They live in the middle of nowhere, yet she travels all over the state, sometimes the nation, and he may not have been born in the saddle, but this ranch hand has a job where he can gladly say he’s “earned the right to be left alone.” It’s not their family ranch, but they ride for the brand, and this ranch is where their kids come when they come home.

It’s really not simple to describe Mark and Tara Naranjo. Their journey to New Mexico’s historic Turkey Track Ranch, where they’ve been the last four years, was a long one. Mark likes his camp job. “Out here, away from all the people.” Tara has independent endeavors; she says she is “living the dream, with dogs and horses,” even when that requires frequent trips over miles of dirt roads.

Dirt roads aren't unfamiliar to Tara. She spent her childhood with her dad working on ranches all over the state. Mark learned to rope and ride in high school, and the two spent their early years together guiding trail rides and working on dude outfits.

Their first real ranch job was near Elida, New Mexico, and Mark says: “It was hard. Ranch jobs aren’t really about roping and riding. Those cows need water, and you have to figure out how to get it. I had to learn how to learn.”

They moved on to a position with Singleton Ranches, living near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, where Tara had spent some of her growing-up years. By then, the Naranjos had added a daughter, Jocalyn, and a son, Landon, to their family.

With no babysitter, Tara couldn’t daywork much, though the ranch was glad to pay her. She started colts instead. The event that stands out the most was living 55 miles from town and having a truck stolen from the driveway. Both Tara and Mark remember this as a fun job. They loved the country, the horses, the cattle, and the way the work was handled.

Mark worked a few regular jobs in the midst of their ranchhand journey, but the Naranjos next spent a significant amount of time near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. They laugh as they recall the memories there.

“We moved to the hot part of the state so Mark could get frostbite,” Tara says.

Mark explains: “We had a storm one year with 30 inches of snow and it was two weeks before anything started to thaw. The neighbor’s cow walked over two cattleguards and got stuck in ours. I had to drive the skid steer down to get her out and got frostbite on my big toe before I got home.”

Tara has more to laugh about. “I had to ride some broncy horses, but it came with free chiropractor visits.”

They think seriously for a few moments about the real benefits of the job. Mark mentions learning about weaning and holding calves to ship, and Tara remembers the boss explaining his reasoning behind keeping replacement heifers.

Together they add: “The kids learned a lot there. The cattle were gentle and we went pretty slow. And the owners took better care of the kids than we did.”

The moves and memories are many and the jobs diverse. While Mark was busy on a farm outside Santa Rosa, New Mexico, Tara studied online to earn certification in massage therapy for horses. She enjoys the work, and the clientele she built has lasted through the years.

Subsequent studies on organ support allow her to now offer all kinds of bodywork for horses. Mark says, “She’s been around horses so much, all her life, so she’s just good at knowing what’s wrong,” and Tara adds: “I think God has given me a gift sometimes, being able to see what they need. But studying how the organs work has added a lot. For example, sometimes a vet just can’t get to stifle issues, and that’s because it’s a gut problem. Maybe there is excess protein.”

Tara has more to laugh about. “I had to ride some broncy horses, but it came with free chiropractor visits.” They think seriously for a few moments about the real benefits of the job. Mark mentions learning about weaning and holding calves to ship and Tara remembers the boss explaining his reasoning behind keeping replacement heifers. Together they add: “The kids learned a lot there. The cattle were gentle and we went pretty slow. And the owners took better care of the kids than we did.”

The moves and memories are many and the jobs diverse. While Mark was busy on a farm outside Santa Rosa, New Mexico, Tara studied online to earn certification in massage therapy for horses. She enjoys the work and the clientele she built has lasted through the years. Subsequent studies on organ support allow her to now offer all kinds of bodywork for horses. Mark says, “She’s been around horses so much, all her life, so she’s just good at knowing what’s wrong,” and Tara adds: “I think God has given me a gift sometimes, being able to see what they need. But studying how the organs work has added a lot. For example, sometimes a vet just can’t get to stifle issues and that’s because it’s a gut problem, maybe there is excess protein.”

Tara doesn't really need more advertising than word of mouth. She admits that COVID affected her, “everybody got online and figured things out themselves since they were stuck at home,” but says business has bounced back. She has built relationships of trust; ninety percent of the time, she doesn’t see people, just works on the horse they leave and gets paid online. She admits: “Most of my calls for performance horses come on Monday morning. Ranch people call a lot in the spring and fall. But for a job for a ranch wife, I couldn’t ask for anything better.”

