Would I mind missing the stress or even the joy of putting up hay if I fully retired and said I have gone fishing? Somehow even after passing on the ranch to the next generation(s), I need the feeling of continued connection to the land and livestock.
To say I am not needed would take away the full sense of purpose of being on the land. Often the first generation that has left the farm where they grew up and maybe worked most of their life farming, get nostalgic—not about the bad crop years or the deflationary effects of something like Mad Cow disease nor about getting up in the morning to the sun shining on the green fields or the middle of the moonlit night to check calving cows; rather the nostalgia comes from generations on the land feeding families and the improvements in production achieved from hard work and careful innovations.
That is the satisfaction of sticking to the task of caring for the land that grows our food.
In a sense we grow roots at our place. So when someone says they are going back to their roots that is what I think they mean. They don’t like the feeling of being uprooted or their lives being torn out by the roots. We are like the plants that grow in the fertile soils of “Eden”.
Now I don’t have to do much on the land, but I can still be part of something bigger than my own career as a rancher. I also feel I can keep caring about what goes on the rangeland where the cows go—on public lands (including unceded). That caring comes from the realization that the forest and grasslands support many species of life that contribute to the viability of our existence alongside the plants and animals that also thrive there.
I don’t feel any superiority as a human in the midst of so much other life. As a highly aware species we humans inherit a responsibility to care that we leave life essentially intact as it was presented to us originally through evolution or Divine Creation- whatever one believes. We should therefore be able to love the land and the life on it, not to the exclusion of people, but to the inclusion of all beautiful life and landscapes.
