When a couple of our high school summer employee prospects fell through last spring, I started to worry a little. Summer was quickly approaching and the ranch was going to be short-handed. Finding part-time ranch work isn't always easy. The work is hard, the pay is average, and the hours can be unpredictable. I had already recruited Dylan, our 15 year old daughter, and we had Gabriel, my brother's nephew, coming up for his second summer, but we needed one more. One more came in the form of another 15 year old girl. Sadi started a little before Dylan was done with her freshman year, and by the time hay season rolled in, the two were thick as thieves.
The first thing they did was commandeer one of the nicer ranch trucks and drove it around the ranch like they were Thelma and Louise. The blue Ford was their rig, and no one was to mess with it. Was is technically legal for 2 underage teens to be driving? I can't, and won't, answer that. There's got to be an underage ranch-kid provision somewhere in the DMV's bylaws. At least there should be. I can tell you that by the end of summer they were both pretty good, and safe, drivers.
The best part, and it was what I hoped for Dylan when we hired Sadi, was that I could turn them loose on a project and they'd figure it out. From fabricating steel latches for our scale house doors, to building fence through a muddy slew, they got the job done. If one was baling hay, the other was buzzing around on a 4-wheeler, weighing and measuring all the bales. They learned to drive hay squeezes, bale wagons, and tractors. They set brace posts for fences in 100 degree heat. They health checked the cattle in our pastures and helped doctor any that were sick. They spent the summer horseback or on 4-wheelers, in beat up trucks and on ancient tractors. They got sunburned, sweaty, and dirty and never complained. And, in emergencies, I even let them drive my "going to town" truck. In short, I trusted them.
I like to think that together they made good decisions. I remember being 15 and working on the ranch with a couple of my buddies. We had a lot of fun. Too much, really. I'm certain that "good decision makers" wasn't always the phrase used to describe us. So, here's to the girls of summer. I've always called Dylan a Jr. Badass, but after this summer, she and her new coworker might be up for a promotion. The pay might not be any better, but plain old "Badass" has a nice ring to it, right?