As Tara built her business, aptly named “Making Tracks Horse Therapy,” the Naranjos’ travels continued. At one point, hoping to get their own place and their own start, the family took a year to work miscellaneous jobs. Kids at home, horses, dwindling daywork and rent ate away at their savings. They rethought the plan, working for Horton Ranches before taking a hiatus to the Midwest. That move put them in Indiana for about six months for a job picking up day-old calves from dairies, shipping them out to be resold. The deal wasn’t all they’d expected, but going there put them in the right place and right frame of mind to take the job they have now.

Ranch jobs are often a sort of “package deal” for the boss; the family comes along with the hired man. For the Naranjos’ employers, this was a pretty good deal, since Tara is a hand in her own right and their kids have work ethic and skill. But before taking the Turkey Track job, the couple came to a clear understanding: the camp job was Mark’s. Tara could help when he needed her and cook, but she saw the need to build her businesses.

And so this job in the middle of nowhere near Hagerman, New Mexico, has been a place of new beginnings. The employers are the Bogle family, who are involved in many agricultural endeavors in the Pecos Valley. Mark is responsible for the waters, fences, and cattle on his huge section of sand and mesquite. He chose the camp where they live because “I like being way out here, away from all the people and everything.” Daughter Jocalyn left home for college and marriage, but son Landon was able to work for Turkey Track’s manager, Zach Ozborn, and learn great horsemanship skills before graduating high school and going on to work for a horse trainer.

Tara says, “The Bogles are good people. And where else would we find a job where they let me use their horses and let me keep my dogs?”

Tara’s dogs are sleek, beautiful border collies and they take their job seriously. More than one, really. The Naranjos have always used dogs, but not these, good border collies that will work cattle in rough country. She explains: “Oh, we had Curr dogs, one Kelpie. I traded for my female border collie, BeeBee, from the Twister dog. I took her back to Kyle Dillard to have her bred to that same line. He and his wife have really helped me and exposed me to trialing dogs. I realized how much more my dogs could do than what I was asking.”

Mark calls the dogs a “profitable hobby,” but Tara hopes they will become a good business. She has sold some pups, but she enjoys training the dogs and selling a good working dog. That process takes about a year, but Tara gets to follow her dogs much longer, since the pleased owners send updates regularly.

Now she has given herself a challenge, as she explains, “Trialing dogs is about detail and self-control. Dogs bred to work cattle have a lot of spirit and learn to bite in the right spot. I want to take a dog who will work cattle in rough country and win a trial.”

Tara starts her pups with sheep, although the trials in which she participates use cattle. Teaching the dogs on sheep keeps them from running stock because they have to learn to work the sheep without bite. They then move on to goats. Goats have no herd instinct and are harder to work, so the dogs have to listen better.

Some commands are common, like having the dogs fetch—go around the stock at a controlled pace—others are Tara’s unique addition. Realizing that a distance of a foot could make or break a trial, she developed a “haa-haa” that indicates the dog needs to back up.

Mark, meanwhile, is happy on the ranch. Tara says, “Someday, he’ll stay at the camp where everything is fixed up,” but last summer he wanted to move to the main section of the ranch, knowing he has a lot of projects on his docket: corrals to be rebuilt, fences coming down, and miles and miles of pipeline. If grass is abundant, there may be yearlings in the pasture, but Mark is mainly keeping mama cows alive and well.

“You know,” he adds, “these cows will walk miles for water and sometimes they’ll stay in the corners of pasture without water for days. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Although Mark doesn't mind the days he’s called down to help move cattle on wheat pasture or participate in a ranch branding, he likes the independence of his responsibilities.

The Naranjos live life to the fullest wherever they are. They serve with their church in town, and Tara is considering joining a women’s ranch rodeo team again this summer and making the circuit. While Mark has ranch rodeoed in the past, he’s more likely to team rope a little this year. Landon should be back to work at one of the ranch's remote camps for a while, and they are proud of the life Jocalyn is building in a Christian ministry

A far cry from the kids on a steep learning curve, Mark and Tara remind us that good hands are really good people with good sense—the kind that ranches need, the kind communities and the world of agriculture need.