Speaker 1: Actually, I started purchasing half hers in for age when
Speaker 1: I was just a young girl seven eight nine years
Speaker 1: old and have always had cattle. Kimmy Lewis is a
Speaker 1: rancher in southeast Colorado, and as if that's not enough,
Speaker 1: she tends to her neighbor's interests with a key position
Speaker 1: in Denver. Producer Meredith Turk brings us our first on
Speaker 1: the job story from rural America. On the Job from
Speaker 1: Hired to Retired is brought to you by Express Employment Professionals.
Speaker 1: Over the past thirty four years, Express Employment Professionals has
Speaker 1: put millions of people to work in meaningful and fulfilling
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Speaker 1: to grow your workforce, go to express prose dot com.
Speaker 1: Now here's Meredith Turk with the story of Kimmy Lewis.
Speaker 1: Driving south on Highway one O nine in Colorado is
Speaker 1: a surreal experience. They call this God's Country, and I
Speaker 1: begin to see why. There's expansive horizons, beautiful grasses, and
Speaker 1: stark canyons. Just before Las Animous County, we dip into
Speaker 1: a canyon that took my breath away. I could smell
Speaker 1: in moist desert pines scattered with yucca blossoms. Well, it
Speaker 1: looks more like West Texas or northern New Mexico than
Speaker 1: it does, Uh Colorado. Everybody thinks Colorado's mountains or plains.
Speaker 1: We're part of the short grass prairie, but we're part
Speaker 1: of the purgatory canyon lands. And so there's it's beautiful
Speaker 1: green right now this spring because of all the good
Speaker 1: moisture we've received. What a blessing that has been. But um,
Speaker 1: we live in the canyons where there's maces and rocks
Speaker 1: and trees and cactus and rattlesnakes and cattle across more
Speaker 1: than seventeen acres. In the high desert of southeast Colorado,
Speaker 1: we visit a cow calfe operation with three hundred heifers.
Speaker 1: I'm Kimmy Clark Lewis, and I grew up here where
Speaker 1: at Muddy Valley Ranch that lies halfway between Lahnta, Colorado
Speaker 1: and kim Colorado in Las Angiemos in Bent County. This
Speaker 1: part of the country just got moisture, as they call it.
Speaker 1: It came in the form of a blizzard. But they're
Speaker 1: not complaining. In the high desert, they pray for rain
Speaker 1: Louis took over this ranch from her father in and
Speaker 1: raised her kids here, all six of them. Well, I
Speaker 1: grew up here at Muddy Valley Ranch. I was the
Speaker 1: youngest of four daughters. And they moved here in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight and I was a year old. And I
Speaker 1: lived here until I married, and then we had our children,
Speaker 1: and then came back and bought the ranch back from
Speaker 1: my dad in n and I've been here every since.
Speaker 1: So actually I've been here longer than my dad was here.
Speaker 1: Lewis says it was hard to build a ranch. She
Speaker 1: talks about a particularly hard time when they were scraping
Speaker 1: the bottom of the bear all to keep the ranch running.
Speaker 1: There was a lot, a lot of work, and we
Speaker 1: had to watch every penny. I can remember one time
Speaker 1: when we had bought a brand new pickup, and that
Speaker 1: was unusual for us to buy a brand new one.
