Asked if I needed directions to the gift shop.

I said, “Nah, just here to buy the same stuff I’ve been buying every week for ten years.”

He laughed. Laughed.

Then he asked if my “husband” would be loading the truck.

I told him my husband left five years ago and the cows didn’t seem to care. I run 240 acres on my own. Fix broken water lines, birth calves at 2 a.m., haul hay like it’s nothing. But people still see the blonde hair and the woman part and just… assume.

Even my neighbors treat me like I’m playing rancher. Roy, the guy across the creek, keeps “checking in” on my fences like I didn’t graduate top of my ag science class. He’ll say things like, “Don’t overwork yourself, sweetheart.” Meanwhile, I patched his busted water line