Not Horsin' Around

When I was younger and my parents plopped me on Santa’s knee for a photo-opt, I was the girl who always asked for a pony. I begged and begged my parents for a horse, and at the age of 8 they granted my wish with horseback riding lessons. Although my white and pink fringe boots made a regular appearance in my outfits, they were used for their original purpose once a week. Although my experience level started out low, each week I was progressively developing more skill. The horses I learned on were not mine, but those of a boarding stable. Their pens were clean and they had plenty of food and water, however I never noted who was doing all of this cleaning. I didn’t realize this until my parents bought me a horse of my own, and part of the boarding fee was to go to the “ranch hands”.

When I needed a job the summer of my junior year in high school, it made sense that I looked somewhere close to my horse. The owner of the stables was delighted to hire me to feed, clean and ride some of their horses. I worked with 5 others, none of whom had the job to earn some extra cash during the summer. They all had the job year round to support themselves and their families.

I made a solid nine dollars an hour, and being in high school I felt as if I was rolling in the dough. Being a ranch hand was not an easy nine dollars though. I worked Monday through Friday, from 12 to 5 because the other hands took care of the morning feeding and started cleaning stalls. At noon I would clean the stalls that had not been finished, and ride the horses who were scheduled to be ridden that day. After that, I moved horses who were inside to outside, and outside to inside. I made evening feed, fed and watered and cleaned horses that were dirty. Then, I made morning feed to help out the early hands. Don’t get me wrong, I loved working with the horses and learned so much about the actually upkeep of horses, however being a ranch hand year round would be an exhausting job.

Because I had experience riding horses, I was given the option to ride the stables horses. Most of the ranch hands fixed fences, moved hay, herded cattle, cleaned numerous stalls; routine maintenance on the ranch. It takes a lot of work to be a ranch hand. It takes long hours in the hot sun or the bitter cold. But ranches don’t stop working on the weekends, so neither do the workers. Ranch hands don’t get benefits because they are privately run either. Sick days mean no pay and no doctor, that goes for vacation time too. They struggle to pay rent and utilities, not to mention feed their own animals and children too. Now, being a ranch hand has its benefits, especially if you enjoy animals; but how can someone live an average life making nine dollars an hour?