26th Dec part II

So, the photos documenting my success at golf:( my golf ball can be seen in the bottom left hand corner of the pond)

Wednesday 26th December 2007

Happy Boxing Day! Well, I'm back in Blighty - just. Arrived back here on the 23rd Dec amongst some very thick fog, so spent my first hour back in the country circling round Gatwick waiting for a "slot" to land. The following couple of hours were spent trying to avoid the accidents on the M25 caused by said-fog. What a welcome home!

One good thing about being back is that I have a better connection! Which means I have to upload this blog, on average, just the once. Hurrah!

So what about my final days at the ranch? Well, I tried to soak up as much of my surroundings as I could. The volunteers managed to blag ourselves a "volunteers only" ride which was good fun - a chance for us to not have to be polite to guests, ride where we want to, at the speed we want to. And good fun was had by all! Here we are on our trusty horses.....

(L to R: me on Remington, Kate on Tahono, Ines on Pistol and Marie on Cash)

As you can see, in my last few days the weather @ the ranch was truly awful and I'm glad to be back here in the damp fog.

I don't think I have yet told you about my day at the golf course! It should have been just a couple of hours at the golf course but due to my truly awful golfing skills, our 9 hole round turned out to be quite traumatic. Especially for the 2 rather professional looking men who were constantly having to wait for me to finish each hole before they could take their turn.

So here I am, feeling very positive and happy about my forthcoming debut on the golf course:

Just look at the expert way I'm holding my stick! So, it's a 9 hole course, each hole with a par of 3 or 4. I managed to lose 5 balls, one in someone's garden and 4 in the pond. The ducks were not happy with me.

Wednesday 19th Dec

Everyone is poorly here. Except I can't say "Poorly" cos the Americans don't understand that so we have to say that everyone is "sick". Having spent a week working in the rain, cold and liquid doo-doo, I can't say I'm surprised. We are 2 wranglers down today - Mike and Gry have succumed to the fever and taken to their [respective] beds. Carol, Jed and Jimmy are all complaining of feeling "sick" and I woke up feeling pretty pants myself. The only hardy ones amongst us are Kate and Jenny so I guess they are feeling pretty smug.

Deuce (here on the left) is doing ok - his eye is still bad, and infact the vet is worried that the cancer has spread. They are going to try a new treatment on him whereby they put an inplant in his eye which contains chemotherapy and the implant will stay in his eye for 30 days. He is very patient with us when we poke around in his eye and so I thought he deserved a special mention!

We had our "staff christmas party" last night which was an interesting experience for me. Half the staff didn't come. It was a BYOB affair, and bring your own food. Oh, and please bring a present for a secret santa style thingy. After much consideration I took along a RnB dog that sung a christmas rap. In return, I got some candy (aka sweets to you and I) and a musical toothbrush. It was weird as it didn't really feel christmassy and no one seemed in a very festive mood. I think I left the party at about 9pm last night and I had to go straight to bed, I was so excited.

Before I forget, I realised that I spoke a couple of blogs ago about some locals that we met at the pub but I was never able to upload the photos so I'm taking advantage of this moment of connectivity and I'm attaching the shots of the handsome fellas. Apologies that I haven't bothered to rotate the photos but hopefully you can still appreciate their style, beauty and sense of fashion.......

Tuesday 18th Dec

Okay, let's try this again. We've been having real connection problems here at the ranch and I've written and updated my blog on a few occasions only to later find that for whatever reason, the blogs aren't available.

I'm kind of behind on my news now so let's see what I can remember.

Well, the weather has improved and the liquid horse doo doo is slowly drying out (thank goodness). I took some before and after photos of the same view......

I am going to upload this part of the blog now before i lose it again!

Quite a difference don't you think?? The corrall has been so boggy, we have been getting literally stuck in the mud. I have been wearing 7 layers of clothes in order to keep warm and think that this is a most attractive look.....

Wednesday 12th Dec (part 2)

I have more to tell you about, just wanted to get the first part posted before my system crashes again.

