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!

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!

Ponies, Puffins and Planes

Of the things I thought I would never see in life, snow in May is definitely one of them. Although technically it was the 30th of April. Anyway, in typical Icelandic fashion, my last day had about three different types of weather. When we brought the horses in from the field in the morning, it was snowing. On my morning ride it was almost sunny and in the afternoon I rode in the rain for two hours. And so my last view of Iceland was the same as the first: a dreary landscape from behind a bus window. But somehow Iceland manages to still be beautiful, even on a rainy day.

On one of the rare sunny days, Mary and I went to one of the Westman Islands, just off the south coast. We took a ferry that made us feel seasick after about five minutes but it was definitely worth it. Again, there were not a lot of tourists here. We took a walk around the island (it's only 5x7km) and didn't see anyone else on the trail. It was a beautiful walk, we hiked along the east coast with its steep cliffs and amazing view of the other islands. The trail went through fields with sheep and horses and we ended up at a bird hide. This was apparantly a good place to spot puffins, the bird this island is famous for and the reason we came. You guessed it, there were no puffins in sight. The only one we saw that day was made of wood...



We had a lovely day though, with 7 degrees and sun it was a summer day in Iceland! We had lunch at a cute little black beach and walked back to the harbour following a path through the fields. Unfortunately it didn't say anywhere that the path was a dead end, we ended up at an airstrip that we weren't allowed to cross. As we had to be back in time to get on the ferry we decided to try and go around the airstrip by climbing a few fences and walking through a lava field. At one point I honestly thought we would get lost on this tiny island, but we made it to the ferry in time.

After a nice dinner with the girls and a walk along the beach where a random dog and a cat joined us, my time in Iceland was almost over. I guided a few more tours. Least favorite tour guide moment: one of the horses bolted because a guest started screaming. Then it was time to go to the airport, where I had to spent the night because my flight was at six, no point in getting a hotel for those few hours. It wasn't too bad though, I managed to sleep a little on the plane. It's good to be home again, see everyone and ride my own horse. Although I must say she looks a bit strange, after only having seen Icelandic horses for two months ;)

The Ultimate Iceland Roadtrip part 2

After car number three broke down on us last week, Ilona and I attempted another road trip in our 'new' staff car this week. We went to explore Snaefellsness, the western peninsula of Iceland. If you're planning a trip to Iceland in the future I can definitely recommend this area, it was beautiful and there were hardly any other tourists. We made it into a two-day trip and stayed in Olafsvik overnight but you can easily spend more time in the area. It is a little over an hour to drive there from Reykjavik and it's not far from the Ring Road if you're taking a tour of the whole island.

As we couldn't go whale watching last week (due to the car breaking down halfway there) we decided to try again on our way to the peninsula. So we stopped in Reykjavik and got on the boat for the morning cruise. And we got lucky! We had some amazing sightings. There were 3 or 4 humpback whales swimming, playing and feeding around our boat for over an hour. They got really close so we got a good look at these giant animals. This was my fourth time whale watching here in Iceland as I didn't see anything the previous times so I was extremely happy. In addition to the humpbacks we also saw a Minke whale. A pretty good morning!

After the successful start of our day we went on to Snaefellsness. We had a full schedule with cliffs, waterfalls, beaches and hotsprings that we wanted to visit. One of our first stops was a mineral spring. The whole village used the spring as their water supply and there was a tap where you could try some of the water. These people must really have gotten used to this water because I almost spat it out, the huge amount of minerals in it made it really disgusting. Another interesting stop was the beach at Ytri Tunga (with yellow sand instead of black this time) where a colony of seals was living. So in addition to the whales, we also spotted seals today. They were all sun bathing on the rocks, very cute! We tried to find Sönghellir cave by driving up a mountain on a gravel road with a sign saying it was 'impassable' but our little car made it up. The cave was a little disappointing but the view was definitely worth it.

I'm almost getting tired of all the waterfalls, almost because they are still super beautiful, there are just so many of them! We saw about a hundred more and could even see one from our hotel window. At most of these waterfalls though, we were the only visitors. I don't know if Snaefellsnes is not very popular among tourists yet or if it was just quiet but I loved it. We drove along the coast line where we saw some beautiful cliffs. In general, the scenery when driving around the peninsula is breathtaking, you don't even have to leave your car. My favorite stop was Landbrotalaug, a hotspring in the middle of nowhere. There were two natural pools, the one we tried first was around 50 degrees Celsius and we didn't last for more than five minutes. The second one was a lot smaller and 'only' 40 degrees with a beautiful view of the mountains in the distance. A must do!

Road to the Mongol Derby

I figured it was time for an update on my Derby adventure. Even though it is only in August 2019, it is on my mind almost every day. I must admit, sometimes I'm wondering what I got myself into (especially when we do our workout and I just want to quit). Other times I am really looking forward to riding through the beautiful country. Sometimes when I am in a really great mood I severely underestimate how hard it will be, but then I remember that only half of the contestants actually make it to the finish line. I am going to work very hard to make sure I will be one of them though.

As I mentioned before, it is a 1000km race on half wild horses, through the rough Mongolian terrain. I will have ten days to complete the race but most people finish on the 8th and 9th day (if they finish), so I will be riding more than 110km a day. That means around 10 hours in the saddle. I don't think I've ever been on a horse for that long at a time. Obviously part of the training is spending as much time in the saddle as possible. I am not sure how I'm going to do this yet, I'm either going to do lots of training with Vasti (she might die) after work, or find a job at another stable abroad in the months leading up to the Derby to spend all day around horses. Besides just riding, it is also important to ride lots of different horses, to learn to adapt quickly to different personalities. Going back to Horseworks this summer will be super useful as I will get the chance to train lots of different (young) horses. 

To be able to stay on a horse for so many hours a day, I will have to do lots of core strength training. I have a confession to make: I am super unfit. Or at least I was, I couldn't even do one push-up or crunch. It's a good thing I don't have an office job because I imagine it would be even worse. But together with Ilona and Mary, I started doing the '7 minutes' work out every day. We do the normal one and the abs workout for about half an hour every day. I am always very sceptical when I see those videos of people who do a workout for thirty days and lose half their weight. While I haven't lost any weight (unfortunately) I am definitely improving. For the first time ever in my life I can actually see some ab muscles when I look in the mirror ;)

Another advice I got from previous contestants was to take up running (in case you fall off and have to run after your horse, and of course general fitness and endurance). Unfortunately I didn't bring my running shoes to Iceland (shitty excuse I know), but once I get back to the Netherlands I will start! I will follow a training schedule, to be able to do 5km in 10 weeks. I tried this before a few years ago and kind of failed at it, so it'll be a challenge. I know there are people out there who can run 5k without training but that is definitely not me, I can't even run for three minutes without training. I am also thinking about starting swimming again, and dancing just because I love it so much. So yeah, now that you know how shamefully unfit I am, you can understand a bit better what I am facing here. But hey, at least I have a goal to work towards, and I really want to make it! I'll keep you posted on the progress. 

(You can also support me by donating here, I will be riding for 'Cool Earth', more on the great work they do later).