The little Montana town I grew up in was dotted with small family operations.  Almost every outfit welcomed extra help for the summer months while school was out for the summer and I was lucky enough to have neighbors just down the road that took me on.  I helped with everything from moving early morning wheel lines and hand lines to pushing cows to spraying weeds to putting up the hay.

I was young and inexperienced but I was willing to learn and work hard.  There were always growing pains on those projects or assignments that I knew even less about than usual.  But then at the end of the day, going home tired, dirty and satisfied with the work I had done was worth all the hard moments.

With a lot of acres of hay to put up, I spent my fair share of time in the swather.  My favorite was the old red international that looked a little rough but wouldn’t quit for anything.  It did have one downside, though.  It just wouldn’t stay cool.  I distinctly remember my boss telling me to keep an on the temperature gauge and strict instructions of the when, how, and why to shutting it down and getting it cooled off if the engine ever did get too hot.

Summer after summer I went without incident in that swather.  I strategically stopped to cool off the engine to move around irrigating lines, take a potty break or go for lunch.  By the end of my last summer I was pretty sure I had mastered that swather and had crowned myself “queen of hay crew.”  

Leaving for college was exciting, but also daunting and I clung to every possible moment I could be out working in the fields.  On my very last night of work, I kept putting off heading home and basked in the comfort of my old swather.  That was until it completely shut down on me.  At first it just wouldn’t move forward before the engine died all together.  I tried turning the key over to start it back up but nothing happened.  Stuck in the middle of the field, I called my boss for help and ride, telling him of the sudden breakdown.

It only took a second for my patient boss to diagnose the problem- I had overheated the engine and it had subsequently seized up.  As that began to sink in, I felt awful for the costly mistake I had made in parts, labor, and time getting the hay put up.  Weeks later I learned that parts for that old swather were so expensive and hard to get that they never got it running again.  In fact, the next year they simply replaced it.

Maybe in the end I did them a favor, forcing them to upgrade the equipment.  But I will never forget the lesson I learned that day.  A lesson of carefully paying attention to my charges and not letting my overconfident pride lead out in my decision making.  I would have given anything to turn back time to do it again, the right way.  And since that was impossible, all that was left was to learn from the mistake and never do it again.

Unfortunately there is a price to pay as we learn, in ranching and in all aspects in life.  One way or another we pay with our time, energy, pride or pocketbook.

The last several weeks our little six year old has been dying for his turn to help “bunch bales.”  He has watched all of his older siblings take a turn on the open cab tractor to bring in the hay and he was sure he is big enough to sit in the driver’s seat.  Despite everyone telling him that he was still too little and too young, he didn’t give up.  Dad decided that the only way for him to learn what it would take to run the tractor was to actually do it.  

The two of them went out, dad showing him all the knobs and levers before walking him through the simple, but important instructions.  Slowly they began moving the bales, getting them aligned for the trailer to come through and pick them up.  The work was far from perfect- some bales were askew and some had been dragged, the wrap beginning to tear off- but the work was getting done.  The ride was rough and bumpy as he learned the finesse of the throttle.  And after it was all said and done, there was a tired but proud little boy crawling off the tractor at the end of the day.  All it took was someone to give him a time to finally have a chance to learn.

Our oldest has made leaps and bounds in his cowboying and we saw his best roping ever this year.  We saw some of his biggest mistakes this year too.  Midway through our branding season we had our big weekend roping on the desert.  With a lot of cattle to brand there were a lot of opportunities for a young cowboy to throw his loop.  This particular weekend it was like he couldn’t miss, scooping up to heels and necking calves left and right.  He was so proud!   

Fast forward a few weeks, we were cleaning up the last of the calves at the ranch and it was almost like he was a beginner all over again.  He was missing easy shots, fumbling his slack, and even roping a cow when he was aiming for the calf next to her.  The punch to his teenage ego was pretty tough.  But also helpful.  It forced him to slow things down, figure out where things were going wrong and how to make them right.  It was painful to pay with his pride, but a price worth paying to help him learn.

My dad recalls stories from his own young farming days when he got to learn the hard way.  He thought he had everything figured out, all on his own, as he dug the furrows to irrigate their farm ground.  That was until he turned the water on and realized that water doesn’t flow uphill.  Fortunately it was only the ends of the rows that would require fixing.  Unfortunately, it would have to be dug by hand and his dad was not about to dig him out of this problem!  With a shovel and sharp memory, he was determined to never make that same mistake twice.

The fear of making mistakes can all too often keep us from trying to learn new things, but making the mistakes is a price worth paying to learn.  It would be far easier for the cowboys and ranchers on our operation to do all the work.  They could get it done with less time, less breakdowns, and less meltdowns.  But teaching the next generation how to work and the ins and outs of this business is worth the extra minutes and bent nails.  We can only hope that it isn’t as costly as a new swather.