Speaker 1: We always just would buy use because we didn't think
Speaker 1: we could afford a brand new one. When the land
Speaker 1: payment came along, we were a little bit short, so
Speaker 1: we had to sell that brand new pick up to
Speaker 1: UH make the difference. And you know what, we made
Speaker 1: our payment and UH kept right ongoing, so you know,
Speaker 1: when you're growing that many children in a household, you
Speaker 1: just get by the best you can and the good
Speaker 1: Lord takes care of you. But you're just so busy
Speaker 1: with fun of life and and I guess as a
Speaker 1: mom of six kids, I did a lot of cooking
Speaker 1: and cleaning and a lot of hungry. When you work
Speaker 1: where you live, Louis says that everything merges together, but
Speaker 1: you have more time for each other, more time for
Speaker 1: the family. At the time, the banker didn't want to
Speaker 1: do both loans. He said, you know, you can't hardly
Speaker 1: pay that off. And then he says, and I'm really confused,
Speaker 1: Mrs Lewis, how are you going to do that? And
Speaker 1: with six children? But the children were, you know, getting
Speaker 1: older than we had six children in nine years and um,
Speaker 1: but they were very good helpers. And in fact, um
Speaker 1: the banker said, well, I need you to call three
Speaker 1: people and have three people call me and let me
Speaker 1: know why you should get this loan. Because I was
Speaker 1: a female, and I, of course my husband was We
Speaker 1: were applying together, but he knew I was going to
Speaker 1: be the one to do it because my husband ran
Speaker 1: a truck and company and was gone all the time.
Speaker 1: When I went back to see the banker that I
Speaker 1: had the veterinarian, another lady rancher, and another good friend
Speaker 1: of mine that was an older man called the banker
Speaker 1: and uh he said, Oh my gosh, we should run
Speaker 1: you for governor. He said, I can see now that
Speaker 1: it's with those six children, that's how you're going to
Speaker 1: get all this none this weekend, almost the whole family
Speaker 1: is here to work. Louis lost her husband a few
Speaker 1: years ago, but she's been keeping the ranch up with
Speaker 1: her children, and today's Mother's Day, but it's also time
Speaker 1: to brand several hundred calves with their brand, one of
Speaker 1: the oldest in Colorado. Louis tells me it's going to
Speaker 1: be pretty wild out there, cowboys rounding up cattle, roping
Speaker 1: them and branding them on the ground. We start early.
Speaker 1: The cowboys and girls started down. I thought it was early,
Speaker 1: but apparently there's an even earlier. I've been up since
Speaker 1: three because I had to put the beans on and
Speaker 1: make a big two big cobblers for lunch today. So
Speaker 1: besides that, I had chores to do. I had the
Speaker 1: two nurse cows and bed the horses, and then put
Speaker 1: on a little breakfast for us. And and they all
Speaker 1: got gone before we did so anyway, but I had
Speaker 1: dishes to do because yesterday it was kind of a
Speaker 1: big day too. So neighbors are what make this ranching
Speaker 1: work possible. They call it neighboring, where neighbors team up
Speaker 1: to do big workloads like branding, and they rotate until
Speaker 1: everyone is finished. Some of the people that will be
Speaker 1: here today helping us, we'll be neighbors. They'll just stuff
Speaker 1: from neighboring ranches, and uh, we try to help them
Speaker 1: whenever they need some help. And then when we call
Speaker 1: them and say, hey, we need a couple of guys,
Speaker 1: and and it's so nice to have have them here
Speaker 1: because you know what, that's what you gotta do. You
Speaker 1: have to neighbor with your because it's it's so important.
Speaker 1: And then of course some of us have been here
Speaker 1: a long time, so we've been neighbors a really long time,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of like you get kind of get
Speaker 1: to be old friends. We finally get to the location
Speaker 1: of the branding, there at least a dozen neighbors helping.
Speaker 1: There's a crescendo of mooing as calves await their turn
Speaker 1: for branding and castration and the mothers look on. There's
Speaker 1: also a growing heat as the sun rises high with
Speaker 1: nothing to protect us only cowboy hats. Everyone is in jeans,
Speaker 1: button up shirts, boots and hats, the classic ranch uniform.
Speaker 1: So we don't kind of hormones or anything like that.
