What I Did Over My Christmas Break by Meg Brown

I feel like I am in elementary school again, writing an essay about my break. Its fun, I’m going to go with it. Thanks to Christmas and the New Year, I got some time off from my office job. Of course I spent my days off on the Ranch, “working”. It was glorious.

Kristen and Ryan mounted their horse, and moved cows for the first time – they are excellent help.

Two major events happened, the first is I got to move cows without my Dad. THAT NEVER HAPPENS. I was told to get a crew and move a herd of cows two fields over. I called Kristen and her husband, Ryan, and Shannon and Olive to come help. The cows knew what to do and were excited to have a new field to eat. I didn’t take any pictures of this happening because I was trying really hard to pay attention and not screw up (I didn’t!), but next time I will, I promise.

We all remember Olive right? She is my future 4-H member/cowhand in training.

The second big thing was our barn fell down. Well I guess I should say, the rest of the barn fell down (part of it collapsed last year). Due to the nasty storms we had, our old metal barn collapsed. According to legend, this barn was old when we bought this Ranch in the 1940’s. It’s been hanging on by a thread for years, but needless to say, it was sad when the old thing finally died. I have lots and lots of memories of our old barns, they are where I played a lot as a child.

Dead barn.

Another amazing thing happened when the barn collapsed. As I was helping my Dad tear down the barn, and try to start the clean-up process, I offered to get a crew of my friends together for a clean-up day. Normally my Parents say, thanks, but no thanks, when it comes to my buddies helping with projects like this, not this time. Dad said, ok, go ahead, get a crew.

My crew at work!

My barn crew kicked butt! Brian Drake, Rene and her friend Forrest, Daniel and my Dad’s friend Mike all came over and spent their New Year’s Day working hard! My Mom cooked a ham and made a pecan pie for us for lunch. We got so much done!

My Dad had so much fun with my friends, he made me start driving the backhoe to the lumber pile so he could hang out and visit!

My treasures from the barn. Old pipe. I’m turning it into planter for my yarden.

My old cowdog Nikki spent all my vacation with me. She is too old to jump up onto the backhoe, so I picked her up and put her in the seat with me. She was so happy to be with me! It kinda made me cry.

We got about half the barn cleaned up in one day. It felt good.

I had a wonderful vacation. Working on the ranch really makes me appreciate my office job and working my office job really makes me appreciate the ranch. It was great to introduce my Dad to some of my friends – and have him really enjoy them. But most of all I really like having my friends out – often they get to experience something they’ve never done before, like move a herd of cattle or drive a tractor, and to me that experience is priceless.