My dad said repeatedly, “Ranchers and farmers are the biggest gamblers in the world–always depending on Mother Nature for the precious rain they need for crops, for reservoir water, and to grow grass.
Could you handle the stress? the strain? the not knowing? If you have a predictable payday, then you have no idea what these men and women face every day.
My brother and I inherited our family ranch five years ago, and the droughty years stress me out. This year we have gotten rain for grass but many of our reservoirs were empty all summer and finally have gotten a little in the last couple weeks.
We had a storm on Wednesday in the town I grew up in which is just 4 – 6 miles from where we need our ponds filled. We got almost two inches in town, but the storm lightened up the further east you went, so the reservoirs that need it right now preparing for the winter didn’t get it.
I agree with my Dad, a rancher his whole life, “Yes, they are the biggest gamblers, but the perks are worth it.”
Larada Horner-Miller is a poet, essayist and accomplished multi-genre author who holds a bachelor’s degree in English, with a minor in Spanish and a master of education degree in Integrating Technology into the Classroom. She is the accomplished author of six award-winning biographies, historical fiction, memoir, and poetry works plus three self-published cookbooks.
Her sixth book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better?, is available in paperback and four e-book formats. Larada offers the reader the opportunity to look back at 2020 and the global pandemic through her prose and poetry through reading, then reflecting and responding. She addresses all the emotions she felt during this overwhelming time and leads the reader through to a self-access: bitter or better?
Her fifth book is the authorized memoir and biography of world-renown square dance caller Marshall “Flip” Flippo. Just Another Square Dance Caller: Authorized Biography of Marshall Flippo is available now in hardback, paperback and four e-book formats. Recently Just Another Square Dance Caller won two awards: Book Excellence Awards Finalist and Silver award for eLit. Book Awards.
Another recent book of hers, A Time to Grow Up: A Daughter's Grief Memoir has won many awards including being a 2018 Book Excellence Awards Finalist in the Memoir category at the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards and a 2018 Independent Press Distinguished Favorites Award in the Memoir category. Horner-Miller has also been a past national presenter at the Women Writing the West Conference and is currently the creator of Memoir Workshops for others who want to share their family’s legacies through words.
Larada and her husband, Lin, enjoy being nestled in the mountains above Albuquerque, New Mexico, near the village of Tijeras. When not writing books, this passionate, energetic, and enthusiastic woman loves to spend time kicking up her heels at square dancing gatherings, traveling, knitting, and reading.
As co-manager of her family’s southeastern Colorado ranch, she enjoys spending time exploring her family’s historic ranch and reminiscing with her brother and his children about their mom, dad, and granddad.
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