Speaker 1: These are just calf hood vaccinations. So that's one is
Speaker 1: a seven boy who absolutely away uh which helps them
Speaker 1: like with overreads, disease and things. And it has things
Speaker 1: in it that they can get if you don't doctor
Speaker 1: them for them, they can get that later on. And
Speaker 1: then this shot is just for pink eye. And the
Speaker 1: way the year has started with a lot of rain,
Speaker 1: we could have a lot of sunflowers. Sunflowers bring pink
Speaker 1: eye and flies. Flies bring pinkik. They hate the branding
Speaker 1: irons over a fire and prepare tags and injections. Louis
Speaker 1: tells me. They try not to work the cattle too much,
Speaker 1: only touching them when they have to. When they're not
Speaker 1: being worked like this, the cows are roaming in expansive
Speaker 1: pastures for grazing. Louis has joined by most of her
Speaker 1: children today, some who live on the ranch and others
Speaker 1: who traveled home for the occasion. My partners are my chill.
Speaker 1: I don't want partners that I don't know anything about.
Speaker 1: I know these children and they know me, and when
Speaker 1: the day comes, which won't be too long down the road,
Speaker 1: um that I need to kind of step aside and
Speaker 1: let them worry about making land payments in because they're
Speaker 1: all the right age. They're all in their young thirties,
Speaker 1: the twins or twenty nine, and they all need to
Speaker 1: come together and probably need to do this as a family.
Speaker 1: Most of the people and her family are women, but
Speaker 1: they saddle up with the men and rounded the cattle
Speaker 1: just the same. Luis is used to proving herself as
Speaker 1: a woman on the ranch. I was one of four
Speaker 1: girls growing up, and my dad used always brag about
Speaker 1: the girls, and finally, when I was aged thirty, I
Speaker 1: realized he didn't have anything else than girls, so no
Speaker 1: wonder who's going to brag about him. He always said
Speaker 1: that the girls had a better handle on a horse
Speaker 1: because they didn't, they wouldn't lose their temper as bad
Speaker 1: as a as a guy. This branding is a little
Speaker 1: later than normal. They always consult the Farmer's Almanac to
Speaker 1: make sure they're using the correct moon cycle to Randon castreet.
Speaker 1: There was a weather that postponed the branding, but also
Speaker 1: Louis has a side job, and a pretty big one.
Speaker 1: Lewis just completed her first year as state representative in Colorado.
Speaker 1: We'll hear more after the break, so stay with us.
Speaker 1: You're listening to On the Job From Hired to Retired.
Speaker 1: Meredith Turk is our guest producer today. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Steve Mencher, and here's a word from our sponsor, Express
Speaker 1: Employment Professionals. If you are searching for a job, Express
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Speaker 1: slash job Genius. Welcome back to On the Job From
Speaker 1: Hired to Retired. Kimmy Lewis has plenty to do at
Speaker 1: her Muddy Valley ranch, but she decided that helping her
Speaker 1: neighbors by being their voice in Denver was something else
Speaker 1: she just had to do. Once again, here's Meredith turk
Speaker 1: Lewis ran for office to protect the things that are
Speaker 1: most important to her on the ranch. She went to
Speaker 1: the Colorado House of Representatives to be a voice for
Speaker 1: all the other ranchers in her region. I never intended
Speaker 1: to run. I never did. I enjoy just being here.
Speaker 1: My whole intent on the whole thing is to show
Speaker 1: these people, helps show them that they too can do this.
Speaker 1: So I intend to not be in there forever. I
Speaker 1: expect some of these other people that worked right alongside
Speaker 1: with me to step up for some type of uh.
Speaker 1: Run for something, whether it's city council, whether it's a
Speaker 1: county commissioner race, or congress or whatever they want to do.
Speaker 1: Show them, hey, I'm a rural person, but you can
Speaker 1: get elected. She's been fighting for property rights against the
Speaker 1: government conservation organizations. She also wants to educate the public
Speaker 1: about beef production and explain that rangers in southeast Colorado
Speaker 1: produced most of it. We've always been a little bit
Speaker 1: of a political family. My sister Sparky was the state
Speaker 1: director for U S. Senator Hank Ground for fifteen years
Speaker 1: and actually was working for him when they took the
Speaker 1: first big group of land in Opinion Canyon in ninete. So,
Speaker 1: so I knew the battles that they had fought. And
Speaker 1: then UM watched Dad and people always respected Dad, and
Speaker 1: always they would call here they'd have an issue, you know.
