Ruby Slippers and Georgia Peaches

I knew being a Wooster, I was going to be a little bit nomadic. He likes to go….he likes to see…he likes to experience.

Train ride from Kansas City to the Grand Canyon….sounds like loads of fun.

Wanna ride down to Hilton Head for a long weekend? Why….yes that would be lovely.

Surprise motorcycle trip to Savannah and Tybee Island? Sure.

Motorcycle trip around the great state of Florida to visit Orlando, Daytona, Tampa and orange groves and swamps? Yep.

Wanna go to Ohio on motorcycle? Twice? Once with some college guys? Five months pregnant? Righto.

Cap San Blas sounds like a good ride. Okay.

Let’s go to: Raleigh-Durham, Baton Rouge, Indianapolis with a bunch of teenagers and work for a week. Yes Sir!

How about twice to Montana, then Alaska, Colorado and New Mexico? You bet.

Amarillo is supposed to be right nice this time of year……well, yes it is.

Dodge City? Yeppers.

When we go home, lets ride through as many states as we can….sounds like fun.

Thinking about riding up to Independence, Missouri…wanna go? With you…anytime.

Live in Kansas for two and half years? Allllrighhhtty.

Then there’s Wyoming. It truly has been the “Daddy of ‘Em All”. But, being with a Wooster, I’ve made a must-do/must-experience list while living here. Cheyenne was on that list.

I KNOW you have heard of this song.

We took a little time between hay cuttings and went to see and experience Cheyenne.

Mainly…we went to experience Cheyenne Frontier Days. It’s big…big…big doins’ around this whole state.

The whole city/metro of Cheyenne has about 60,000 people. The whole state of Wyoming has the population of: 582,000

Just for reference, Sanford Stadium, where the great Bulldogs play, seats about 93,000 people. The University of Georgia has about 35,000 students. Athens, Georgia city/metro area has a population of about 193,000 people. The state of Georgia has: 9.9 million people.

So when a big state rodeo is held, almost the whole state of Wyoming and people from other parts of the country show up.

So we went and spent a little time taking it all in.

The rodeo is long. They go through many events during the day. There is a rodeo for ten straight days. Everyone rides and the scores are tallied up and there is an overall winner.

We would watch parts of the rodeo that we knew that our oldest would be interested in, then we would go ride some rides, then back to the rodeo. I think the whole rodeo was from 12pm to about 4:30pm.

We all enjoyed the grand parade, the broncs, the bulls, and the in-between entertainment of trick riders and mounted gun shooters.

(These Pick Up Men really do “pick up”, they rope and wrangle the bulls and broncs after riders come off of them.)

By far, Ruby’s favorite was riding rides at the carnival. She rode the carousal about four times. It was her favorite.

Clara was too little to ride anything.

Outside of the rodeo arena there was the carnival, an Indian Village, chuck wagon cook off area and a western town. For all you Georgians, the whole place reminded me of the Georgia Mountain Fair, but more “western”.

(Chuck Wagon cook-offs. They dress in period clothes and have to cook using all period appropriate cookware. Everyone gets the same ingredients at a common tent in the morning and they have the same amount of time to cook. Our day, it was the Kid’s Cook-off. They are judged by taste. After judging, regular people can taste the food.)

Our absolute favorite part of the whole thing was watching the “Wild Horse Race”.

In all our travels and allllllllllllll the rodeos that we’ve been to, we’ve never seen or heard of one until we moved out west. They are pretty common here. There’s even a Professional Wild Horse Racers Association.

The gist of it: unbroken, never ridden horses are brought out and a team of three saddles then rides the horse for a full mile around the arena. The first person back to the finish/start line…and still in the saddle wins for the team.

The three people each have a job. One is the anchor, one saddles and cinches and one holds around the neck/head, and trying to calm and keep the horse steady. The saddler then gets on and holds on tight. Some of the horses just take off running, bucking and some just flat out run.

The pick-up men guide the horses out to a spot and each team has to catch the horse by the long lead rope. Once all the teams have their horse, a gun is shot to signal the start. The boys pass the time by whispering and talking to the horse or getting it in a good position.

Once the signal is given…it’s game on!

(guess which guy was the “anchor”)

Some have a very good horse and everything goes according to plan. Others don’t.

(this guy made it on, but the horse was heading in the wrong direction)

The saddles have a little loop on the back that the riders and hold onto.

