Life In The Saddle

The work is hard, but ranching in eastern Montana is its own reward.

- Ryan Jones

A RANCHER’S LIFE ISN’T FOR EVERYONE. Sometimes you’ve got to deal with the elements, and that can get real tough here in eastern Montana. It’s day in and day out—somebody’s got to go feed the cattle and check on the water during winter. You’ve got to be committed to this way of life.

My family and I have worked this piece of land south of Miles City for more than four decades. The Jones Family Ranch kind of borders the Tongue River. For the most part, this country is open and fairly rough. It’s more like the Badlands of South Dakota than the Rocky Mountains of western Montana.

When the sun comes out, you see lots of colors in the heavy clay soil—whites, browns and purples. I’d never noticed the colors until my mother-in-law, who is a painter, came up from South Dakota and pointed them out to me. “Look at all the colors,” she marveled. “What colors?” I asked, incredulous. Maybe I was too busy moving cattle to notice.

The wildlife is diverse and the land is covered in sagebrush. Eastern Montana is ideal terrain for raising cattle. Most of the grass that grows out here is unsuitable for tillage, and there’s not a lot of rainfall. Our livestock harvests the grass around here.