hurry up and wait

we're still at 2 foals and holding. mare #3 just doesn't seem interested in having a little one, so i guess we'll just have to wait!

we worked hard this morning to get the barn looking clean since there will be more people coming through once the babies start dropping. and this afternoon, that hard work paid off- dustin, the general manager, complimented us on the good-looking barn!

after lunch, we worked with our 4 yearling projects. camille and i had some "come to jesus" moments, and finally got on the same page after about 30 minutes of "arguing" about who was going to win. who says working with horses can't be a workout? i was huffing and puffing after that battle!

i got to ride on saturday, and i am hoping i can start riding a little more often. something about being on the back of a horse is so therapeutic (cliche, i know, but it's true). i'd been having a lot of back pain last week, and after riding on saturday, i have had minimal pain just between my shoulder blades. thank you, Rusty J :)

keep your fingers crossed for more babies! 2 down, 39 to go.

the eagle has landed!

spring has sprung early at wagonhound land and livestock company! we have 2 colts on the ground now! The first came yesterday..he's the sorrel colt, and has a blaze in his face. He was born around 5 am we think. He was discovered at 6, and luckily his momma, Kuki, was up in the barn rather than outside.

The second colt came today around 11.30, and his momma, Della, had been turned back out in a paddock for the day,so we discovered him on te ground outside on the coldest day we've had this week! We brought him into the barn on the back of the gator with mom in tow.

We've decided to go with a country singers theme for the nicknames or the babies this year. The first two are Waylon and Merle, respectively.

Tenina is in the barn tonight for observation. Who knows- we could have 3 babies before the end of January!

housekeeping or horsekeeping?!

i was beginning to wonder if i had signed up for the right internship. it seems like all i've been doing is cleaning! the smell of bleach, pine sol, and 409 cleaner will be forever embedded in my nose thanks to this past week of barn cleaning. while this was all in preparation for the foaling/breeding season, i have to say my arms are tired of scrubbing and pushing a broom!

today i got to get my hands on several horses!! we sorted out 4 yearlings to work on handling. we're going to keep them separated from the group for the next week or so. we'll work on them learning to stand tied, brushing, picking up feet, lunging, and just being handled by people more! this week, we have Annie, Dodge, Camille, and Bambi in the pen. Annie and Dodge seem to be the calmer of the 4.

i'm having trouble with my ranch truck, so hopefully it'll start tomorrow morning when i head to the barn. if not, i hope the ranch will get it fixed quickly so i'm not stranded with a car that won't make it through the snow drifts!

learning "the hard way"

when i left for wyoming, i had no idea about what to expect. i've already had several learning experiences since i left good ol' PA on january 8. i'll share a few of them:

-when driving from kansas to wyoming with high wind warnings, all you have to do is avoid high profile vehicles! everyone still flies around at 75mph regardless of the 45mph gusts. and anyway, you'll be experiencing at least 50mph gusts when you arrive in wyoming.

-gas is cheap in cheyenne (40 cents cheaper than it was in PA) fill up there! douglas sells '85' gas, so you're paying for '87' as if it were mid-grade or premium gas.

-if you have to go more than 100 yards, why walk when you could drive?! we use the feed truck for EVERYTHING! and my boss was so excited about getting a john deere gator the other day so we'd have another vehicle to drive around the pastures for quick access.

-drive the feed truck away from the wind gusts so you don't end up with a green face from the hay blowing up all over you!

-"close" is a several hour drive

-wildlife is abundant. i was joking with rita the other day that i must have accidentally signed up for the white tail deer breeding internship (they like to congregate by the hay shed and eat out of the feeders with the horses). i was also told to watch out for bears if i decided to go for a hike. "make sure someone knows where you intend to hike and when you're going" is what i was told. i was also told to watch out for the many rattlesnakes and bull snakes that will become regulars when it starts getting warm.

that's just a few i can think of right now..i'll keep the list going as i think of more, maybe.

oh, and there has been a bobcat spotted by the bunkhouses on a few occasions over the last few years (not recently, i hope).

What a beautiful day

Though it was a windy day, I was so happy for a 50 degree day!! We had a productive day reorganizing one of the "tack rooms" of the mare barn. We got a new Gator for chores, and it's already covered in mud! One of the yearlings tried to steal twine off the feed truck so I got to run after him and try to grab it! We also had a mare come in with porcupine quills in her foot.

