What ghosts will you release this year? – Ranching After 50

There is a Japanese folk tale about a young woman who marries an older man. After a few years, the man sickens and on his deathbed asks his wife to promise not to marry again. Full of grief and with remarrying the last thing on her mind, the woman promises. Time goes by and eventually […] Read more


Manage it without owning it – Ranching After 50

I was speaking at the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture annual meeting and after my presentation, a young man wanted to know what advice I would have for him in starting to farm. He told me what he was doing already and there wasn’t much I could suggest. It seemed to me he was already […] Read more


Prognosis good for marriage at midlife – Ranching After 50

It seems to Amy that she and Jim are just going through the motions in their marriage. She looks back occasionally to those heady days in 1974 when they were first married, remembering how much fun they had together and the passion they felt. She sometimes longs for those days, and all the promise they […] Read more



What does quality of life mean to you? – Ranching After 50

In holistic management, the family starts by writing a goal that encompasses the quality of life it seeks, the nature of the work it wants to do for profit and the condition its resource base has to be in to sustain its enterprises indefinitely. The hardest part is writing the “quality of life” statement. There […] Read more

What’s at risk in a two generation farm? – Ranching After 50

It is almost a cliche to talk about the struggles that can take place on a two-generation farm, largely because everyone risks something. My friend David Irvine, who worked with many farm families when he was a family counsellor, explained at a holistic management gathering in Lloydminster, Alta., what everyone has at risk. Let’s start […] Read more




Helping a woman get inside her man’s head – Ranching After 50

What’s going on in a man’s mind? (Yeah, yeah, I know. If you’re a woman, you may be thinking “not much.”) This question was on Shaunti Feldhahn’s mind, so she surveyed a bunch of men, in all kinds of settings and occupations, and was surprised by what she found. She thought other women might be […] Read more