We had a team dinner last week to say goodbye to Cissi. We were due to go bowling but the waiting list for the bowling alley was too long so we went for dinner at "Hooters" instead. Now I'm not sure how much you know about Hooters, but basically its' a diner where the waitresses wear VERY short shorts and very low cut vest tops and the rest (what is left) is for your imagination.

The bowling alley was very impressive despite the fact that we didn't get to bowl. Each alley had it's own flatscreen showing MTV or something, the sound system was great and it was all pretty cool. To look at.

After dinner at Hooters, some of us went to Old Fathers Inn for a beer. I'm finding it hard to put into words my thoughts on this place without offending anyone. Back at home, when I watch the Jerry Springer show, I often wonder where they find the people to go on the show. I now think I know the answer. Quite a few drunk rednecks staggering round, 2 mad girls jumping around the "dancefloor" to the live band, lots of guys playing pool and then at the other end of the bar, about 15 TVs showing live coverage of greyhound racing from around the states. $2 a bet we decided to try our luck. There were 5 of us, 7 dogs in each race and we each chose a different dog. 5 races down, not one of us had one anything. Now what are the odds for that? Gry then broke the spell and came in first and won a whopping $18. Our final race and I managed to get my dog (Dark Onyx) in first and recouped $7.40. A good night was had by all. But before I leave the Old Father Inn, I wanted to show you some photos of some of my fellow drinkers (photos taken covertly of course.) And before you ask, yes they are both men.....

Wednesday 12th Dec

Guys, really sorry for the lack of blogging - we have had a few days of really bad weather and it seems to have affected the technology here - or the lack of it! I've not been able to get on for a few days - it's amazing how much you miss your links with the real world until you can't do it anymore!

So, where was I? Well, Cissi has now left the ranch. She flew out of here on Saturday and is spending a few days in LA before flying home to Sweden for the holidays. In mid-January she flies back to LA to begin her new life in the states.

In traditional fashion, Cissi got a farewell "bath" in one of the water troughs (see left). I really think she enjoyed it.

Since Cissi's departure, the weather has got really bad. A storm came in Friday night, lots of rain which has resulted in a lot of flooding out on the trails. We have a main corral where the horses are kept during the day and that whole area is now a huge bog of liquid horse poo. The stench is unbelieveable. It was bad on Friday. It got worse Saturday. Oh and then it rained Sunday too - and yesterday. And if you don't believe, me here's the proof:

I ought to point out at this stage that this particular photo was taken on Friday when the rain hadn't really set in.

In photo (L to R) Marie (volunteer), Carol (Head Wrangler aka The Boss), Jenny (wrangler), Jed (wrangler).

It really has been too wet to take out fast rides and yet I am surprised by how many guests want to do just that - some get quite upset when they are advised that we can only do slow rides. I'm also surprised by the number of people who want to ride in this weather at all. Don't get me wrong, I understand that guests have paid a lot of money to come here but I'm not sure how enjoyable it is to be out on a trail for a couple of hours in torrential rain. We had a scheduled All Day ride yesterday. Hopefully the clue is in the title as to what is involved in this ride. We had 4 cancel before the ride went out (very sensible). 7 go out and then 2 complain that they are getting cold and wet and want to come home. This is 1 hour into an 7 hour ride. I don't blame them for getting cold and wet. I just wish that they had made this decision before they went out - it's not like the bad weather came on all of a sudden. We had to send another wrangler out to bring the riders back.

You may be pleased to hear that I have been brushing up on my nursing skils again. Deringer has some kind of ulcer under his chin and so I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to clean it and pick the scab off and apply some cream on it. Better than that - Grey Cloud now needs doctoring as Buzz did - he too had cancer on his friend which has now been frozen off - which means he now has quite a painful-looking wound that needs to be cleaned daily. I tried to encourage Jimmy, one of the wranglers to help me with this task. His response: "Hell, I can't even look at that without my eyes watering, ain't no way I'm gonna be touching it". Oh, ok, I guess I will do it by myself then.

