February 15, 2020 Volume 15, Issue 7
These past couple weeks have been a whirlwind!!!
Shayne and I returned from Costa Rica on Feb 2nd and hit the ground running. We had two weeks to get everything in order for our new guests coming in. That included:
Splitting the herd in half—horses that would be used immediately were taken over to Shayne’s new arena pastures. Originally, we thought with the snow pack we might be able to jingle them over. Except, a day after we got back, the ranch turned to ice and that meant we had to load up 36 horses and make several trips over to the arena. But the trips didn’t start smooth! The driveway to the arena was so icy, the truck got stuck and Anna had to come and chip the driveways with the John Deere while Kevin and I sprinted back and forth from the truck and trailer to the arena pastures in our ice cleats with horses. It was a long, silly day but seeing the horses enjoying their new pasture and rolling in fresh snow made it all worth it.
Deep cleaning all cabins and lodge rooms—we flew Yaz out for a couple weeks to work exclusively on this project. It took every single part of 2 weeks to get this grand feat accomplished!
Food—Emily is preparing for her first big breakout week of winter cooking! She’s been creating menus, ordering food and supplies and doing lots of deep cleaning around the kitchen side of things. We have been guinea pigs to several new recipes that are AH-MAAAAZING. I can’t wait for our guests to try them!
Chalkeye
Riding and teaching—LOTS and LOTS of it! Janice and Brenda found some time each day to spend a few hours with us riding. Mostly though, Shayne and I had our base riding crew consisting of Kevin, Scott, and interns Maddie and Flora. With these four, we managed to get through around 30 horses per day. The “kids” probably felt like they were in bootcamp for much of the time! We rode from 8am-8pm most days.
It was so neat to see how far these guys came in two weeks. It would be hard to describe how big the changes were in the riding progressions of each individual. All I can say is that everything culminated into the best couple days of riding that any of us could remember. Every horse got better—walk, trot, canter, stop, leg yield, work the flag. Moving out with ease. With great expression.
Our guest horses are legged up and ready to get to work, both physically and mentally.
Today is another big day—we need to do a deep clean on Shayne’s new arena, plus the tack rooms, etc. We have to haul over saddles and bridles (all freshly cleaned courtesy of our wonderful crew). We need to put the final touches on the lodge and game room and make sure everything is guest-ready. Hmmm…feels like I’m forgetting something!
Have a great weekend!
Des