Speaker 1: And so basically, I after I got elected, I made
Speaker 1: a statement, well, at least now I'm elected to the
Speaker 1: position that I've been doing for quite a while. So
Speaker 1: Lewis said, next year she'll be smarter at the legislature.
Speaker 1: She knows she doesn't have to run everywhere and do
Speaker 1: everything like she did this year. Tackling a city job
Speaker 1: in a country job means when you come home, you're
Speaker 1: coming home to work too. Just the night she got home,
Speaker 1: her ranch was in the middle of a blizzard. I
Speaker 1: came in from Denver the night that the blizzard started
Speaker 1: two weeks ago, the big blizzard that killed the most
Speaker 1: of the cattle over east here, and I got my
Speaker 1: pickup unloaded. I have some water running out here in
Speaker 1: the trees the wind break, and move that because I thought,
Speaker 1: what this storm is going to get like they're saying,
Speaker 1: I've very do all these things, did everything. I was
Speaker 1: putting my pickup in the barn and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I better go check that last half her. Well, she
Speaker 1: was calving and it was starting to snow and rain,
Speaker 1: and I'm out there and this is like ten thirty
Speaker 1: at night, and I've been working since, says, I left
Speaker 1: Denver trying to get all this done. Brought in groceries,
Speaker 1: and I got her in the rock barn, and that
Speaker 1: last half her caved in there. Even though she works
Speaker 1: where she lives, Louis says, there's nothing like coming home. Well,
Speaker 1: the first thing I always noticed is the smell that
Speaker 1: I just smell the fresh air, the fresh air, the
Speaker 1: air the wind usually blows out the south southwest here
Speaker 1: off of these maces, and the maces are full of
Speaker 1: pinion pine and cedar trees, and it just smells so good.
Speaker 1: And this spring, of course, this last month, we've had
Speaker 1: a lot of good moisture. So then you just smell
Speaker 1: that and it's just, um, I think that we take
Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff for granted, and it's just
Speaker 1: it just really fell. It smells clean and fresh and
Speaker 1: and I really enjoy that more than the other. What
Speaker 1: have you learned about yourself through this career? Well, this
Speaker 1: career change, I've learned that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: things that you can do that you never thought you could. Uh.
Speaker 1: The funniest thing about someone like me going to Denver
Speaker 1: is it didn't scare me to be in the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives at all. And it doesn't scare me to
Speaker 1: stand up there and talk agriculture and be on a
Speaker 1: completely different wavelength than everybody else. That doesn't scare me
Speaker 1: at all because I'm always just trying to be myself.
Speaker 1: What would you be doing if you weren't doing this?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know what I would be doing. Uh,
Speaker 1: I guess ever since I was a small girl, I
Speaker 1: figured somebody would need to take on the ranch, and uh,
Speaker 1: all my sisters were either teachers or worked in public
Speaker 1: relations or something, and I just I wouldn't know. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't know what I'd do. Louis hopes to retire student
Speaker 1: on a patch of her land and watch her kids
Speaker 1: run the ranch, but she'll probably always be involved somehow.
Speaker 1: I've been talking with Kimmy Lewis, owner of the Muddy
Speaker 1: Valley Ranch south of the hunta call Wado. She's also
Speaker 1: a legislator who represents her neighbors in Colorado House District six.
Speaker 1: I'm producer Meredith Turk in Denver. That's all for this
Speaker 1: edition of On the Job from Hired to Retired, brought
Speaker 1: to you by Express Employment Professionals. Find out more at
Speaker 1: Express Prose dot com. Music for this episode by Steve
Speaker 1: Mencher and Ghost from Creative Common Sight CC mixed. This
Speaker 1: podcast is produced by Steve Mencher for Men's Media, Red
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