Like a Country Song

Happy birthday to me! This year I got to celebrate my birthday in Wyoming, cowgirl style. Yesterday Steph, Heleen, Alissa, Linda and I went out to Cody for a lovely dinner (with a giant desert, Steph's face when she saw it was priceless). This morning I had the best surprise ever. I came back from my run and heard something in the lodge. I went in but there was nobody around. Suddenly I hear crying coming from the kitchen so I walk in to see Steph and Heleen sitting behind the counter. I thought something was wrong but they were actually trying to surprise me, except they were laughing so much they didn't hear me come in. It was the funniest surprise ever.

Today is the start of a new session. We are at the airport to pick up the new group, I'm very excited to meet them! We had a great first session with some amazing people. I was very sad to see them leave but we had a lot of fun in their last week. We went to Shoshone National Forest, always one of the highlights of the session. I drove up the mountain with the horses in the giant trailer. Thankfully they just fixed up the (gravel) road and it was pretty good, although compared to African roads, it was like a highway. We discovered a new trail on the mountain, rode on some really narrow trails with low hanging branches and crossed the river a few times.

One morning, we got up at 4am to do a sunrise ride, a beautiful ride as always. We also went to Reed's place to get the rest of our horses. We wrangled them into a corral on our horses. Wrangling horses is one of my favorite things, it makes for some fast riding and quick turns, especially since these horses weren't too keen to go where we wanted them to and the field they were in is huge and even has a creek running through it. MaeCile and I went back with the trailer to get all the gates and the feeder out. Unfortunately the feeder didn't fit in the trailer. We tried a few different things but nothing really worked until we tried to put the feeder on top of the trailer. By some miracle we managed to get that giant feeder on top of the huge trailer, just the two of us! We tied it with some halterropes and made it all the way home over the gravel road without it moving an inch! I was very proud of us. The funniest thing was that it took eight of the interns to get the feeder off again.

Between the two sessions we had a week without interns. We had a busy week training horses and catching up on some projects but also managed to go on a trip to Yellowstone National Park. Linda, Heleen, Alissa, Steph and I spent two days exploring. We went on a few nice hikes, I saw some new places and the best thing: we saw a grizzly bear! I really wanted to see a bear and since the last group saw so many I was very hopeful. Unfortunately we didn't see anything other than bison and elk. Right before we left the park though, there were a lot of people standing around looking at something so we decided to pull over. The Grizzly was about 80m away from us and she strolled around the area for almost an hour. It was so beautiful to watch her and amazing to be so close to such an amazing animal. Best part of the trip for sure!

Country Roads

After four busy weeks at home I’m back in Wyoming, enjoying my cowgirl life. And this time I get to share it with Heleen! We’d been looking forward to coming out here together for so long but it still feels a bit surreal to have her here. Everytime I see her walk by I think ‘O yeah, Heleen is here!’. It is so good to be able to show her everything I always talk about, going on adventures together and making more memories. We came here halfway through a session, which I think can be a bit challenging as the rest of the group already knows each other, but they are all great and we have lots of fun! And of course Stephanie and Linda are back! One of my favorite things about the ranch is meeting up with old friends and making new ones from all over the world.

We’ve had a busy first week: we went to cow camp, soaked in the hotsprings, visited two rodeos, trained young horses, took four horses to the vet and did lots of riding. I had never been here during this time of year before. It is the rainy season which means everything is super green and beautiful. But it also meant we got rained on when we tried to sleep outside at cowcamp. I was so cozy and warm sleeping next to the fire when Stephanie woke me up. We moved into the little cabin that is there, which was a lot less comfortable but at least dry. Unfortunately Kaylyn woke us all up in the middle of the night screaming ‘snake’. She was convinced there was a snake crawling over Cara. We tried to look for it but didn’t see anything and since I was pretty exhausted I just fell asleep again. I’m still not sure if it was actually there or if it was a dream but I know I dreamed of snakes after that.

On Friday, we took three lame horses and one colt to the vet. I got to drive the big truck and giant trailer again! It always makes me feel super badass to be driving around with that. We went to get the colt castrated, I had never seen that so it was very interesting to witness. Heleen said it looked just like dr. Pol does it. The vet also took X-rays of one of the horses’ legs. He turned out to have arthritis so unfortunately he won’t be able to work anymore, but at least we know what is wrong now. Dr. Gould always explains everything really clearly and loves answering our questions so it was great for the interns as well. And he said we could start riding Pirouette again (she was lame too) so I’m really excited to take her out again.

In other great news, we have a cook this year! Remember last year when Hannah and I just reheated leftovers or put pizza in the oven somedays? This year we walk in the house and amazing food is just there waiting for us. Besides being a great cook, Alissa is also a great person. She is always interested in people’s stories, always has a smile on her face and is super organised and on top of things. She has only been here for a few weeks but it feels like she has been here for years and it takes a lot of stress off MaeCile, who finally has time to sort out other things, and me as well. It’s going to be a great summer!