Life is Better with Cows Around
We don’t actually own cows, now I know what you’re thinking, “What’s up with all the cow pictures then?”
The truth is every cow in our small herd, except for one, belongs to our children. It’s true, every single cow is registered to Dakota, Ty or Gracie. Lucy was a gift from Ty but since she’s commercial she’s not registered.
How did Craig and I end up spending all our time, money and energy on cows that don’t technically belong to either of us? In the words of Elyse Myers, “That’s a great question, I’d love to tell you.”
The year was 1990 and we were at a bonfire on East Beach in Galveston. Times were simpler then; we could still have bonfires without getting into (too much) trouble. He asked me to go for a walk down the beach saying he wanted to show me the ‘glowing fish’. It was probably toxic waste that made them glow, but I still thought they were cool.
We sat down on a log, he grabbed a stick and started drawing in the sand. He told me that someday he was gonna own a cattle ranch and that he already had the brand picked out. It was a C with a line through it to make the K, it would be the Crooked K Cattle Co. “Or maybe,” he stated as he added another K onto his brand, “I’ll do this instead, for Kimberly.”
I was speechless, we weren’t dating yet but we’d been friends for a long time. I had been crushing on him for as long as I could remember but had no clue he felt anything but friendship for me. I don’t remember much else about that night; I’d like to say it was euphoria from those words but it was possibly the beer.
Long story short, those two kids married about five years later and had some babies. The thought of owning cattle became a far-off dream as bills and responsibilities took everything we had, but in our late-night talks there was always the thought of “maybe someday”.
“Someday”, started when Dakota decided to compete in the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo calf scramble his sophomore year and raised a beautiful black Brangus heifer. Ty and Gracie followed in his footsteps and here we are nine years later with a small herd of black and red Brangus show cattle and Lucy as the start of the commercial baldies.
One day after we’d all been at the property feeding and putting out hay, he told me he’d been thinking that Crooked K didn’t fit us anymore, I was shocked and asked him why not.
“This thing we’re doing is the five of us working together as a family. Hopefully one day it will be our kids and their spouses carrying this on with their kids. I want it to be an unbroken circle that never ends, like our wedding bands.” he stated.
Once again, I was speechless, this time with absolute love and adoration for this man.
This past weekend, while our kids are starting their own lives in three different towns, the two of us (along with Lorrie) loaded up and headed to the property to get ready for two new babies that are due this month. We still don’t own our own property but feel incredibly blessed with the lease we have them on. We still don’t have any registered in either of our names (the two due will belong to Dakota and Gracie); but as we scooped, spread and toiled away we knew that no matter where they graze or whose name they’re in, life is always better with cows around.
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