More blog posts to come..I'm trying to catch up on sleep and what-not. I'm still adjusting to this whole living-in-Wyoming thing

wild, windy wyoming

i got to feed mares this morning in 6 degrees.  the wind was whipping fiercely, and i'm pretty sure i inhaled several pounds of hay before the morning was over! luckily, i had dressed appropriately for the weather (2 long sleeve shirts, a hooded sweatshirt, jeans, leggings, bibs, and heavy duty gloves and ear warmers!), so i was actually pretty comfortable!

i'm learning quite a bit through this internship. right now, the most important lesson is that of tolerance. my fellow intern is going to be affectionately termed "chatty cathy". she might not be able to remember which mare pasture we're going to feed or where the turn-off is for said pasture, but she can certainly talk your ear off any time. i haven't been able to get a word in edgewise since she got here. i guess i'll just have to start piping up a little more!

after another day of cleaning the barn, it looks like that's what we'll be doing again tomorrow! we're also pulling some yearlings in from the pasture to work on some halter breaking/ reminder work. we're going to work on picking up feet, brushing, ear touching, etc. hopefully we won't have SO much wind tomorrow, but i'm not going to hold my breath on that!!

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

i woke up to a gray, dreary morning, and by 10:00, it was snowing. we got all of the mares fed before the snow started falling, but we worked furiously to scrape the mare's round pen (manure removal) before the pen was covered in the powdery stuff. after manure removal, we started cleaning/sanitizing foaling stalls. we bleached the stall walls, and then had to hose the entire floor.

after a lunch break, we went back to finish the two foaling stalls we needed to clean. i met one of the trainers, Matt, and he took me back to the indoor arena to pick up a truck and trailer that needed to be taken back over to the mare barns. long story short- i got to drive a big ol' fancy truck and trailer!! when i got back, we finished up the foaling stalls.

tomorrow i get to fill out paperwork to make me an official employee of the ranch!

so, i'll leave you with a more uplifting picture than the snowy-ness i had to drive through this evening.

sunday fun day

this morning, i helped feed mares again, and then i got the rest of the day off to take seth to casper for his flight home. we went to the wal-mart to get some groceries for me, and then we had lunch at olive garden (yes, again!). it was really nice to get to spend one more day with seth before he headed back east!

on the ranch road, when we were headed for casper, we got to see a huge herd of antelope, too!! i even saw a larger herd ON THE RANCH ROAD when i got back from casper. i'm still trying to get used to being so close to so much wildlife.

 it was windy and we were trying to get the bunkhouse in the background, but oh well!

it was hard to get a picture without them blended into the background, so here's the best i could do

murphy's law?

yesterday was my first day on the job, and it seemed like everything was going wrong! rita, the breeding manager and my boss for the next 6 months, said, "i swear, things never go as planned!" to start the day off right, the yearlings decided to try to go through the fence, so we had to check babies' legs to make sure no one was injured. then, after feeding all of the mares, we got to go back and fix fence. luckily, seth was there, so we had three sets of hands and were able to get the job done quickly.

by noon, we had the fence done. rita and her boyfriend, cody, invited us to have lunch with them in douglas, which was very fun. they showed us around town, and i got to see the famous, larger-than-life statue of a jack-a-lope! i got a picture with it, but i'll have to post it later. after getting back to the ranch, they took us on a "short" tour of the ranch. we saw some of the guest cabins that are scattered throughout the ranch, and we also saw ranch headquarters. to experience how awesome this ranch is, you MUST see it in person!

around 4:30, we got back to the mare barns and had to bring mares into the round pen for the evening. this group of mares goes "under lights" until 10:00 each evening to bring them into heat sooner (it has to do with hormones that are affected by light). while bringing in mares, we noticed that the neighbor's cows were through the fence and in the mare pasture. SO, rita and i got to move them back into their own pasture and fix MORE fence!!

though some things went wrong, we had a productive day!

welcome to wyoming!

 if i hadn't been driving, i would have jumped for joy when i saw this sign!

 the wyoming air national guard is in the background..this is in cheyenne

 wyoming state capital in cheyenne!

 the statue outside the capital building

 seth got to skype with austin while we were in cheyenne.you can't see it, but austin's on the iphone!

 ..and THIS is beautiful Wyoming!

 when i get back into town (when the snow isn't so bad), maybe i'll get to see the jackalope statue!

