It was a typical night for a high school rodeo in Idaho ranch country. Cool but not too cold. Breezy but not windy. Far from pleasant but not miserable. The rain had stopped earlier in the afternoon, and the wind had carried on enough to mostly dry out the biggest puddles in front of the bucking chutes.

We were at the little feedlot, about 20 miles from the home place, working a pen of yearlings. It wasn’t a really big or complicated job, but as was par for the course on our outfit, we were short-staffed.

April. It’s that time of year when our ecological matron tends to be more like an obnoxious little brother than the nurturing mother her name purports her to be.

Growing up, getting by, surviving and hopefully thriving in a life immersed in the cowboy world can sometimes be a genuine struggle to even the most patient and strong-willed among us, no matter how you may have steeled yourself to cope with the everyday mishaps or occasional tragedies the lifestyle lobs your way.

The basketball season was winding down. Actually, the winding had already wound, and we were just exhaling and catching our breath at the end of a long season.

I rolled over and opened one eye. According to the bright red digits on the old clock radio on the nightstand next to my bed, it was quarter to 4. Barely two hours had passed since the last time I’d looked at the same clock and collapsed on the bed.

“My life is a mess,” I thought. It wasn’t how I’d wanted to start the day, but here I was with a tractor stuck in 3 feet of snow in a swale at the bottom of the feed grounds.

If you’re really “hip” and in-the-know, like I am, you’ve no doubt heard the song Fancy Like by country artist Walker Hayes. The gist of the popular and catchy little ditty is that a feller, probably not entirely unlike me, sings his own praises for his occasional high-class ways when he takes his lady out on the town to Applebee’s.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been surrounded by critters – and for this discussion, by critters I mean horses and dogs. As a matter of fact, it’s somehow been ingrained in my psyche that it’s an absolute necessity to have at least two dogs and two horses around at all times. And by two, I really mean too – as in too many.

While I’m a strong advocate of volunteerism, sometimes I think I’m involved in too much stuff. There are certain times of the year when that realization is more pronounced than others.