This guy and horse won. They were quickly saddled and the horse took off. I don’t think it bucked one single time….but it flew!

Cheyenne was a really pretty western town and we were glad that we got to experience the “Daddy of ‘Em All”

For the past few years our little town commemorates the magic of the west and Independence Day by having a Pony Express run.

Mail is carried on horseback for 17.6 miles in rough Wyoming country. Each year riders from nearby ranches are sworn in, legalized and set up in relays to carry United States mail from Hyattville, Wyoming to Ten Sleep, Wyoming.

From Wikipedia:

The Pony Express was a mail service delivering messages, newspapers, mail, and small packages from St. Joseph, Missouri, across the Great Plains, over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento, California, by horseback, using a series of relay stations. During its 18 months of operation, it reduced the time for messages to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to about 10 days.^[1] From April 3, 1860, to October 1861, it became the West’s most direct means of east–west communication before the telegraph was established and was vital for tying the new state of California with the rest of the country.

The Pony Express was a mail-delivery system of the Leavenworth and Pike’s Peak Express Company of 1859, which in 1860 became the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company. This firm was founded by William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell all of whom were notable in the freighting business.^[2

Our ranch has participants every year in the carrying of the mail. They followed this dirt road/route.

Six of our current interns were riders in the “Pony”.

After the swearing in process, the riders then ride or trailer their horses to their mile marker post. Then the riding is underway. Each rider carries the mail bag for one mile. They can go as fast or slow as they want. Some take the opportunity to fly!

When the final rider brings the mail bag into the town of Ten Sleep, people are there waiting and applauding.

It makes one a little teary eyed.

Shortly after the bag makes it to the little town, a parade happens.

Most parades that I’ve been to, the horses with riders are at the back. Horse poop. It’s the horse poop that keeps them back there. Not this parade. It’s opened up by the Pony riders.

Then the rodeo queens of the area.

It’s a fun day and very “westerly”.

We are straight up in the middle of hay season. The days are long. Out here, the sun comes up between 4:45 and 5:15am. That also means the husband is up during those times trying to race the sun. Making hay is a complete science. There are moisture levels, humidity, mold, and rain to take into account. If the air is too hot, it dries out the alfalfa and grass too fast, if we have rain, the cut grass can mold. It’s always a race against the clock most days. Also when tractors are moving and working for 16 hours straight, there’s going to be problems. And rocks…those are pesky too. The rocks break teeth on the mowers and balers. It’s a no win situation.

There are many, many days that we are delivering food to the field and take a couple laps in the tractor just so we all can be together for thirty minutes.

The day is busily spent coordinating where people are raking, baling, cutting, hauling, stacking, irrigating finished pastures, fixing broken equipment, moral support, then throw in a little cattle work. The workers are busily doing everything they can to get grass and alfalfa to grow, cut and off the ground as fast as they can. So far, they’ve had a really good production year with the hay. The interns have done a super job at getting the hay off the field and irrigation started back so more grass can grow.

They will do two or three more cuttings on each field/circle this season. The season will (hopefully) end sometime in September/October.

At the end of May our little cowboy town has an annual cowboy carnival. Our town of 100 swells up to about 1,000.

The day kicks off with cowboy church out at the air strip.

Then there’s a little betting and the horse races begin.

The horse and rider are placed in front of everyone; the auctioneer begins a set price and people bid. The highest bidder “wins” and pays into a pot. If your rider/horse win, you get the money in the pot and split it with the rider. Betting at its finest.

There are different heats, and bidding occurs before each one.

Then the races start.

After the races, people head downtown for pony rides, bbq lunch, quilt and photo show,sharp shooter contest, live music, and dog trials. Most of all the ranches let their workers off for the day. It’s a fun day for all.

(BBQ beef, pork and lamb with a side of butter dipped corn on the cob, rolls, and cowboy beans)

Ever have one of those moments where you are in complete awe and just stand with your mouth part way open…staring…listening…watching?

Yep. I’ve had those.

It’s like I live in cowboy country or something.

