If I had to guess, the answer would be somewhere between “too many times to count” and “every day.” Even if you are part-time help on the family ranch, chances are your other half is going to need your assistance from time to time. Which is usually fine, because if you are like me, you look forward to being involved in the day-to-day operations of the place and appreciate any excuse to get out of the house. But then there are times when you are left wishing, perhaps, that there was a hired hand around that could help him instead of you.
I suppose these situations could be called “character-building exercises,” although I prefer to call them “the times your spouse should be really thankful that you love him and that you aren’t a violent person.”
I believe that all married couples experience these bonding moments at some point or another, but ranch couples seem to endure more than their fair share. Maybe it is because ranchers are so stubborn; things don’t always go quite as planned. And when things don’t go as planned to start with, the opportunity for something to go even farther south increases exponentially as soon as the missus gets involved.
The simplest of chores can easily turn into day-long excursions, especially when the weather is less than ideal, livestock is involved or when there are a million other things that need to be done before sundown.
I remember going out with my husband one cold, blustery winter day (the reason why eludes me, but what happened is perfectly clear) after he begged me to come spend some time with him. As we pulled through the gate off the county road, I thought the snow seemed to be getting deeper; I knew there was a low spot in the field that often drifted in, and mentioned this to my husband.
His response, of course, was, “Oh, we’ll be fine. The Ranger is light; it’ll go right through it!”
And then we stopped.
Of course, being well prepared for winter driving was clearly something we were not. There was no shovel or tow strap in the bed of the vehicle, no cell phone on either of us, and when he tried to rock the ATV, the tires just dug in deeper. We did have a winch, but it was too short to reach the gatepost. He didn’t even have twine in the back of that rig!
After half an hour of trying to cobble miscellaneous pieces of wire and other junk together, we decided this wasn’t working. We walked back to the house to get the four-wheeler, because he promised me we weren’t stuck bad enough to need to bring anything bigger. Twenty minutes later, we were at my parents’ house, cold, wet and angry with each other and life in general. All I could think at the time was how thankful my husband should be that I didn’t shove him into a snowbank.
Long story short, the four-wheeler didn’t have enough power to pull the Ranger out. I chose to stay put while he went back to get the tractor. He finally managed to get it pulled out, and we went on to do whatever it was we had started out to do hours earlier. We laugh about it now, but we were both pretty mad at each other for a few days. Since then, I have learned not only to be a little more patient and gracious with my husband, but also that even the best of intentions sometimes end up not working out like we hope.
It is important to realize that getting mad never fixes anything, and to be thankful that you get to be your spouse’s right-hand woman. Good or bad, I think being able to work with the person you love is worth the trouble every time.
Maybe not fun, but worth it. Especially when I get to slack off for a few minutes to take a picture of him while he works. May you both be blessed with lots of patience the next time he ropes you into helping for “just a minute”! 
Richelle Barrett is a part-time cattle rancher and full-time wife and mother on a north-central Montana operation. You can learn more about her on her blog.
PHOTO: Shirking my duties, to take pictures of my unsuspecting husband, keeps things interesting when we work together. It might be why photographic evidence of our adventures is rare. Photo by Richelle Barrett.
