The Winter Rancher

Every morning I roll out of bed and the first thing I do is look out the window towards the horses. Initially, a safety check, a quick glance to see if anything has happened during the night that demands immediate attention. If nothing jumps out to me, then I take it as silent permission to enjoy a cup of coffee and the warm fire before heading out to work. The second reason I look out the window is to check what things are in store for me that day, thanks to Mother Nature's weather. Most mornings, it's nothing, the farm just as quiet and perfect as we left it the night before. But some mornings I look out the window, and there it is—the fresh blanket of snow, or the pale, stubborn glare of subzero air clinging to everything like a wary coat. My stomach tightens in that familiar way, a pit that knows what’s coming even before my eyes do: a day of work that will demand more of me than I’d like to admit, a day that tests both body and mind, patience and grit, the stubborn will that keeps a ranch running when the weather tries to erase you physically and mentally.

Winter is not a season to endure quietly. It is a test of grit, care, and shards of hope. After two feet of snow recently collapsed onto our property and temperatures have stubbornly stayed well below freezing, we have learned anew what it means to tend to the horses we love and the space they call home. Our horses’ private corrals and arena sit at the edge of our daily life, a constant reminder that safety and comfort must be earned every hour of every cold day. The work is physical, yes, but its weight grows from the responsibility behind it—the lives we are entrusted with, the trust they place in us, and the fragile comfort we must craft in a world of ice, wind, and white.

To keep the space livable in such weather, we move with purpose and repetition. We shovel, scoop, rake, and sweep with a rhythm that becomes almost meditative after hours of lifting and bending. The snow must be cleared from the gates and from the corners where horses prefer to linger, and the snowbanks along the fencing must be trimmed back to preserve the integrity of the fences. Water is a daily battle: keeping troughs unfrozen or quickly unfroze, preventing hoses from turning brittle in the cold, ensuring that every horse can drink without risking colic.

We watch for signs of distress in the horses: a cough that comes too often, a reluctance to lift a hoof, a reluctance to eat even when the hay looks sweet. We also guard our own bodies: fingers numb not just from cold but from the steady, unspoken worry of a long shift ahead. Backs aching from DAYS of shoveling, ibuprofen, and a heated blanket become family members ready to greet us at the end of the day.

The sense of teamwork is what sustains us through the iciest mornings and the deepest stacks of snow. This is not a solitary task. It is a chorus of hands and voices: someone clearing a walkway while another checks waters, and a partner ready at the gate to ease a nervous horse into a safe, comfortable space. We rely on routines—checklists that become sacraments in winter: opened gates, cleaned water, fresh bedding, secure fencing, a dry path to the shelter, a cleared stretch in the arena where even the quietest horse can move with confidence. The work is heavy...

There is also a quiet poetry to winter care, a reminder of what it means to keep living beings alive through hardship. It is our duty to ensure that their bodies don’t pay the price for the sky’s weather. So we learn to balance protection with freedom: offering sheltered corners that protect from wind gusts and ensuring that the arena remains a space for movement rather than a trap of ice and snow.

Winter is the quiet, stubborn maintenance of life and dignity. It is choosing to stay awake a little longer, to move a little more slowly but with greater care, to anticipate needs that might otherwise go unseen in the rush of daily life. It is the devotion that grows from a relationship with horses that spans years, decades even, and a property that has become a second home to those who roam its corrals home day after day. The recent two feet of snow and the consistently frigid air do not erase this truth; they sharpen it. This is what it means to work the winter, to work with winter, and to work for the horses who give us purpose in their presence and in their breath, even when the world outside seems unyielding and painfully white.

To all you other winter ranchers, give it a few months, and we will be complaining about the unforgiving heat and vicious bugs... until then, may your ibuprofen be plentiful, your coffee strong, your fire warm, and your patience teetering, but intact.