10 Years of Five Marys!

Ten years ago we left matching dresses and dinner parties for dirt and sunshine. We left desks and laptops for hard work and old ranch trucks. We left behind a lot of things we thought we cared about to care for our livestock. We left the path we planned on for one we never expected.

I had a comment on an Instagram post last week that we were selfish for taking our children from a ‘comfortable life’ to one on the ranch with a small house where they had to work. That comment stuck out to me because I wholeheartedly believe that moving to ranch was the best decision we ever made for our family. It’s not easy and often not comfortable, but when things aren’t easy for you, you feel more accomplished at the end of the day.

When you work hard together, you strengthen your work ethic and learn things everyday. When you give up the comfortable - you find the satisfaction in a life lived with purpose. You find a new way of living that may be even more beautiful than the life you lived before. You change. You adapt.

There are no days off… or even mornings or nights of when you are responsible for raising livestock. Our animals eat before we do - no matter what. Brian’s alarm goes off at 4:30 AM seven days a week and he beats the sun to prepare for the day and start morning rounds, often on his own, sometimes with me or one of the girls in tow to help.

Everyday things break, go wrong, surprise us, or rarely go ‘as planned.’ But our livestock are always first priority as a family and we do our best to keep them well fed, with clean water, shelter when they need it, and looking out for any signs of injury or illness in every one of them - everyday.

It’t not easy. We only have two ranch hands besides our family and we are so grateful they care for our animals as much as we do. They are the reason we are able to go to the girl’s rodeos and have a little extra help most days. But it’s still hard to get things prepared for us to leave when we do travel, and one part of you is always worried and wondering how everything is doing on the ranch when we aren’t there.

But we chose this lifestyle 10 years ago knowing that we would be working hard in all kinds of weather. We knew things would not always go as we hoped. We knew we’d be working together as a family and proud of the premium meats we’d put on our customers tables and our own.

I wouldn’t change it for anything.