July 27, 2019, Volume 14, Issue 28
So many amazing things went on this week at the ranch!
Buck with Manny
For starters, Buck did his second ranch clinic with us and our guests, starting on Monday of this week. It was such a pleasure to be able to watch him ride varying levels of horses—from Manny, his three-year-old to Finn, his snaffle bit horse to Eddie, his bridle horse.
Buck started his day with Manny each morning, doing groundwork at the start. Manny only has a handful of rides and we were able to watch Buck work through some areas in the arena that he found a bit scary. Buck made no drama out of it, but he made sure to address the spots and get Manny through to the other side in a good frame of mind.
Zoe and Dude working cattle
We were able to see Finn working cattle this week. He’s only done it about 3 times so far, so it was really neat to see the progressions of what Buck expected of him—but more so, how well he worked one with hardly any experience at it! It’s a testament to all of the arena work that Buck teaches—always with the thought in mind of one day putting it to use working a cow.
Of course, he and Eddie seemed flawless, both in his warm-up rides and when working cattle. It’s so beautiful to see how soft Eddie remains in every single movement. And to watch him working a cow compared with last year—Buck has to grab leather now because gets hooked on so well and turns so hard!
I learned so much and enjoyed every minute with Buck. He has certainly become a great friend over the years and Shayne and I were so sad to see him load up his ponies and head down the road on Wednesday. I wish we could have followed him on to Bozeman but we had some big responsibilities here at home. The biggest responsibility of all—The new arena!
On Friday, we and our guests put the VERY FIRST hoof prints in the new indoor arena! It was everything we hoped it would be and more. It was 90 degrees outside, but the indoor was a cool 60. The footing, the air quality, the atmosphere was PERFECT!!!!! The guests and horses loved it!
Marsha cantering without reins on Roanie
In-between all of this—we managed to work on cantering without reins in the roundpen, finding the last 4 head of cattle in our State Section and getting them to our McKillop Piece, and heading out on several trails.
In addition to the riding, we also started HAYING! The meadows are thicker than ever and we are going to be haying ground that we’ve never even hayed before, because the grass is so lush! I think we are going to have a record year.
Randy, Willy, Nolan, Dave, Anna and Scott have been working around the clock to get everything mowed, raked, baled and put away while we have this window of warm, sunny weather.
Neitha and Bob on the state piece
Next week is an “off-week” and we’ll be focusing on our interns and re-riding through guest horses on the riding end of things. We’ll also be full speed with haying, pasture clean-up and lots of other projects that we don’t always have time for in a given week. We never stop finding ways to improve this ranch paradise of ours 🙂
Have a great weekend!
Des
The whole Buck clinic crew!
Marsha dazzling us after dinner
Pattie and Anne-Catherine at the lake on Friday!
Sam and Booker cantering without reins