Ranch kid skills

From snake wrangling to mud pie messes, ranch kids have a special skill set all their own.

Ranch kids may not know to look both ways when crossing a busy street, but they can shift into first gear and cross a cow pasture as soon as they’re tall enough to reach the pedals. Their days tend to revolve around work because it is an abundant resource found on all ranches in both historical and modern times.

Though ranch kids make their own fun while working, they learn important skills along the way. Here are a few skills ranch kids practice and perfect on their own.

Playing in the mud

Ranch moms are usually down to let their kids play in the mud, mostly because it’s free. It’s also washable, which is more than can be said for markers, slime, glitter and other store-bought items marketed toward children.

Mud is also a renewable resource and can be used to create an instant (if generic) Play-Doh for building castles, mud pies and more. Small children can be kept busy replacing the “sprinkles” as the snails crawl off the mud pie, and older children can be counted on to lob mud bombs at each other until someone cries. You might want to look out the window once in a while when the kids are developing this particular skill set.

Picking up snakes

Teach a ranch kid the difference between venomous and nonvenomous snakes, then encourage them to look for, touch, see and hold any harmless snakes they find while roaming around outside. This will ensure that someone in the household can calmly remove snakes found inside the home — because that person isn’t me.

It is also not my husband, who will track, rope, tie and lead a 2,000-pound maverick bull unassisted but will not touch a baby gopher snake on the kitchen floor. Luckily, he and I teamed up to create our own snake removal specialist, who casually tossed the offensive reptile out the door once he got home from third grade.

Drinking out of a garden hose

Non-ranchers tell me this is an unsanitary custom commonly practiced “back in the day.” According to my family’s calendar, it looks to have been 50 years ago, because slurping water from the end of a hose while mud splashes up onto your jeans is a daily occurrence around here.

Licking a salt block

This practice might seem gross because the salt block is covered with indentations made by cow’s tongues and decorated with swirls of dried slobber. Dirt, mud and who knows what else is often splashed up onto the licking surface, but it’s okay because whatever germs your kid ingests will be killed by their increased sodium levels.

I’m not sure if this is backed by science. Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s not. You should probably better do your own fact-check on this one. Or better yet — don’t worry too much about the facts and just let kids be kids.

The post Ranch kid skills appeared first on Western Horseman.