REAL ESTATE: COWBOY LOGIC
‘It is what it is’ In life I have come to know there are many things we cannot control, or change. In ranching; the price of cows, hay, fuel and other expenses are not things we can control, therefore, ‘it is what it is’. ARTICLE BY ANGELA LEIST
M
y life has taken me far from the world that I was raised in and dropped me in a role that I could never have dreamed, even in a million years. I am Angela Leist and I was raised in a small village in rural Australia. After spending five years at a boarding school in Sydney, I went to college and ended up with a rather useless Bachelor
PG. 44 :: FALL 2020
of Arts degree. At the age of 23, while on a scholarship to train horses in the U.S. I found myself at the Arizona Cowpunchers Reunion in Williams, Arizona where I met my husband. We were married two weeks later. Currently we run a family sized cattle ranch in the high desert of Central Arizona located in rugged country between Trout Creek and the Big Sandy.
When we decided to list our ranch for sale last year, I called Tamra Kelly at Ag Lands Southwest. After spending a day with Tamra touring, discussing and studying our ranch to prepare its listing, I became excited about the idea of becoming a ranch real estate agent. After some intense, rapid studying and a few tests, now low and behold, I am a licensed, active real estate agent. I’ve hung my license under Ag Lands Southwest, and have another feather in my cap. I have become a wife, mother of four, rancher and ranch real estate agent all in the span of six years, and I am still to hit the big 3-0, mind you. The life I have lived in this short time has given me a unique view, and while I still act my age occasionally, I have learned some tiny bits of ‘cowboy logic’ that help me get through both my daily walk, as well as navigate my way through my new professions as a rancher and a ranch real estate agent. ‘Read the situation’ Some days I wish it wasn’t true but the fact is, cows do not talk, and people often say one thing, but mean another. But if you pay attention and have a bit of knowledge to back it up you can read between the lines and make decisions on the fly to help the day go smoothly. Like learning how to read words, reading cattle can be broken down into simple parts like letters in the alphabet; body language, physical characteristics and daily routines are the basis of understanding cow behavior and developing ‘cow sense’. Throw in different breeds of cattle, weather, calving, predators and the effect of human handling on a cow and you have a much more complex story to understand. Being able to ‘read the situation’ while working with cows, could mean that the cow that has been fighting you to go in the line out and go has a little baby that was left behind, maybe she is tight bagged and a lion got the better of it, maybe she is that cow you bought from the sale that day and hasn’t been handled well in the past, but the decision you make next is
