot enough to fry pancakes on sidewalks, I was home while my hubby handled 4-H at the fair with the kids. He oversaw some 4-H activities at the time, so he stayed at the fairgrounds while I trucked an hour one way back home to take care of chores on our little ranch.

Have you ever noticed in ranching that there’s “flow” and “no flow”? The days things click into place are great. Items on the to-do list get crossed off, and people and animals are happy.