Livin’ that lifestyle
Early in my elementary school career I remember sitting in a classroom and having a classmate ask me where I lived. After I said “in the country” I remember feeling like I must have had horns growing out of my head because of the look on her face.
Granted, I rode the bus to school with all the other “country kids,” so I knew there were others just like me who didn’t reside on a street or a neighborhood in town. I never knew any difference and appreciated where I lived growing up.
The dictionary defines lifestyle as the typical way of life of an individual, group or culture. A rural lifestyle is all I have ever known. My parents farmed and my grandparents farmed. Even my great-grandparents farmed. Even though I’m still immersed in agriculture, I struggle calling myself a farmer or rancher because I have a job in town, but I help where I can with our cowherd and the boys’ 4-H projects.
I also struggle with sharing my rural spaces. I’ve written before about how I don’t care for “town folks” buying land outside of Dodge City and encroaching on our peacefulness out here. In the nearly 15 years we’ve lived on our road; I’ve watched a piece of Conservation Reserve Program ground be broken out into farmland. Then that farmland was sold and now there’s two barndominiums on those parcels. I’ve noticed re-zoning on another piece of former agricultural land, and recently contractors began dirt work and starting on what I assume are streets or roads.
I read once that most people are three or four generations removed from the farm. I believe that. Now it almost seems like it’s being reversed. Of my generation of kids who grew up in the 1980s, I’ve noticed more and more of my friends on social media moving from big cities to either back to their hometowns or building on a small acreage in a rural area. One of my childhood “town” friends gushes regularly over a rural lot and the shop/house she is living in until she and her husband can build their dream home on their rural property.
At one point in my life, I lived the rodeo lifestyle. I ate, drank and lived rodeos. I had a long list of what rodeos I wanted to go to and where we were headed weekend after weekend. I spent hours upon hours keeping my horse in shape and training her. It eventually became who I was.
Now that I’m a mom, priorities have changed, and I spend my time navigating what the boys need and where they want to go and what they want to do. One of our favorite activities is to go to stock shows in the spring and summer. While we’re still relatively new at this game, I still have the fervor of making list after list planning what shows we’ll go to and what goat or steer we will drag down the highway—kind of like I did with the rodeos. While they’re not nearly as competitive as I once was running barrels, they appreciate getting to see a new town, and for my oldest, getting to eat a meal out at a new restaurant although he doesn’t seem to appreciate my mantra of “winner buys dinner.”
In this week’s cover story, I wrote about the stock show season being the best season. I chatted with an Extension agent who helped start a spring series in western Kansas, and how having these jackpot shows helps youth livestock exhibitors excel inside the show ring and outside of it. Proper care and handling of the livestock show projects is important, just as the growth the youth gain from it. In the three years we’ve been showing at jackpot shows, my kids continue to learn and it’s nice to see my oldest offer to help another exhibitor or his brother get the job done.
I also discussed with leaders from the Kansas Junior Livestock Show how it has evolved from a relatively small show to what it is today—three days’ worth of showing plus competition and camaraderie. In 2024, nearly 700 exhibitors from across Kansas brought more than 1,400 animals, including steers, heifers, market hogs, breeding gilts, market lambs, breeding ewes, market goats, and commercial does to the fairgrounds in Hutchinson. There’s no doubt an impact on the local businesses, hotels and restaurants when KJLS invades town.
No matter what lifestyle you choose to live, make it a good one. Soak in all the experiences, sights and sounds of what you’re doing. You never know when it all could change.
Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or by email at [email protected].
