Cheri Trousil

Written by Sophie Tsairis

Cheri Trousil has always felt a deep connection to nature, seeking it out and celebrating it in small but delightful slivers, like playing in the fields and rivers near her hometown in Michigan when she was a child. When she was 13 years old, her father took her on a cross-country road trip from Michigan to Colorado, where she fell in love with the mountains. Cheri grew up in a small agricultural town, there weren't a lot of resources or opportunities for education, so after high school, she enrolled in the military, attending Colorado University under a full-ride scholarship through the Air Force, Reserve Officer Training Core (ROTC), double majoring in computer science and biology. Cheri found her place in the vastness of the western landscape and proximity to the natural environment, which was dramatically more commanding than the landscapes of the midwest. 

"When I moved out West, I realized that this connection to the land is in me, and it had been looking for a place to be expressed,"

says Cheri. After completing her undergraduate degree, she attended the University of Nebraska, earning a second degree in Physical Therapy, before returning to Colorado and earning her Master's in Exercise Science at Colorado State University. 

Ranching wasn’t a part of Cheri's life until after college when she married her husband, Ed, and the two bought the Humble Ranch in 1995. An influential piece of the decision to buy the land was to protect it from the fast-paced development descending on Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The Ranch sits on the south side of the town, bordering BLM land and city property, and includes 1,800 acres of deeded land and 5,000 acres of leased BLM land. The couple sold their development rights to a land trust, preserving the 1,800 acres and its greater ecosystem forever. 

"Our primary motivation for buying the property was land conservation and protecting agricultural land and wildlife habitat from development," says Cheri. "Ninety-five percent of the land we acquired is now protected open space and conservation easements."

Cheri and Ed had no previous ranching experience, but they had a vision, passion, and a willingness to learn. As a practicing physical therapist, Cheri always felt that true healing happens in nature, not within the confines of artificial walls. Her dream was to offer therapy services outdoors on the land where she felt true healing could take place. Soon after Cheri and Ed bought the Ranch, they made it home to the Humble Ranch Education and Therapy Center, a nonprofit founded by Cheri offering hippotherapy, a physical therapy session while sitting astride a horse. This practice focuses on how the horse's movement supports the rider in improving postural alignment, core strength, balance, coordination, and more. Cheri quickly expanded the center to provide therapeutic riding and various equine-assisted learning opportunities. During this time, she relied heavily on the mentorship of some trusted horsewomen in the Valley. "When you're on the horse, you can work on coordination and balance, but also on connecting with yourself and the animal," she says. "Horses are so heart-centered, and there is much to be learned just by being in their presence." 

For 17 years, Cheri partnered with the local hospital, practicing equine therapy with adults and children on the Ranch. She then passed off the mounted work and riding to another organization that works with children with disabilities and continued to practice non-mounted equine therapy, working with hospice and facilitating leadership workshops. 

In the early days of the Humble Ranch, Cheri and Ed briefly raised breeding stock cattle but soon afterward transitioned to leasing their land to other cattle ranchers. One of Cheri's two sons, Jay, recently moved onto the Ranch with his wife, Shelby, and their six-month-old. They arrived with new ideas for keeping the ranching business alive for the family and the next generation. One of those ideas was to raise yak for meat, and in May 2022, they welcomed 90 yaks to the Humble Ranch. The yaks are more durable than cattle, resilient to climate and environmental stressors, and roam as one herd. Cheri and Ed grow almost enough hay on the Ranch to feed them all winter. 

Another significant change for the Ranch is the conversion of some of the outbuildings into lodging and creation of a side hospitality business. Change is often complicated, and the new vision of the Ranch has been particularly challenging for Cheri, who has spent most of her life pouring her whole heart into the Humble Ranch through her healing work, caring for and protecting the land and animals, both domestic and wild. 

"I am so excited to have my son and his family, a second generation, living and working on the ranch," says Cheri. "I'm grateful they are motivated to spearhead the changes needed to support our Ranch financially, yet I sometimes slip out of trust and into fear. Fear that opening up the Ranch to hospitality will shift the way it feels to me—that it will no longer feel like the heart-centered place I have cultivated and that strangers staying on the property with a vacation/recreation mindset will be unaware of all that the land represents and holds."

While these changes on their home Ranch have been overwhelming, particularly the conversion of the ranch cabins into lodging, Cheri is embracing them as opportunities to combine her expertise with her son's new energy and ideas in a way that will allow them to keep the Ranch and make a living—blending old and new to create something different. 

Recognizing new ideas while respecting old ones is a theme Cheri sees in her own life and the Women in Ranching community she has become an integral part of. 

"One thing I've loved witnessing through WIR is how the older, more experienced women who have lived and worked the land connect with younger, bright, starry-eyed women who have a passion and are still figuring it all out. It's so special watching these women come together organically and learn from one another respectfully," she says. 

Cheri was first introduced to WIR through her friend, colleague, and facilitator Beth Godbey, in 2020. "At the time, I had a community here in Steamboat, but it was one that was centered around personal healing work," says Cheri. "This was something new for me—a community centered around women on the land who are caring for the land. I live in a town where everyone wants the land to be public or recreationally developed. I didn't have a community like this where people want to do right by the land and raise animals mindfully and thoughtfully."

Cheri began participating in WIR check-in calls and attending the Confluence programming, and soon after jumped head and heart-first into facilitating Circles for Women in Ranching. 

"This is a welcoming community for all," says Cheri.

"Women in Ranching is creating space for women of all diversities and backgrounds that connect to the land and who want to learn. It is a space to hold, learn, and support; inclusivity is a big part of that."

In her own life, Cheri has found support from this community while she navigates the emotions that come up for her around the changes to her Ranch. 

"This community is a safe place to say, 'I'm really scared.' You don't have to show up with a plan, and you have the support of everyone here to help you figure it out," she says. 

In 2022, Cheri became the board secretary for Women in Ranching. Her work at the Humble Ranch to build a nonprofit team within her community that supports children and adults with disabilities, as well as her efforts to conserve the Ranch for wildlife and open space in an area teeming with growth, have all been in service to the community. 

Cheri cares deeply for thoughtful and ethical care of the land in tandem with fostering the human capacity to be in relationship with one another. Now, she's working hard with her husband to bring the next generation back home to the Ranch, including a new granddaughter, and she is making space for the next generation's vision on their landscape. 

Women in Ranching is grateful to have Cheri's talent, vision, collaborative spirit, and knowledge as assets through organizational launch and growth. The Women in Ranching board is a dream team, and Cheri is integral to our capacity to grow well.

"I have such a deep connection and love for the land, and here comes Women in Ranching, an organization that wants to support this connection to land, animals, and each other," says Cheri. "When I was invited on as Board Secretary, I was beyond all in. Women have been such an important part of the land for centuries and have never been given this space or been held in this way."