So…the ranch recently had some brandings (back in May). Wyoming is an open range, fence out state. If you don’t want cows on your property, fence them out. Also, some of our cows spend their summer up on the mountain with other people’s cows. Who is keeping other people from cutting tags out of the ears and claiming the cow/calf (pair) as their own? Especially with beef prices, there’s not always the most honest of people around…even here. Thus, this year, the ranch decided to brand all the babies. Brandings are a common thing out west. When a ranch has a big branding, all the other ranches are invited to work then they are invited to eat. Our horse trainer invited some of his horse training friends, other men from neighboring ranches, and all our ranch workers. The brandings were held over four days. The first day they worked with 400 calves. The second day was about 200, then about 150 each day after that.

For days one, two, and three portable corral panels were taken out to where the pairs were. Time was spent setting up the panels. Then the morning of the branding…around 4:30am after eating a ranch made breakfast of breakfast burritos, homemade cinnamon rolls, or sweet rolls, everyone would take their horse and round up the mamas and babies. With everyone working together, the wrangling didn’t take long.

Propane tanks feed a fire pit that holds the brands.

The mamas and babies are held back by watchful cowboys and gals.

Then the roping, flipping, vaccinating, marking, and branding happen. It’s pretty fast, loud and really fun to watch. Oh…and some of those boys rarely miss. It’s a sight to see.

First, one ropes the head. Then he pulls tight, to make the calf kick up it’s back legs.

Then his partner ropes the back legs. But those little ones are so wiggly, that it sometimes slips up on their body.

The pair drags the baby over or out of the corral area for the real work to happen.

The calf is flipped, rope slipped over its back legs, then the is rope slipped down off the head and down to the front legs.

The calf is marked on the head or back with a piece of oil chalk. Then it’s released back to find the mama. The mark tells the cowboys/cowgirls that it has been done and doesn’t need to be roped again.

Of course, horses tire out when pulling weight, so there were plenty of replacement horses. Also, we had enough roping teams that people could switch out every few calves. One time, on day one, I counted five roping teams. It was fast and loud.

On the big days of branding we had 30 to 40 people there working, watching and socializing. Us ranch wives had snacks, cokes and water for the workers. There was plenty of watching, joking and just fun.

After all the work was done, panels taken down and everything back at the ranch. The workers were treated to a homemade meal.

The meals were:

Tangy Tomato Brisket, Coleslaw, cheesy potatoes, corn on the cob, broccoli salad, deviled eggs, jello salad, Texas sheet cake, homemade cookies, cherry crumble

BBQ beef, cowboy beans, macaroni salad, hash brown casserole, bacon wrapped tots, peach cobbler

Cowboy styled sloppy joes, potato salad, cowboy caviar, chips, ice cream

Each day they were treated to hand squeezed lemonade and sweet tea…of course.

So…the big question…what did Ruby think of it?

Not a care in the world. She was just there to pick sage, and climb corral panels.

Clara…

Not impressed…but boy… I sure was.

Sitting in the month of July, I realized that I haven’t done much posting; almost none in May or June. It’s been pretty busy. We got new interns, had four brandings, had a cowboy carnival, hauling water up to the hills, irrigating and had some artificial insemination days. Then the biggie happened….hay season. Life got hectic, fast and scrambled. One particular 38 hour period, Matt didn’t sleep. They were trying to get hay raked and baled before a big thunderstorm came through. He’s also worked 5 ½ weeks straight with a few hours off for cowboy church and to do some personal truck maintenance. Everyone is working really hard and long hours. Wooster is gone before 5:30am and straggles in around 9:30-10:00pm. So, the girls and I are on our 2^nd shift schedule again. They are up around 10am, nap from 3-6pm, dinner around 8 or 9pm, play with Matt when he gets in, bedtime routine stuff and finally in bed around 11:30 or so. Between all those times we are usually outside in the sandbox, walking around the ranch, and riding in the tractor with Matt, taking food out to the fields, delivering popsicles and snacks to the interns, picking wild sunflowers and enjoying ranching life.

Here are a few pictures and I’ll catch up about each subject soon….maybe this week.

(in May the days were still in the low 60’s)

(those look like clouds, but are the mountains in the west)

(cowboy church before the cowboy carnival)

So far in July, the ranch has been working on the hay (we have a lot of fields, hundreds of acres, that are mowed for hay), working on broken equipment daily—it’s the main reason why it takes so long to get the hay in, had some fourth of July fun, helped fight a wildfire, gathered and moved cows, and did a 16 hour cow/calf round up. The cows are currently hanging out in front of our house waiting to go up the mountain. The workers will do an all-day cattle drive to get them to their mountain spots/allotments sometime later this week.