In my teen novel, Lingering Dreams, main character, Kirsten Nicholson, is at home on a large Oklahoma ranch. However, in yet another of my teen novels, Oklahoma Exile, the setting is an Oklahoma farm.
So what’s the difference?
What is Produced There…
The main difference is what’s grown, or produced there.
You seldom, if ever, see row crops growing on a ranch. Row crops might include wheat, soy beans, corn, oats, and so on.
An Oklahoma ranch focuses on livestock, and what’s grown there is used to feed that livestock such as alfalfa and grass for hay.
Farm Machinery
A great deal of farm machinery is found on the farm, such as plows, planters, sprayers, and harvesters. (Raising row crops require all this machinery.) Not so much on a ranch.
Kirsten has known nothing all her life, but being in the saddle and helping with the feeding, branding, calving, castrating, and round-ups for shipping cattle to market.
The photo on the left is a typical view of the vast prairie of an Oklahoma ranch. On the right is a photo of branding time.
Close-Up View
Readers get a close-up view of this type of life in Lingering Dreams. However, the crux of the story, is Kirsten’s love of music and her longing to become a recognized song writer.
Being an only child, her life is somewhat isolated. But sparks fly and changes galore happen, as Kirsten’s world is turned upside down! Don’t miss it!
You can read the first chapter of Lingering Dreams right here:
