I'm a city boy. My wife, Jean, is from Montana but she's a townie all the same. So why, at 50 (each, that is) did we become ranchers? The reason, at least my construction of it, starts in 1980 in a rented bungalow in Englewood, FL. Sara, our main child, was 1. A local dog, the "mother puppy" to the locals, had a litter of puppies in a culvert on our street. All the people in the neighborhood (except the guy who ostensibly owned the MP) would feed the puppies. Sara loved to go out with a handful of bread crusts. All the puppies would jump around an yap -- except the runt.
This litter actually had a runt. I'd never seen a real runt before, but this puppy was half the size of her siblings. Whenever they would go charging around the street, she would hide in the "birth culvert". When the others would get food from the little girl, the runt would hide in the bushes. When the others would chase the old lady's cat, the runt would hide in the garbage cans. So, when the old lady with the cat called animal control and the guy with the net came, the runt was hiding under a car. That's how Gimli the Dwarf came to live with us. Sara, Gimli, and eventually, Joshua all grew up together. Then, when all 3 were teenagers (in human years), Gimli died. We didn't have a dog. For the first time in 16 years. It was wierd.
(But what has this got to do with the ranch?)