Hi Everyone!
We just finished up our final guest stay of the year at the ranch. We ended with a fabulous group of guests and had a great time! All of us appreciated finishing out the season with such a great group of people who were hungry to learn and have a good time at the end of the day. They even got Shane and Des laughing on a daily basis, keeping all of us on our toes. We had some good laughs including breakfast for dinner with a pajama party and some dancing! Everyone got the opportunity to work cows, ride to the top of Pier, cut the flag, ride scenic views on the ranch, choreographed rides to music, and plenty of horsemanship time in the arena.
Much was learned by everyone as they gained skills in backing, cow turns, managing rate, riding with just legs, and fun educated rides with the cattle! Everyone got to sort cattle in the final stretch of the stay. We sorted cattle on the range using a rodear for each group. This is where we build a circle with the horses around a group of cattle to keep them in one area. One group had all 25 of the cattle we gathered and the other group started with none! The goal was for the group holding the cattle to sort off one at a time and push that cow to the other rodear 25′ away. They had to sort their cows until they were down to one and hold that single cow for three minutes before releasing it to the other group. It was a lot of fun! Lots of handy riding and plenty of escaping cattle, but by the end everyone successfully sorted their cattle from one group to the other.
Everyone learned many skills, saw beautiful scenery and had a great time. We will miss our guests and there were many good byes and see you laters. This group had so much fun they even said they want to try and all come back together next year. Now that would be a treat for all of us. We are officially winding down for the season. Our interns and seasonal staff only have a couple weeks left with us before we say goodbye. We are doing a deep clean of the ranch, getting final weight on the cattle before they ship, and getting a much needed break after a busy year of teaching, herding cats (aka our amazing guests), and extra early mornings. We will miss everyone, but theres a sigh of relief knowing everything is slowing down a little.
-Sami