ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

People often say it takes a village to build something. In this case, it took the equivalent of a town. Thank you to Now Or Never Publishing for taking a chance on a strange little story. Special thanks to the reporters at The Western Producer, who wrote numerous stories that I used for reference when creating this book. Karen Emilson’s book “Just a Matter of Time”, also helped me understand what happened during BSE.

The idea for this book came to me while I was working my day job. I work as an agricultural reporter, and I learned a lot about the effects of bovine spongiform encephalopathy on Alberta’s agricultural community. I want to thank my co-workers Glenn Cheater and Jennifer Blair for a great work environment that enabled me to delve into my own creative work as well.

Many people served as early informal consultants and cheerleaders for this book. Among them were Laura Thygesen, Laura Bodell, and Chelsea Geiger. An extra special thank you to Wendy and Howie Schneider for their honesty and open hearts.

This book needed the encouragement, faith, and wise words of Larry Hill, who served as my mentor at Sage Hill in 2014. Thank you, Larry.

Twitter and Facebook proved to be wonderful resources for a city person writing about rural life. I’d like to thank all the ranchers whose ranches I visited over the years. I have also had good conversations with many ranchers in person and online, but there are a lot of you, and I’m scared that I will forget someone! Thank you all for helping me get things straight, and for sharing your passion for ranching with me, and helping me develop a stronger love for the land and the work you do.

Early readers who offered advice included Tara Gereaux (who inspired several changes), Andrew Wilmot (who inspired more changes), Lisa Guenther (who gave wonderful technical advice), and Mari Sasano, who listened to me talk about this damned book for far too long.

A special thank you to Danica Longair for always believing in my work, and for sticking with me during tough times. I appreciate it more than you know.

For Nathan Smith, for being my partner, asking questions, having adventures, making food and having way too many conversations. Thank you for everything you do and the life we have built together.

For my parents, Cliff and Doreen—love you forever and for always. I don’t even have the words to express how much you mean to me.