It is a continued joke here on the ranch that every time Dad leaves and I am home alone taking care of the land and the herd, something big goes wrong. Whether that be 50 yards of fence torn out and 80 head of cattle running through a neighbor's wheat field that I had to get creative to get back in, or pulling calves out of young heifers solo while juggling other ranch chores.

Every day on the ranch is a good day, but some are great days that I don’t think I will ever forget. On these great days, the morning starts out right, and then the whole workday evolves into one fantastic moment at the end of it—or in the middle; it doesn’t matter where the big moment is. The weeks after one of these special days, I get to keep on working like normal, but it seems like everything I do reminds me of that one great memory. That’s how I know it will last forever.

2025 has started with unusually warm weather, which has created opportunities to get some work done that we wouldn’t have had if the ground had been frozen. During the first few weeks of January, after morning feeding, Dad and I have been doing some light clean-up in pens, with him on the excavator and me on the tractor.

Many months at the ranch are a blur, in a good way. Dad and I don’t really have a day of the week—the same cows need to be fed and taken care of whether it is Monday or Sunday. So, it is easy to get caught up in the rush of things and let time fly by without remembering what happened. That being said, while writing this blog post, I tried to reflect back on how special November was.

As a young guy, I’m definitely not going to act like I’ve got it all figured out. One thing I’m confident about, though, is that it’s important to stop and appreciate what you get to do, where you get to do it, and who you’re doing it with every now and then.