May 18, 2019, Volume 14, Issue 19
Greetings Everyone!
This week marked our transition from our winter horsemanship/clinics schedule into our regular guest season schedule. We are still in our spring horsemanship/cattle work sessions, but the ranch is in full swing, with full staff, full activities and FULL, (too full!) bellies full of Miriam’s fantastic dinners!
Riding in the meadows. Everything is really getting green!
Now that Miriam is cooking dinners, the staff all gathers with the guests for supper and conversation. Each night the tables are full of stories, jokes, and some tall tales. After such a long winter, I had forgotten how much fun these dinners are! Shayne and I ended up talking and laughing for longer than we planned for, each evening. But we couldn’t help ourselves—this group was so much fun and so many of them are such good friends.
Federico with Hunk. You may remember Hunk when he was a Guest horse!
The riding was pretty diverse. We had lots of horsemanship instruction, both inside the arena and out in the trees. There were two days chock full of cattle work—-gathering, ear tagging, worming and weighing each steer individually.
Roby was able to turn over two of his client horses over to their owners—Federico took over his colt, Forrest, and learn how much he needed to adjust his riding for a sensitive youngster! It was a great learning experience. And Julie took over her horse, Hoot. It was such a neat thing to see—the two of them just ginned immediately and she seemed like she had all of the confidence in the world riding him inside the arena or out of it, walking, trotting and cantering.
I had the opportunity to work with a guest named Mary and her Morgan horse, Smokie. He’s quite a bit to handle and Mary is staying over next week so that we can continue working with them both and getting them comfortable with one another.
Heli riding Cheech in the sorting pen.
All guests made great improvements, be in in horsemanship or in their savviness regarding cattle. They were awesome!
As can happen this time of year, we had daytime temps ranging from 80 to 50. We went from brilliant sunshine to pouring rain. Although the sun is nicer to ride in, we do need these big spring rains for our pastures. Next week the sun will be back and we’ll see that the grass has grown another 3 inches!
McKenzie leaves us to head home this weekend. We will really miss her. Her work ethic was amazing, she made great progress with her riding, and she is just a really fun person! She says she will be back 🙂
Anna C (Ahna) will be returning this week to help in the office and ride a bit and we also welcomed Alyssa to our seasonal crew. She will be interning and helping in the kitchen. It is beginning to feel like summer!
Have a great weekend guys!
Des
Julie (on Hoot) and Trent (on Tequila).
Marko riding Boone
Peter on Roanie, learning where his seat needs to be on up and downhill terrain. He did awesome!
Amy learning to rope with Norma Jean cheering her on!
Ear tagging and shots crew: Anna, Brenda, Peter, Dave and Scott
Nadja rode Chief well.
Cattle!