1.  i couldn't WAIT to get there!!!

this was the drive to the ranch. i didn't get to take very many more pictures after that with my camera. i was too busy trying to send some on my phone. i have pretty spotty service here now, but i'm doing my best to stay in touch!! i'll do another post later about my first experiences on the ranch!!

nebraska!

 welcome to nebraska...the good life??

 as soon as we crossed the NE-KS border, it was FLAT!

 i waved to jocelyn's family as i passed the exit she takes to get home!

 the best part of nebraska was the sunset!! this is just outside of York, NE

 luckily, we didn't pass any flashing signs

 this was a rest area just before the sand hills of nebraska

 after taking some pictures, we saw this sign and decided to get back on the road!

 the sand hills were pretty spectacular!

AND..we hit the 1700 mile mark of the trip odometer!

Cheyenne or bust!

We've made it over 1500 miles so far! My lovely new jetta has handled it quite well, and she even showed the wind who was boss yesterday!

Today, we have 350 miles to go. We've chosen to take I-80 W the whole way to Cheyenne and then head north on 25 (I think). So hopefully our lunch stop will be in Cheyenne and we'll fill up on gas there also.

Until we arrive in Douglas, you'll have to wait for another update :)

pictures from manhattan

 Jocelyn rescued a 4 week old puppy while we were here- meet Abbie

 you don't realize how much you really miss friends until you're reunited with them :)

we didn't have a shortage of puppies..this is jocelyn with diesel

and Seth with Rosie!

back to business

i'm waiting for jocelyn to get done with work at noon, and then seth and i are continuing the journey to douglas, wy. 

we had a fun visit in manhattan, and seth even got to see his long lost cycling buddy, zach. now, we're facing winter weather advisories and windy weather advisories.  we've chosen a route that will get us to north platte, nebraska for the evening. from there, it'll be another 5 and a half hours of driving to douglas (according to google maps and assuming we have good weather).

here are just a few pictures from the kansas portion of the trip:

it was so nice to be able to go 75 mph :) 

"halfway" there

after making it through an enjoyable birthday party, we had a fun-filled Saturday at the PA Farm Show. abbie and i participated in a drill team performance with the cumberland county 4-h horse club drill team. abbie rode ellie and was a wonderful pennsylvania flag carrier. nifty was a little bit silly when she realized there were calves in the pens at each of end of the arena, but for the most part it was a successful performance.

sunday morning was crunch time. i couldn't put off packing any longer, and it was time to get down to business. abbie and seth were so helpful, and i did manage to fit everything into the car (with a few meltdowns when things didn't quite fit!). i'll add a bunch of pictures in a different post.

sunday was an uneventful stretch of the trip, and we made it to terre haute, indiana just a little before 10:00pm. monday morning, we had breakfast at cracker barrel and got on the road by 7:30. in kansas city, we stopped at cabela's, so i could get a good, warm pair of gloves for wyoming. i managed to find a pair of gore-tex, thinsulate (80g) gloves. and i'll admit, they're camouflage (my very first piece of clothing in that print). 

we made it to manhattan around 4:00 yesterday, and it was so good to see jocelyn and leia. having dinner at carlos o'kelly's was AWESOME! and this morning i went out to TimberCreek Stables to help Jim with the morning chores, and then we had breakfast. it was also very good to see Jim. 

now we're headed off the pita pit for lunch (one of my favorites!) it looks like we'll be heading for wyoming tomorrow morning. 

the day before the day before the day

it's thursday afternoon, and i still have so much to do.

on sunday, i'm leaving my small town of newville. heading for a new adventure in the wild, wild western united states. here i come, douglas, wyoming! a month ago, i accepted an internship position with Wagonhound Land and Livestock Company. at Wagonhound, i'll be a breeding intern, helping with the breeding and foaling of the bajillion quarter horse mares owned by the ranch.

while i am totally ecstatic to finally have a "job" that involves my passion for horses, i am scared out of my mind for this new adventure! though i went to school in kansas, this is going to be a whole new experience, and i am totally on my own. yes, seth is driving with me to get there, but once he flies out of casper, it's just me, 2 other girls, and a 150,000 acre ranch with some pretty cool horses.

between now and sunday, i have a christmas dinner to attend this evening, a hair appointment tomorrow morning, a paycheck to pick up, a dog to bathe, horses to bathe, a party to attend, and a farm show performance. and did i mention, my birthday is tomorrow?!? this is the second year in a row that i haven't been able to make a huge deal about my birthday. i suppose i can make up for that with this party tomorrow night. but until then, i;ll be running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to get everything done.

i'm going to try to keep this blog updated with the various adventures i experience while i'm in wyoming. perhaps it will entertain some people. perhaps it will help me appreciate my experiences more. or perhaps i'll forget about it 2 weeks into my time there. guess we'll have to wait and see :)