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.