Submitted Photo The Caraballo family and friends are shown at the finish of their annual cattle drive from their northern summer pastures back to the ranch. Pictured left to right are Addyson Johnson of Epping, Wyatt Caraballo, Sydney Caraballo, Kevin Caraballo, Riley Jo Caraballo, Adam Knowles of Gilbert, Ariz., and Lane Caraballo.

Caraballo is a fifth-generation rancher and farmer who manages Glasoe Angus near Wildrose. Her columns appear monthly in The Journal and The Tioga Tribune.

Kevin and I met twenty-five years ago on the eve of his birthday in Fairbanks, Alaska. He was serving in the U.S. Army as an artillery military officer stationed at Fort Wainwright. I was attending graduate school at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Several of my friends and I went to the Silver Spur each weekend where there was a live band and the opportunity to dance the country two-step, waltz and rodeo swing. Kevin asked me to dance, and the rest is history.

Except I know neither of us imagined we would end up married, much less become business partners in a land and cattle venture. Kevin had just gone through a painful divorce. Although there were no children from that marriage, Kevin had no intentions of starting another relationship. I was of a similar mindset although I had not suffered heartache. I casually dated during college but had made a strict rule that romance wouldn’t interfere with my goals.

When my grandmother, Alvera, sat me down for some of her homemade doughnuts and coffee shortly before I left for graduate school, she expressed a bit of dismay that I seemed so resolutely alone in the world. I remember telling her I wasn’t going to saddle myself with a man until I was good and ready for a life of selflessness and sacrifice. I’m not sure why I had a rather dim view of marriage since my parents and aunts and uncles all had committed and loving marriages. But ask any kid who observes and helps their mom and dad sort and work cattle what their definition of marriage is, and I doubt wedded bliss is their first thought on it.

While I know few ranching spouses who have ever walked out of a marriage, I know plenty who have walked out, stalked out, of a corral or two in the midst of bellering cows and their bellering spouse – including Kevin and me.

I once asked my grandmother if she would ever marry again after being widowed in her fifties. My grandmother retorted that my grandfather was the love of her life and even he was a hard man to live with. But I think she forgot this when she asked me rather bluntly if I would ever consider marriage. This woman who encouraged a fierce and independent mindset, who slipped cash for every A made in school and praised every individual accomplishment big and small, also sensed that her granddaughter might have a selfish and stubborn streak and thought so highly of herself that she might miss out on the blessings of a shared life with another imperfect human. She told me that I should be open to love if the right fellow came along.

My grandmother would tell me later that she prayed for me and the man who would be my future husband. She also reminded me later – after I married Kevin and somehow failed my goal of being at least thirty before seriously dating and some professional ones that went along with it – that I rattled off a list. I gave her a rather extensive list of all the attributes a man would have to earn my commitment. Among them was that he would have to be a great dancer.

Kevin was not. But he knew I loved to dance, and so he took me out dancing numerous times. That mattered much more, I would later realize. Our first date was a moonlit snowmobile ride along the Tanana River with a homemade dinner of steaks Kevin grilled for us both. Our relationship was built on fun and friendship and a shared love of the outdoors.

We gradually realized it was a love and life worth building together. We married when Kevin was thirty (I was twenty-five). Kevin did not want to risk another marriage with military commitments and withdrew from active duty in July of 2001 after securing a job in San Angelo, Texas, with Johnson & Johnson. We were married 11 days before he left for Texas. I remained at my grant writing job for another six weeks before joining him. Several moves followed for his career and MBA – from Texas to Georgia to New Mexico. Our boys were born in Texas and our daughter in Georgia. Kevin and I agreed that I quit work to fully prioritize and accommodate our children and family life. That decision, while a punch to my ego and our finances, was a privilege and blessing for us all. It remains second only to marrying Kevin as one of the best decisions I was able to make.

Kevin was also the one who convinced me that a move to North Dakota would be best for our family when my parents began to talk about retirement. He had built a promising career that provided us with excellent financial security and benefits, but Kevin weighed his promotions and career moves with the opportunity to raise our children on the farm and ranch and the rootedness, values and experiences they would gain there.

Kevin sacrificed his aspirations for the benefit of our young family. While I still worry about our ability to successfully operate the farm and ranch with ever-changing commodity prices and costs, weather challenges and political decisions that impact our industry, I also know it has been a privilege and blessing to raise our children here together.

I sometimes joke that we needed a decade’s worth of a strong marriage to survive the ensuing decade of our business partnership, but there is truth to this sentiment. The navigation of loving, living and working together has tested and seasoned us in ways that I could not have anticipated or fathomed that first night we danced. But what I do know now is every step together since then has only deepened my love, regard and faith in the man that my grandmother certainly prayed for on my behalf and with whom God ultimately blessed me.