Sunday 9th Dec (Part I)

Howdy Partners. I think today's post might be quite lengthy so I think I'm gonna have to split it into parts - not because there will be any logic in splitting it, but because our wireless connection is really poor today and I'm going to get very frustrated if I have to keep re-writing the same thing!





So: Part I.....





Well I wanted to give you an update on Roman and his nose - it is healing nicely and no longer looks like a slab of fresh rump steak stuck on the side of his face. And because I am a thoughtful kind of person, I have taken a photo of said nose to illustrate:

As you can see, it seems to be doing pretty well. Which is more that can be said for Cowboy. Another horse had to be put down this week. I'm told that it is not normally like this here - we seem to be having a run of bad luck. Cowboy had problems in the past with the nerves in his back and basically we found him early in the morning unable to get up at all as his back legs were paralysed. Fortunately he was not in any pain or discomfort but there was nothing that could be done for him. Another horse called Grey Cloud was also diagnosed with cancer in the same place as Buzz this week so I guess I will get to practice my "encouragement" skills again at some stage in the very near future.

It's been a busy week here with lots of guests - averaging around 80 guests each day. This has meant a couple of 6am starts. The first thing we do is go out and herd the horses into the Corral. 85 horses in a small corral makes it very cosy. We then need to catch each horse and put certain horses in the grainer to be fed and the rest into their designated space ready to be brushed and saddled. Bearing in mind I am still learning the names of all of the 100+ horses that are used for guests, this part of the day is quite challenging for me. I'm ok when they are all in their "spots" but when they first come in in the morning, it is total carnage. This task is made then more difficult when we have an early start and it is dark in the morning! All the bay and red horses all just look dark brown.

The next challenge is to brush each horse, making sure that they are cleaned of dry sweat, mud etc and to clean and doctor any sores. Again, in the dark this can be quite challenging and so I have mastered the art of "Brushing By Touch". This can prove quite dirty as you are feeling your way around the horse if they have been recently rolling in horse doo doo. It can also be quite embarassing when you think you have brushed them adequately and then when the light is better and you realise that you have missed out whole patches of dirt. Hey Ho.

We've had some lovely guests in this past week. I particularly enjoyed having a drink with two English guests visiting just for the night as part of a week's tour of Arizona. They very kindly updated me on the mess Gordon Brown is making of running the country in my absence. Not that I mean that it would be run any better if I was actually in the UK - I am sure you understand what I am trying to say! The couple were here as they are writing an article for a national broadsheet, travel edition which I'm told is due out in January. I'm told that I will be mentioned in the article - I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not and I guess I will have to wait and see!

Some of our other guests this week have been rather high maintenance. I am convinced that one such guest has a few mental health issues. I came to this conclusion after riding with her on a couple of occasions. The weather has been good here for the best part of the week (more on that later) and was about 80 degrees. Whilst I was walking around in a sleeveless shirt, this particular guest was riding with shirt, big coat, hat, gloves and a scarf wrapped round her face, making her look like some kind of bandit. This, coupled with her erratic and often speedy style of riding, made for a very scary experience. I became convinced of her "issues" when she advised me (as she took a photo on her phone camera of my horses face close-up) that she was designing a calendar of horses lips. I kid you not.

Team Penning was funny too this week - this is when the guests get the chance to work in teams of four to pen three cattle out of a small group of them. The key to success is in the title - TEAM penning. It is quite amazing to see the previously meek and mild ridders turn into the most aggressive competitors as they try and catch their cows and beat the others teams time. One of the guests this week (whom I shall call "Guest B") was definitely a bit of a screamer. You are advised as you get close to the cattle to shout at them but you have to lope down to where the cattle are and Guest B took the opportunity to just let out a continuous, high pitch whooping scream for the duration of her team's penning. I think the cows were scared out of their skins. I was having trouble controlling my laughter. It was a bit of a Meg Ryan moment if you understand me.......