New friends, frustration and fireworks

When I was younger, I loved the tv-show 'McLeod's daughters'. It was about a group of woman who were running a cattle ranch in the outback of Australia. That show is pretty much the reason I wanted to come to Wyoming the first time, to do that myself! This week I was reminded of my ranch dreams. Hector and Ned, two photographers from Kentucky, came to stay at the ranch. They told us they were very impressed and inspired by how we followed our passion and dreams to work with horses and how we handled the ranch work together, with a group of women. 

When you live something, you start to take things for granted so it was a good reminder of how things you daydream about can actually become a reality. Even though they are not always as romantic and idyllic as you'd pictured... I love fixing fences, it's very satisfying and it makes me feel pretty badass to be able to do it but this week we almost got beat by a fencepost. We had to replace a broken post but it was almost impossible to get it out of the ground. We tried all the tools in the garage and came up with some pretty creative ways. It was great teambuilding and I lauged so much and guess what, we got it done! Girlpower!

Of course it wasn't all work, like proper Americans, we celebrated the 4th of July last week! We did a cook-out in the park, listened to live music and of course we watched the fireworks. I'm not a big fan of fireworks but I must say it was pretty impressive! We also got some smaller fireworks for the ranch. Vanessa and I went to get it in Cody, both of us had never bought fireworks before so we were overwhelmed by all the options. The store clerks must have been laughing at us browsing the kids section for ages. We got a nice selection though. The funniest things was everyone's reactions when we set off the fireworks. One of them kind of moved in our direction and we all ran away screaming... 

We had a week off between sessions so we had time to do some more training. A few of our horses had been out of the string for years due to injuries or other causes. We wanted to see which of them we could use for the guests, which we can sell and how much training they needed. Between the three of us, Linda, Vanessa and I managed to get on five horses that hadn't been ridden in years. Two of them  are a bit older but they turned out to be really nice and relaxed trail horses. Another one has a small injury but will be a nice pasture buddy for someone. The other two we want to work with a bit more. The big grey in the photo, Fern, is a really sweet horse but she's still a bit insecure and prefers to follow another horse instead of walking by herself. Hopefully we can build her confidence and eventually use her for our own guests. Vanessa has been working with Speck, a big Appaloosa who is a bit skittish but with a bit of work he will hopefully be a great riding horse. It was great to have a week to fully focus on those horses. During a session there is always so much going on and so many things to worry about that we don't really have the time.

And a lot of mud...

Yesterday, we wrapped up another session. It was an interesting session, a bit different from what we've been doing the past few years. Usually, our guests are young women on gap year breaks but this time we had two moms with their kids and two other ladies travelling alone. We had some struggles but we also had a lot of fun and I learned a lot from it. I think everyone challenged themselves and did a lot of new stuff. It was fun to see how people changed over the course of a week (or two). Unfortunately the weather in the first week wasn't too great, it rained a lot and the corrals turned into mudpools that rivalled the ones in Yellowstone. We still managed to do a lot though and planned our activities around the weather. One morning we were doing lessons in the arena when a terrible hailstorm almost washed us down the hill. It's crazy how quickly streams can appear where previously the ground had been as dry as a desert. We decided to spend the afternoon at the Hotsprings to warm up and had a lovely cook-out in the park, one of my favorite places. Heleen and I spotted some baby turtles in the river and we went to see the nearby herd of bison, riding in the bed of Paul's truck. Those bison looked huge when we were driving right next to them, without car windows to protect us! 

Unfortunately Heleen left at the end of that week, her four weeks at Horseworks have flown by! We had a lot of fun adventures. My favorite was the dayride we went on together, exploring a path through the hills I had never been on before. It was a beautiful route with amazing views and I felt so relaxed after it (that lasted for about five minutes). It was just very nice to spend some time together. Paul also left that day, he had been here for a week to help me out with the group. Before he drove back to Washington, he tried to teach me poker in a sushi restaurant, even the waitress joined in the game! I couldn't stop laughing when he told the cook his Japanese was wrong and the sushi wasn't prepared in the proper Japanese way. 

In the second week, the weather cleared up and it dried up enough to go to Cowcamp! It's always one of the highlights of the session so I was glad we could go. This time I actually slept outside, next to the campfire, all night. No rain and nobody screaming 'snake' in the middle of the night (looking at you Kaylyn :P). There was also a beautiful full moon that night. 

We did a lot of work with the cows this week as well. One of the calves hadn't been nursing so we had to milk the cow a few times a day to get the milk going and help him drink. I brought another cow in all by myself on one of our recently retrained horses Curly. Laura started riding her again this spring and I've been taking her on short rides to get some miles on her. She is doing great, still a bit insecure but very calm, and she did great with the cow. The cow certainly didn't make it easy so I'm really proud we managed to get her and the calve to the ranch by ourselves (with a little help of Alissa who opened the gates). Both moms and babies are doing well now! 

I've also been working with Missy a lot, with the help of Heleen and Stephanie. Remember I started training her last year? She has made so much progress. Last year I had to keep her in a corral with a long rope on her halter to be able to catch her, now she comes up to me when they are all out on the property. She is a lot calmer and really good with most of the groundwork we do. At the moment we are working on putting weight on her back while she is walking. She is perfectly fine when I lean over her back while she is standing still but when I try to make her walk like that she freaks out. It's certainly a challenge to back her but she is a quick study and I'm convinced we'll get there. She definitely teaches me a lot about training!