I don’t usually let strangers get under my skin, but this time came close.It started at the feed store. I was buying mineral blocks and fencing wire when the clerk gave me that familiar look—polite, but dismissive.
“Need directions to the gift shop?” he joked.
Then: “Will your husband be loading the truck?”

I told him my husband left five years ago—and the ranch kept running just fine. I manage 240 acres alone. I birth calves in the middle of the night, fix water lines in snowstorms, and haul hay like it’s nothing. Still, people see blonde hair and assume I’m playing rancher. I usually let it go. But that afternoon, I came home to a note nailed to my barn door:
“I know what you did with the west pasture.”

My stomach dropped. The west pasture was my pride—rebuilt from wreckage after my ex left. So who was accusing me of something? The next morning, I found fresh footprints near the pasture and pry marks on the barn door. This wasn’t a prank. I looped in my neighbors and called the sheriff. Two days later, Roy spotted someone photographing my fence line and wrote down the license plate. It led straight to a private land consultant working for a developer trying to scare ranchers into selling.

They picked the wrong woman. Once word spread, other ranchers spoke up. The county got involved. The developer backed off. A week later, I went back to the feed store. No jokes this time. Just a nod. I loaded my own truck and drove home proud—not because I did it alone, but because I didn’t have to.
They thought I was “Cowgirl Barbie.”
Turns out, I run the ranch.