Once upon a time, a strawberry blonde blue eyed cowboy sat next to me in College Biology 101 as my lab partner. I asked him where he was from and he answered with the same small, middle of nowhere, familiar desert cow town that my mother had been born in. No way, I thought. 

The next thing I know, I’m teaching Cody Klein how to play polo. I played for the Oregon State University team and needed to go exercise a few horses, so I made him tag along. The look on his face was priceless as I handed him the reins to a 16hh snorty thoroughbred; yet he climbed up in that English saddle and started swinging that mallet like there was nothing to it. Once I realized that he was about as far as you could get from the all-hat-and-no-cattle type, the cowboy from the desert had my all of my attention. That was our first date.

Five years later, we said our “I do’s” in a cottonwood pasture on the outskirts of that same middle of nowhere cow town. There was swing dancing and prickly pear margaritas poured until the big high desert moon set over Mt. Tom. I wore boots and a pawn shop squash blossom and he wore a cowboy hat. 

Since that BIO 101 class, we’ve been through almost ten years of life hand in hand. From Oregon to California, Nevada to Montana. From high Sierra backcountry pack stations to Great Basin ranches, we’ve seen some beautiful country together. It really is true what they say about not being tamed, but finding someone to run wild right there along side of you. 

Mr. Klein and I now live and work on a large cow-calf operation on the Rocky Mountain front of central Montana with our wild and perfect strawberry blonde blue eyed daughter, Teal Sage Klein. One day I will tell her the story of the cowboy in my biology class. 

PHOTOGRAPHER-@ Bosalita Photography

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