Pictures from the Rodeo

Me and Uncle Matt went to the rodeo on Saturday. It was awesome! I liked all the events, especially the roping and bucking horse events.

Roanie

This is Roanie, Uncle Matt's horse. He's really fun to ride, and he's an incredibly solid, kind horse. I ride him bareback and we go exploring.

And have you noticed how much he looks like Susie? Wow!

Welding

I learned to weld today with Uncle Matt. We're making Dave and Nancy a wine rack- we went to the fair with them the other day, and had a lot of fun. Nancy has a bum colt (orphan foal), and I want to go over and play with him.


I'm not that great at welding, but I'm learning. Here are a couple pictures:






Uncle Matt said all the people who weld up here wear their hats backwards, but I only do it because it makes me feel like I should be on Pokemon or something.

4H fair, shooting, and a sore back.

So, today we're heading to town to go to a 4H fair. Apparently, they will have an animal display of bunnies, pigs, cows, and everything else. I'm bringing my camera most likely. It's gonna be fun!


Uncle Matt taught me to shoot the other day. I forget what kind of gun we were shooting, but I think it was a rifle of some sort. I'm not THAT great of a shot, but I'm getting better. My biggest issue with the gun is the noise-it hurts my ears a lot.



I went riding at Tasha and Sam's on Tuesday. We were riding all over Chris and Christy's ranch trying to find 2 cows. (Do you know how hard that is?!) It was hard riding, lots of hills and trees, and we had to check all the cows we saw to see if they were Chris's. My back is so sore from riding- I think the western saddle is built so differently that it works different muscles. I have been taking breaks from riding, and just taking it slow in general.

Interesting Facts

Stuart and Annie's ranch (the 59 Ranch) is roughly 14,000 acres, and 22 sections of land. That's like owning almost a whole township back east.

It takes about 50 acres of land for a cow to survive out here.

Before Stuart had the 59 Ranch, it was used mostly for sheep.

Stuart has about 300 head of cattle, 8 of them are bulls.

He has 15 horses, and he raises his own horses to work the cattle.

He does about 85% of the work with the cattle on horseback.

There are hardly any trees on his 14,000 acres- as you can see from the pictures.

Stuart does all his own vet work, other than the most serious injuries. It just isn't practical to have to wait 2+ hours for the vet to come out.



Chris Dutton's ranch (where I am going today) is 22,000 acres, and has lots of trees. The land is very rugged, and about 22 miles away from the 59 Ranch.

He has less cattle on his ranch, but he is able to grow more hay on his ranch.

He has about the same number of horses as Stuart does.

His ranch also has Elk, Whitetail Deer, Turkeys and Peasants.

7/14/09

Today I'm heading to Chris and Christy's house to work on some fencing and riding. Tasha and Sam are going to teach me to barrel race...hopefully, I'll be able to ride in the rodeo in a few weeks.


I'll try to put up some pictures tonight.

What I did Today...

Absolutely nothing.



Well, I did hang up some laundry and do some dishes, but otherwise I just took a shower and hung out on the couch watching tv and knitting.




Mac hung out with me today, and decided that it is way too hot outside for dogs.

Branding!

These are some of the ears we cut off the cows, creepy!



This second one is all of us standing on the hill after the branding.




The third one is all of us riding away, isn't this a cool picture?




This last one is Uncle Matt. He looks like my dad, (with just a little more hair...) but I think he looks the most like Aunt Doris. They have the same face but their eyes are exactly the same.

7/9/09

Today Annie, Tasha, Sam, and I went into Roundup for errands. It was an ALL day trip. We went to the Western Wear shop, and I got a really neat cowboy hat. :) The girls got bracelets. All this stuff was a gift from Uncle Matt, who is awesome.


After the Western Wear store, we went to the secondhand shop, the auto shop, and the grocery store. I did pretty good with my shopping, and got chicken breasts, vegetables, and all sorts of yummy stuff.


We're doing a branding tomorrow, and I'm bringing my camera so I'll have a lot of pictures.

7/7/09

This is the view from Annie and Stuart's ranch entrance. No matter which direction you look, you can't see ANYTHING else.








Today we got up around 7, we got to sleep in a little bit. We went to Stuart and Annie's house to see the horses and so Uncle Matt could work on some stuff. Annie introduced me to Traveler, the horse I'll be riding. He's apparently a really nice horse other than having a really bumpy trot. I need to get the stirrups put up on my saddle, they are too long.


After that, we went home and made some lunch (rice and black beans), and then we went to Chris and Christy's house. I got to meet Tasha and Sam, who are 17 and 15. We got to drive the truck around and I learned to drive a stick shift and a bale mover thing. We did alright for the most part.




This is Traveler, the horse I have been riding. He belongs to Stuart, who is considered a really good horse trainer out here.

It's been raining like CRAZY these past few nights. It's amazing to see how beautiful the sky is out here, it looks so much bigger.
This is a sort of guest house that is on Annie and Stuart's ranch. Annie said if Tasha, Sam, and I want to spend the night out there sometime, we can.

7/6/09

Today I got to bottle feed a blind calf named Jenna. I got a couple pictures but they aren't on my camera so that will have to wait. I also met a Jack Russell named Lucy who has to stay tied up because she tries to kill cats. I want to bring BOTH of them home! :)


I met a lot of Uncle Matt's friends today and we hung out at their house with them. We're all going to town (which is like an hour and a half away!) to get me a hat and to take one of the dogs to the vets.

Hopefully I'll start riding soon, it started raining really bad on the way home. The sky was BLACK and the clouds were huge. Tomorrow, me and Uncle Matt are going to fix up an old truck of his (it's 17 years old!) so that he can teach me to drive.



I don't think it has sunk in that I am here yet, I kind of keep thinking that I'm going home tomorrow.

Flight Problems

So after my flight to Denver, I went to go get something to eat. I had NO idea that they close the gates 10 minutes before they leave...so I missed my flight. I'm flying out on another one at 11, so it's not that big of a deal, but I'm still disappointed.


But I did get some pictures!




(I think this one is my favorite!)





There were some really interesting people on my flight to Denver. Other than the guy next to me snoring REALLY loud, getting hit in the face by the chair in front of me (multiple times!), and having my seat back pulled on, it was awesome. There were some gypsies on the plane, not even joking. They were really sweet though!

The story behind this blog

This will be the story of my 7 weeks in Melstone, Montana. My Uncle Matt is the caretaker of a ranch out there, and he invited me to spend the summer with him. I'll hopefully be spending a lot of my time riding the ranch horses, learning to shoot (!!!), and learning to weld. I know there will be a bunch of other ranch work I can do too.


I leave on July 6th, bright and early in the morning. I'm going to get there in time to go riding, which I am SO excited about.

Here are some pictures I found of Melstone, but hopefully in a week I'll be able to replace these with some of my own!



Wow, look at how flat it is out there!