About Me……

Happy 1st Day of Spring!! I sure hope Mother Nature knows what day it is and acts accordingly from here on out. I’d love to look out and see this in my backyard…..

Sigh….wishful thinking……this picture sure does put me in a good mood though (even if it’s not in my backyard)!

The sun is shining out and it’s supposed to be nice today. I’ve got a busy day ahead of me. I need to go check on our cows in the calving pasture in just a few minutes. Our calving pasture is quite large so it takes me quite a while to get around it and get everything checked. I look forward to it (especially on beautiful mornings such as this). We will feed hay and then we will head in to have my son’s check up with the dentist who performed his oral surgery last week.

I mentioned that I’ve been writing a column. I’m excited that another publication has added me to their feature list and now I am being considered by three more (one a very well known magazine). I’m super excited about this wonderful opportunity! I’ve been sending off my bio and my intro column to them all for print. It dawned on me that it may be a good idea to post it on here so all of you can read it as well. So, here’s a few words about little ole me!

Greetings from the Pine Ridge Reservation! I have been busy thinking about what my first submission would be about. I came up with all sorts of topics, but then I realized that the majority of you don’t know who I am. So, I’m taking this opportunity to introduce myself. Once we are properly acquainted, I can get right into what’s on my mind in the next issue.

My name is Cheyenne Glade Wilson. I was born in Miles City, Montana and I was fortunate to be raised on a ranch north of the Yellowstone River northwest of Terry. My great grandparents had settled the place in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s. The ranch had been run by my grandparents, Art & June Reukauf and eventually went on to my parents, Cliff & Lila Glade. I grew up helping my folks on the ranch along with my brother, Wyatt. We learned all about cattle and horses. You may have heard the phrase, “She could ride before she could walk”. That phrase could pertain to me in one sense or another. As kids we spent a lot of time in the saddle and we learned a lot along the way. Our fun time was rodeo….youth rodeo to start with, then high school, and then college. The values I learned from how I grew up have carried me along my journey through life.

After a year or so in college, I drifted towards city life. I spend about 12 years in the retail trade. While growing up on the ranch, I always wondered what life was like “on the other side of the fence”. I got quite an education while I was “over” there. I learned a lot and I applied the work ethic I learned while growing up. It served me well as I was promoted quite quickly and eventually I became a district manager. I really enjoyed the hustle and bustle of city life. However, as I got older, I could feel a tug inside me. It was my past ranch life that was calling me. A couple times a year, I would come back and help out on the ranch during busy times (branding, shipping, etc.). It was always hard to go back to my city life after being “home” for a while. Eventually, I made the decision to move back. My life changed drastically when I met my would-be husband, Shane, in Miles City.

We eventually moved to ranch near my folks. They had sold their place in Montana and had moved down here in early 2000. We arrived in early spring 2005 and we have called the Slim Buttes area near Oglala home ever since. Moving back was the best decision I’ve ever made! Shane and I married in the summer of 2006 and then our son, Stone, came along in August 2008. He is truly my greatest accomplishment. I never knew how amazing being a mother could be!

Shane, Stone, and I spend our time doing what most ranch folks do:  tending to our livestock, fixing fence, watching weather reports, speculating about the market, helping neighbors, and praying for few storms, heavy calves, and good prices at sale time. I also own a custom crystal cap business called Cowgirl Swank. I started it in 2007 and it has grown significantly in the last seven years.

I’m proud to say that my upbringing has led me to where I am today so I owe my folks a big “Thank You” for that! I love to write, which is something I did a lot as a kid (back in the days before Dish TV and iPads). I write poems, short stories, and I blog. I also love to cook so my blog allows me to share recipes, tell stories of ranch life, and I can talk about one of my favorite things, Women’s Ranch Rodeo.  I hope you enjoy reading my column as much as I’m going to enjoy writing it every two weeks!

That’s it! Hope you enjoyed reading it. Enjoy this first day of spring….may it be the first of many wonderful weather days to enjoy in the coming months! ~Cheyenne

The Storm Atlas

A couple of weeks ago I got a message from a friend asking me to call her, which I did. Come to find out she is on the board of the Black Hills Stock Show and she asked me if I would read my poem “The Storm Atlas” at the opening of the BHSS Ranch Rodeo Finals. Apparently, several people had requested asking me. I was surprised and completely honored!

I began writing poems when I was quite young. I’ve always had the ability to do it…..just get a thought in my head, scribble down a few words and within minutes have a complete poem written out. I’m not patting myself on the back…..or saying that I’m well-known for my poetry. I’m not……..well, not yet anyway…..have to think positive, right?!

I became a published poet at 12 years old. I’ve always written with a lot of emotion attached to my words. The poem I had published at this young age was about a horse my grandpa had given me. Our neighbor ran into him and several other horses of ours on Christmas Eve…..it was awful…..they all died or had to be put down. It was my first knowledge of drinking and driving and it has stuck with me all of these years. Shortly after this occurred, my grandpa passed away suddenly. In just a short few weeks, death had touched me….deeply. I wasn’t the type to cry a lot, but words would pour out of me like tears for some. I wrote this poem almost a year after it happened. After that, I wrote a lot of “dark” poems when I went through adolescence. It was my escape and I’m glad I had it. I stopped writing poems after I graduated from high school. I think that the ability and need to write has just been laying dormant in me for all of these years. It took a major emotional episode to make it come out again.  Nowadays I have more tears….maybe because I’m a mother now. I swear that motherhood brought an entire bag of emotions that I never dealt with a lot before Stone was born…..not that I’m complaining. 🙂

Fast forward to October 2013. A normal October for most of us……with the threat of a winter storm. We’ve had those before….and never thought much about them. We still had our calves on the cows….as did most people this time of year. We normally ship around the middle of October (send our calves off to market). Our spring had been tough on us as we were still reeling from losing 50 head of baby calves to an awful storm in April earlier that spring. So, here comes the storm of the century for us……we paced…..we prayed…..we were without power for 5 days….we had power poles knocked down in the pasture in front of our house and as far as we could see….poles everywhere! I nagged at Shane about putting our horses over in the calving barn….he was resistant, but I wouldn’t let up. Call it woman’s intuition or whatever, but I will forever be thankful that I listened to my inner self and demanded that those horses be put in. I helped him……it was just quite a chore because the snow and wind were horrific….and those horses weren’t thrilled about being taken into it in the mile trek over to the shed. It’s hard to think back about how awful the weather was……and how horrific the findings would be in just a few short days.

We had a generator to get us through the 5 days without power and when it came back on the images flooding Facebook and the news were absolutely horrific. That’s when the emotions hit me……I was sobbing…..I remember because the original sheet that I wrote the poem on had wet tear stains on it. That’s how emotional I was……and how emotional this poem is to me. We ended up not losing any cattle….this time around, but it struck a nerve in me that all ranchers can identify with. My tears weren’t for me or my family……they were for everyone/everything that the storm touched….people who suffered loss, the animals who lost their lives, the suffering that was endured, the harshness of Mother Nature….all of it. My tears were from the heart…..as were the words that became “The Storm Atlas”.

My poem was published in countless newspapers and magazines around the country. I was so touched that people could identify with it. I just had to get my feelings down on paper. It’s funny….even writing about it now makes my eyes well up with tears and I get a tingly feeling all over. I told my friend that I may cry while reading it in front of everyone……she said that was okay because most of the people in the audience will be crying too.

Here is my poem if you’d like to read it:

Well, wish me luck tomorrow night…..it’s the first time I’ve ever read a poem out loud in front of an audience. Break a leg, right?! 🙂 ~Cheyenne