More About Life On A Ranch

Some years ago the government passed a law which gave them the right to take a citizen's private property (with compensation of course) but without the owner's consent. They call it iminent domain. Thanks to this law a piece of our property was divided when the government came calling and decided to put a freeway (I-70) through Colorado many years ago.

This piece of land is prime property because it is right next to the Colorado River and perfect for letting the cattle graze and have their babies. So every winter we bring our cows down to this property and every spring we bring them home. These happen to be some of my favorite days here on the ranch.

But my favorite day, well maybe not favorite, but the one that gets the most attention and is the most humorous is the day we have to move our cows from one side of the freeway to the other. As I said the freeway divided our property so the only way to get from one side to the other is to use the overpass. For some reason (I can't imagine why!) taking cows over the freeway gets a lot of attention from drivers. What? It's not normal to see a cattle drive while you are headed down the freeway?

I've always wished I could be on the freeway taking pictures of how we look to the rest of the world but I could never leave my "post" blocking the freeway off ramp. So I took pictures this year as best I could to capture what it is we actually do. 

Here we are coming down the dirt road along side I-70 (you can see it on the right).

Just ahead is the overpass we are about to cross.

Here is my van and my husband blocking one part of the off ramp while I am standing on the opposite side blocking the rest of the off ramp.

Cattle drive on the overpass. We always have at least one person stop and start taking pictures. One year there was a bus that stopped and a ton of people got out and started snapping their cameras. It was pretty funny.

And at the end of the day we all sit and relax and say a prayer of thanks that all the cows and all of us made it safely to the other side.

It's probably safe to say that this is NOT a normal day in the life of a rancher but I'm glad it's part of mine.  

Maybe next time I'll show you all some pictures of preg testing!