Howdy, y’all!
Just kidding. I don’t actually talk like that; I’m from Wisconsin, don’tcha know?
Welcome to my new little Substack, Part-Time Cowgirl. I’m just that: a part-time cowgirl. I ride and herd and do ranch work for a handful of small-time ranches on Colorado’s Western Slope. Enough crazy shit and local drama and wild happenings occur on a regular basis, I figured what I think about them is worth sharing.
Down the line, expect seasonally relevant articles about life in the West, living with eight dogs, being coworkers with quarter horses, cutting yourself on barbed wire, and perpetually cleaning dust off of every surface in your home. I dabble in narrative journalism, flash nonfiction, creative writing, and conversational writing, so expect a little bit of everything.
Shoutout to Yellowstone for popularizing the modern cowboy. It seems like everybody wants to feel a little bit western these days, and even though Gunnison relies on tourist dollars, let me tell you, parking your cybertruck at the Gunnison airport is not the best way to pass as a local. Perhaps reading a few articles about the West and visiting like a responsible human person is a better way to enjoy the culture.
The Context
Okay, sometimes folks need a minute to understand how this little riding deal works. Here’s a super simplified explanation of how I get to work with livestock.
My boyfriend (which I feel is a minimizing term, but that’s a rant for another time), Daniel, is a range rider for two cattle ranchers with a public land grazing permit.
What is a range rider? A backcountry cowboy who rides the range. Like in the song “Home on the Range.” It’s where the deer and the antelope play. It’s also where the cattle eat grass from May through October. The range rider’s job is to move the cattle from pasture to pasture according to permit guidelines set by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Forest Service, on whose lands the ranchers graze their cattle. Note that the word “pasture” makes these swaths of grass sound a little fancy; our pastures are defined by barbed wire fence boundaries, canyon ledges, roads, and ravines.
The range rider’s job also involves maintaining fencelines, doctoring sick cows and calves, and keeping all the animals safe.
Wait, ranchers? They’re not your cows? No, one needs to be quite well-off to own hundreds of cows. What several ranchers here do is pool their herds of cattle to graze on one grazing permit together. You can tell whose cow is whose based on the color of their ear tag.
Where are the cows from November through April? They’re at their home ranches about an hour and a half northwest of the grazing permit. Their winter pastures are located in a milder climate at a lower elevation, which helps them overwinter and calve better. The horses go back to their home ranch, too. The dogs are the only animals that stay with us year-round.
So, to recap, Dan’s job is to move a pooled herd of approximately 800 cows around on 100 square miles of public land from spring through fall. Sounds like a lot for one one-armed man to do, right?
It is. Dan needs help. That’s where I come in. Herds are easier to move with two or more riders. Plus, sometimes, we can divide and conquer. For example, one of us can ride the ridge while the other rides down by the creek. Trailering cattle is much easier with two people, too. Dan’s also a very chatty, social person, and he gets bored when riding alone (this doesn’t apply so much to me). When a rancher or a range rider hires another rider for a day, it’s called day riding.
Balancing writing and editing with helping Dan on the range is where my day riding gig comes in. I ride, fence, herd, etc., with him a few days a week during the grazing season for (sometimes) $100 a day and (always) the priceless satisfaction from achieving my childhood dreams.
It’s a win-win scenario.
Part-Time Cowgirl’s Structure
I tend to write based on feeling, like if something interesting or extreme happens or if a day-to-day task just seems a bit more special on one particular afternoon than another. Given that information, I plan to write one post a week or four a month, with varying structures, lengths, and paywalls.
Free content will include stories I feel everyone deserves to have access to. Paid content will contain perhaps more titillating tales, like encounters with mountain lions, or descriptive explanations of how to and why cowboy. Or it’ll just be paid because I felt like I deserved to get paid for doing my job. That makes sense, right?
About Me
I go by Gabby, and I’m a professional writer and editor. I studied wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and have a master’s in environmental management from Western Colorado University, which is how I found Gunnison. I keep a lot of jobs to make my life in the West make financial sense, including editing a print magazine, freelancing, ranch work, teaching firearm safety classes, day riding, and more. However, I find most folks are most fascinated by the day riding aspect of my work life, and to create more fulfillment for myself and share ranching culture with others, I decided to begin this Substack.
Have you ever watched 2002’s Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron? I watched it when I was 6 years old and have been trying to make that movie my actual life ever since. Just ask my mom if you don’t believe me. Because of that animated film, learning to ride horses in the backcountry has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. Manifesting it into reality has been the biggest joy of my life thus far. It’s an honor to have the ability and time to share my experiences with others, and I hope my feelings of personal fulfillment come through in my writing.
I want gardening this Substack to be fun for me. I should have fun telling my stories, right? I should enjoy sticking to my weekly commitment of writing something new here. So let’s keep it fun. My Aries personality ranges between an infuriatingly sassy fire-spewing dragon and a desolate, lizard-skinned mountain hermit; fun probably lies somewhere in the middle.
What Do You Want To Hear?
As someone always in search of inspiration, I’d love to hear via comments and/or polls what you are interested in reading about. What questions do you have about Colorado, Rocky Mountain wildlife, the West, day riding, or raising cattle? What do you want to read on these subjects? How can my experiences help inform your understanding of this world?
I’m someone who values education and practicality, and if I can check both of those things off with this Substack, I’m all ears.
FAQs
How is my last name pronounced? Thanks for asking: Zal-dum-BEE-day. It’s Basque.
I only like fried cheese curds, not plain. And my fried curds better be topped with hot honey and homemade pickles.
No, I don’t drink a glass of milk every day. But I do drink a lot of protein shakes.
You heard right: eight dogs. I live with eight dogs. You’ll learn more about them later.